Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/34

Rh rank and fashion on common ground. Madame Dacier, of whom Voltaire said, "No woman has ever rendered greater services to literature," made her translations from the classics; Madame de Sevigné wrote her marvellous letters; Mademoiselle de Scudéry and Madame Lafayette their novels; Catherine Bernard emulated the manner of Racine in her dramas; while Madame de Guyon interpreted the mystic Song of Solomon.

Of French women artists of this period we can mention several names, but they were so overshadowed by authors as to be unimportant, unless, like Elizabeth Charon, they won both artistic and literary fame.

The seventeenth century was an age of excellence in the art of Flanders, Belgium, and Holland, and is known as the second great epoch of painting in the Netherlands, this name including the three countries just mentioned. After the calamities suffered under Charles V. and Philip II., with returning peace and prosperity an art was developed, both original and rich in artistic power. The States-General met in 1600, and the greatest artists of the Netherlands did their work in the succeeding fifty years; and before the century closed the appreciation of art and the patronage which had assured its elevation were things of the past. Rubens was twenty-three years old in 1600, just ready to begin his work which raised the school of Belgium to its highest attainments. When we remember how essentially his art dominated his own country and was admired elsewhere, we might think—I had almost said fear—that