Page:Woman in Art.djvu/172

WOMAN IN ART two titanic powers—and power is spirit—namely, Will and Work. She has a goal—perfection, which from a child has led her to do her absolute best, and that best has constantly led her onward and upward toward the invisible yet real temple of fame.

The little girl was motherless from her birth so her bringing up devolved upon her grandmother, aunts, and an uncle of whom she was exceedingly fond. It would almost seem as if the fairies chose the names of the future artist as they seemed to choose the career of another noted portrait painter nearly two cnturiescenturies [sic] ago, for their combined meaning is music and beauty, and both appealed to her.

On her mother's side the child was of stalwart New England stock, strong in body and mind, with the aesthetic phases of life and influence accented and developed in the beautiful, every-day home culture. Her father was French, with the artistic instincts of that nationality. So art is the birthright of Cecilia Beaux.

One of her aunts was a musician and first tempted her with that art, but in due time it was decided that she had no remarkable aptitude for it. Another aunt was an adept with pencil and water colors, and one day gave the child some drawing cards to copy. She was surprised at the accuracy of the child's work. That led to more difficult studies from Greek sculptures. At one time the young girl made drawings of some fossils for a scientific book, and while at such work her grandmother read aloud to her. In such ways the child was led to the work for which she was made.

She made several portraits of old gentlemen with flowing beards, at fifty dollars each. It was her first money for art, "and soon after, in company with some other girls," she said, "I rented a studio and we had a little portrait class of our own, with William Sartain to criticize our work. During two winters he came once every two weeks; I don't suppose he came twenty times altogether, but his instruction was enormously valuable to me."

Miss Beaux has been wonderfully influenced by her instinctive desire for perfection. "Not only that," she has said, "but my family always expected of me the very best work I could possibly do. If you expect the best from yourself, you are not content with anything less. To know that other people, those whose opinions count most, expect you to do well, has an effect which it would be difficult to estimate. If I did a thing well, I wasn't extravagantly praised. That was the way I ought to do it. It was treated as a matter of course that I should do it perfectly. Those first little pictures I copied when I was twelve years old were 134