Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/144

 writes: "'Le retour des champs' is a picture of the plain of Berry at evening. We see the back of a peasant, nude above the blue linen pantaloons, with the feet in wooden sabots. He is holding his tired, heavy cow by the tether. The setting sun lights up his powerful bronzed back, his prominent shoulders, and the hindquarters of the cow. It is all unusually strong; the drawing is firm and very bold in the foreshortening of the animal. The effect of the whole is a little sad; the sobriety of the execution emphasizes this effect, and, above all, there is in it no suggestion of the feminine. I have already noticed this quality of almost brutal sincerity, of picturesque realism, in the works of Mlle. Chauchet who successfully follows her methods."

Chaussée, Mlle. Cécile de.
 * [No reply to circular.]

Chéron, Elizabeth Sophie. Born in Paris in 1648. Her father was an artist, and under his instruction Elizabeth attained such perfection in miniature and enamel painting that her works were praised by the most distinguished artists. In 1674 Charles le Brun proposed her name and she was elected to the Academy.

Her exquisite taste in the arrangement of her subjects, the grace of her draperies, and, above all, the refinement and spirituality of her pictures, were the characteristics on which her fame was based.

Her life outside her art was interesting. Her father was a rigid Calvinist, and endeavored to influence his daughter to adopt his religious belief; but her mother,