Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/395

 she gained the gold medal for her ’Unbesiegbaren' (The Unconquerable).

"Miss Ries was born and educated in Moscow, but Vienna is the city of her adoption. She first studied painting at the Moscow Academy, her work there showing great breadth of character and power of delineation. At the yearly Exhibition in Moscow, held some five months after she had entered as a student, she took the gold medal for her * Portrait of a Russian Peasant.' She then abandoned painting for sculpture, and one month later gained the highest commendations for a bust of ’Ariadne.’ She then began to study the plastic art from life. Dissatisfied with herself, although her 'Somnambulist' gained a prize. Miss Ries left Moscow for Paris, but on her way stayed in Vienna, studying under Professor Hellmer. One year later, at the Vienna Spring Exhibition, she exhibited her 'Die Hexe.' Here is no traditional witch, though the broomstick on which she will ride through the air is en evidence. She is a demoniac being, knowing her own power, and full of devilish instinct. he marble is full of life, and one seems to feel the warmth of her delicate, powerfully chiselled, though soft and pliable limbs."

"'Die Unbesiegbaren’ is a most powerful work, and stood out in the midst of the sculpture at Paris in 1900 with the prominence imparted by unusual power in the perception of the whole of a subject and the skill to render the perception so that others realize its full meaning. There are four figures in this group—men drawing a heavy freight boat along the shore by means of a towline