Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D Part 43

SCHLEH, ANNA. Born in Berlin, 1833. Her princ.i.p.al studies were made in her native city under Schrader, although she went to Rome in 1868, and finally took up her residence there. She had, previous to her work in Rome, painted "The Marys at the Grave." Her later pictures include "The Citron-Vender" and a number of portraits for the Henkel family of Donnersmark.

SCHMITT-SCHENKH, MARIA. Born in Baden, 1837. She studied her art in Munich, Carlsruhe, and Italy. She established herself in Munich and painted pictures for churches, which are in Kirrlach, Mauer, Ziegelhausen, and other German towns. She also designed church windows, especially for the Liebfrauenkirche at Carlsruhe.

SCHUMANN, ANNA MARIA. Was called by the Dutch poets their Sappho and their Corneille. She was born in 1607, but as her family were Protestants and frequently changed their residence in order to avoid persecution, the place of her birth is unknown. When Anna Maria was eight years old, they went permanently to Utrecht.

This distinguished woman was one of the exceptions said to prove rules, for though a prodigy in childhood she did not become a commonplace or stupid woman. Learning was her pa.s.sion and art her recreation. It is difficult to repeat what is recorded of her unusual attainments and not feel as if one were being misled by a Munchausen! But it would be ungracious to lessen a fame almost three centuries old.

We are told that Anna Maria could speak in Latin when seven years old, and translated from Seneca at ten. She acquired the Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Arabic, Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Turkish, and Persian languages with such thoroughness that her admirers claim that she wrote and spoke them all. She also read with ease and spoke with finished elegance Italian, Spanish, English, and French, besides German and her native tongue.

Anna Maria Schurmann wrote verses in various languages, but the chief end which her exhaustive studies served was to aid her in theological research; in this she found her greatest satisfaction and deepest interest. She was respectfully consulted upon important questions by the scholars of different countries.

At the University of Utrecht an honorable place was reserved for her in the lecture-rooms, and she frequently took part in the learned discussions there. The professors of the University of Leyden paid her the compliment of erecting a tribune where she could hear all that pa.s.sed in the lecture-room without being seen by the audience.

As an artist the Schurmann reached such excellence that the painter Honthorst valued a portrait by her at a thousand Dutch florins--about four hundred and thirty dollars--an enormous sum when we remember that the works of her contemporary, Albert Cuyp, were sold for thirty florins!

and no higher price was paid for his works before the middle of the eighteenth century. A few years ago his picture, called "Morning Light,"

was sold at a public sale in London for twenty-five thousand dollars. How astonis.h.i.+ng that a celebrated artist like Honthorst, who painted in Utrecht when Cuyp painted in Dort, should have valued a portrait by Anna Maria Schurmann at the price of thirty-three works by Cuyp! Such facts as these suggest a question regarding the relative value of the works of more modern artists. Will the judgments of the present be thus reversed in the future?

This extraordinary woman filled the measure of possibilities by carving in wood and ivory, engraving on crystal and copper, and having a fine musical talent, playing on several instruments. When it is added that she was of a lovable nature and attractive in manner, one is not surprised that her contemporaries called her "the wonder of creation."

Volsius was her friend and taught her Hebrew. She was intimately a.s.sociated with such scholars as Salmatius and Heinsius, and was in correspondence with scholars, philosophers, and theologians regarding important questions of her time.

Anna Maria Schurmann was singularly free from egotism. She rarely consented to publish her writings, though often urged to do so. She avoided publicity and refused complimentary attentions which were urged upon her, conducting herself with a modesty as rare as her endowments.

In 1664, when travelling with her brother, she became acquainted with Labadie, the celebrated French enthusiast who preached new doctrines. He had many disciples called Labadists. He taught that G.o.d used deceit with man when He judged it well for man to be deceived; that contemplation led to perfection; that self-mortification, self-denial, and prayer were necessary to a G.o.dly life; and that the Holy Spirit constantly made new revelations to the human beings prepared to receive them.

