Page:Woman in Art.djvu/133

WOMAN IN ART 1894, and 1898, she held exhibitions of her own work at the Fine Arts Society in Bond Street, and sold several thousand pounds' worth of paintings.

Technically Kate Greenaway was not a great artist, but she had a great influence on the art of the nineteenth century in England and America, especially in art and literature for children, and she revolutionized in character and comfort the costumes of children in many lands, the art of which is with us in the present century.

Says Ruskin, concerning Kate Greenaway, "She has a genius which has grasped the spirit of foreign lands, no less than our own. With a profound sentiment of love for children she puts the child alone on the scene, companions him in his solitude and shows the infantile nature in all its naiveté and touching grace."

Another woman who has furthered the pictorial art of England is of the noted Dicksee family, and her work belongs to the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is story-telling of the most interesting sort. Many of her works have been engraved, thus becoming familiar in America also. By Margaret Dicksee, one canvas represents Sir Thomas Lawrence as a child, at work on his "First Commission." He seems a boy of six or seven seated at the drawing board, sketching from the sitter who seems to be a lady of quality, in the person of Lady Kenyon. Thus early did the master of portrait painters begin his career. Another by Margaret L. Dicksee is of great interest to music students: "The Child Handel" at the harpsicord in the attic. His love for music called for expression, and in his robe de nuit he is discovered at his hidden instrument.

Another painting harks back to the seventeenth century, and shows Dean Swift teaching his young pupil Esther Johnson, whose name he poetized as "Stella." "Swift and the Child Stella" are pictured in a charming interior, a sixteenth century library.

Margaret Dicksee's paintings show the nicety of detail customary in the period of her painting. "The Sacrifice of Vanities," taken from the "Vicar of Wakefield," is full of the minor things of art and the absolute naturalness of the two ladies and the two boys makes a charming ensemble. The artist loved to portray childhood just at the bud-opening stage of genius, and did it with enjoyable success. With older folk she painted "The First Audience," and one almost hears Oliver Goldsmith reading to the two appreciative ladies his manuscript, "She Stoops to Conquer." It has a literary 101