The art of the two ladies differs

Angelica Kauffman, R.A., though born at Coire, the capital of the Grisons, belongs to the British school, and holds in the early history of that school a position similar to that which has been assigned in France to Madame Vigée Le Brun. The art of the two ladies differs widely to be sure, that of Angelica Kauffman having less mirth, less wit, less sprightliness and homeful sincerity; it is quite artificial in spirit,art oil painting, with a strong bias towards the sentimental; but it has for all that considerable charm and ability, qualities, let us remember, that won the admiration of Reynolds and of Goethe. Turner, also, possessed two of her drawings, as I am told by his descendant, Mr Charles Mallord W. Turner. But in recent times Angelica Kauffman has been remembered for the romance of her personal life and treated with cool contempt in all that appertains to her work. Critics have searched in her pictures for manly qualities, and finding there the temperament of a sentimental woman, their judgment has failed them. The very men who would be astonished beyond measure if a prima donna sang to them in a voice like the leading tenor's, do not hesitate to complain when the voice in a woman's painting is one filled with womanhood. oil painting on canvas for sale
In England, at the close of the 18th century, quite a number of ladies came to the front in art, like Caroline Watson, the admirable stipple engraver (page 89), or like Catherine Maria Fanshawe, a painter-etcher who could put a body into a peasant's smock and could show in a rustic figure the mingled influences of Morland and Gainsborough, while keeping a tender sympathy of her own (page 89). Amelia Hotham, too, in the native art of water-colour, attained to a broad and vigorous style in landscape,oil paints supplies, while taking far too many hints from the scenic pomp that Francis Nicholson made popular in outdoor scenes (page 88). Nevertheless, Amelia Hotham's work has interest in the history of British water-colour, like that of three other ladies who followed her, the Viscountess Templetown (page 94), Matilda Heming and Mrs. John Herford, the grandmother of Mrs. Allingham. Matilda Heming's picture on page 95, "Backwater, Weymouth, Dorset," is weak in the drawing of the hills, but the rest of the design is quite admirable,paintings reproductions, the boats particularly being very well drawn. We see, then, that during the last decades of the 18th century, and at the beginning of the nineteenth, a little band of Englishwomen studied landscape painting seriously; and this fact is worth remembering, as women have seldom been drawn in art to nature in the woods and fields. The gentler sex, as a rule, has not appreciated landscapes. oil paintings for sale cheap

On the other hand, they have shown in art a great love for the beauty of flowers, the colour and the forms of insects, and the "other-naturalness" of many kinds of animals. Maria Sibylla Merian, Rachel Ruysch, Rosa Bonheur, Fidelia Bridges, Mrs. Coleman Angell, Madame Ronner, Mlle. E. Hilda, Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch—these ladies will not be forgotten, let us hope, as long as there are students who take delight in plants, flowers, birds and animals. wall art oil paintings