Anna Maria Schurmann heard these doctrines when prostrated by a double sorrow, the deaths of her father and brother. She put aside all other interests and devoted herself to those of the Labadists. It is said that after the death of Labadie she gathered his disciples together and conducted them to Vivert, in Friesland. William Penn saw her there, and in his account of the meeting he tells how much he was impressed by her grave solemnity and vigorous intellect.

From this time she devoted her fortune to charity and died in poverty at the age of seventy-one. Besides her fame as an artist and a scholar, her name was renowned for purity of heart and fervent religious feeling. Her virtues were many and her few faults were such as could not belong to an ign.o.ble nature.

SCUDDER, JANET. Medal at Columbian Exposition, 1893. Two of her medallion portraits are in the Luxembourg, Paris. Member of the National Sculpture Society, New York. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Pupil of Rebisso in Cincinnati, of Lorado Taft in Chicago, and of Frederic MacMonnies in Paris.

At the Chicago Exposition Miss Scudder exhibited two heroic-sized statues representing Illinois and Indiana. The portraits purchased by the French Government are of American women and are the first work of an American woman sculptor to be admitted to the Luxembourg. These medallions are in bas-relief in marble, framed in bronze. Casts from them have been made in gold and silver. The first is said to be the largest medallion ever made in gold; it is about four inches long.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FROG FOUNTAIN

JANET SCUDDER]

To the Pan-American Exposition Miss Scudder contributed four boys standing on a snail, which made a part of the "Fountain of Abundance."

She has exhibited in New York and Philadelphia a fountain, representing a boy dancing hilariously and snapping his fingers at four huge frogs round his pedestal. The water spurts from the mouths of the frogs and covers the naked child.

Miss Scudder is commissioned to make a portrait statue of heroic size for the St. Louis Exposition. She will no doubt exhibit smaller works there.

Portraits are her specialty, and in these she has made a success, as is proved by the appreciation of her work in Paris.

A memorial figure in marble is in Woodlawn Cemetery, also a cinerary urn in stone and bronze; a bronze memorial tablet is in Union College. Miss Scudder also made the seal for the Bar a.s.sociation of New York.

SEARS, SARAH C. Medal at Chicago, 1893; William Evans prize, American Water-Color Society, New York; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900; bronze medal at Buffalo, 1901; silver medal at Charleston, South Carolina. Member of the New York Water-Color Club, Boston Art Students' a.s.sociation, National Arts Club, Boston Water-Color Club. Born in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts. Pupil of Ross Turner, Joseph de Camp, Edmund C. Tarbell, and George de Forest Brush. Mrs. Sears has also studied by herself with the criticism of masters.

She paints portraits, figures, and flowers, and is much interested in the applied arts. Of her exhibition at the Boston Art Club, 1903, a critic writes: "Nothing could be more brilliant in point of color than the group of seven water-color pictures of a sunny flower-garden by Mrs. Sears. In these works pure and limpid color has been pushed to its extreme capacity, under full daylight conditions, with a splendor of brightness which never crosses the line of crudity, but holds the same relative values as we see in nature, the utmost force of local color courageously set forth and contrasted without apparent artifice, blending into an harmonious unity of tone. Two of these pictures are especially fine, with their cool backgrounds of sombre pines to set off the magnificent ma.s.ses of flowers in the foreground."

At the exhibition of the Philadelphia Water-Color Club, 1903, the _Press_ said: "These brilliant and overpowering combinations of color carry to a limit not before reached the decorative possibilities of flowers."

Mrs. Sears' honors have been awarded to her portraits.

SEIDLER, CAROLINE LUISE. Born in Jena, 1786; died in Weimar, 1866.

Her early studies were made in Gotha with Doell; in 1811 she went to Dresden, where she became a pupil of G. von Kugelgen; in 1817 Langer received her into his Munich studio; and between 1818 and 1823 she was in Italy, making special studies of Vanucci and Raphael. In 1823 she was appointed instructor of the royal princesses at Weimar, and in 1824 inspector of the gallery there, and later became court painter. Among her works are a portrait of Goethe, a picture of "Ulysses and the Sirens,"

and one of "Christ, the Compa.s.sionate," which is in the church at Schestadt, Holstein.

SERRANO Y BARTOLOMe, JOAQUINA. Born in Fermoselle. Pupil in Madrid of Juan Espalter, of the School of Arts and Crafts, and of the School of Painting. She sent four pictures to the Exposition of 1876 in Madrid: the portrait of a young woman, a still-life subject, a bunch of grapes, and a "Peasant Girl"--the last two are in the Museum of Murcia. In 1878 she sent "A Kitchen Maid on Sat.u.r.day," a study, a flower piece, and two still-life pictures; and in 1881 two portraits and some landscapes. Her portrait of the painter Fortuny, which belongs to the Society of Authors and Artists, gained her a members.h.i.+p in that Society. Two other excellent portraits are those of her teacher, Espalter, and General Trillo.

SEWELL, AMANDA BREWSTER. Bronze medal, Chicago, 1893; bronze medal, Buffalo, 1901; silver medal, Charleston; Clarke prize, Academy of Design, 1903. Member of the Woman's Art Club and an a.s.sociate of National Academy of Design. Born in Northern New York. Pupil at Cooper Union under Douglas Volk and R. Swain Gifford, and of Art Students' League under William Chase and William Sartain; also of Julian's Academy under Tony Robert Fleury and Bouguereau, and of Carolus Duran.

Mrs. Sewell's "A Village Incident" is owned by the Philadelphia Social Art Club; "Where Roses Bloom" is in the Boston Art Club; portrait of Professor William R. Ware is in the Library of Columbia University. Her portrait of Amalia Kussner will be exhibited and published.

Mrs. Sewell is the first woman to take the Clarke prize. She has been a careful student in the arrangement of portraits in order to make attractive pictures as well as satisfactory likenesses. Of the pictures she exhibited at the Academy of Design, winter of 1903, Charles H. Caffin writes:

"The portrait of Mrs. Charles S. Dodge, by Mrs. A. Brewster Sewell, is the finest example in the exhibition of pictorial treatment, the lady being wrapped in a brown velvet cloak with broad edges of brown fur, and seated before a background of dark foliage. It is a most distinguished canvas, though one may object to the too obvious affectation of the arrangement of the hands and of the gesture of the head--features which will jar upon many eyes and detract from the general handsomeness. The same lady sends a large cla.s.sical subject, the 'Sacred Hecatomb,' to which the Clarke prize was awarded. It represents a forest scene lit by slanting sunlight, through which winds a string of bulls, the foremost accompanied by a band of youths and maidens with dance and song. The light effects are managed very skilfully and with convincing truth, and the figures are free and animated in movement, though the flesh tints are scarcely agreeable. It is a decorative composition that might be fitly placed in a large hall in some country house."

SEYDELMANN, APOLLONIE. Member of the Dresden Academy. Born at Trieste about 1768; died in Dresden, 1840. Pupil of J. C. Seydelmann, whom she married. Later she went to Italy and there studied miniature painting under Madame Maron.

She is best known for her excellent copies of old pictures, and especially by her copy of the Sistine Madonna, from which Muller's engraving was made.

SHAW, ANNIE C. The first woman elected Academician in the Academy of Design, Chicago, 1876. Born at Troy, New York. Pupil of H. C. Ford.

Landscape painter. Among her works are "On the Calumet," "Willow Island,"

"Keene Valley, New York," "Returning from the Fair," 1878, which was exhibited in Chicago, New York, and Boston. To the Centennial, Philadelphia, 1876, she sent her "Illinois Prairie."

"Returning from the Fair" shows a group of Alderney cattle in a road curving through a forest. At the time of its exhibition an art critic wrote: "The eye of the spectator is struck with the rich ma.s.s of foliage, pa.s.sing from the light green of the birches in the foreground, where the light breaks through, to the dark green of the dense forest, shading into the brownish tints of the early September-tinged leaves. Farther on, the eye is carried back through a beautiful vista formed by the road leading through the centre of the picture, giving a fine perspective and distance through a leafy archway of elms and other forest trees that gracefully mingle their branches overhead, through which one catches a glimpse of deep blue sky. As the eye follows this roadway to its distant part the sun lights up the sky, tingeing with a mellow light the group of small trees and willows, contrasting beautifully with the almost sombre tones of the dense forest in the middle distance."