International studio (25.1905)

' AN OLIVE GROVE '

A DECORATIVE SCULPTOR:
/\ MISS RUBY LEVICK (MRS.
GERVASE BAILEY). BY T.
MARTIN WOOD.
How rarely is the femininity that gives to a
woman's art its value, its interest as a point of
view, to be met with ! With their impressionability
of temperament women drift easily into imitation ;
the receptivity of mind that makes
them clever students takes from their
art its reliance on itself: gives in ex-
change this plausible imitation. For
women's art to be individual is for it to
be feminine, and when it is feminine it
gives gracious expression to the subtle-
ties of sentiment that belong to women;
it provides them with an added means
of expressing the artistry that is uncon-
sciously in their possession. The ar-
tistic material that they choose receives
from their hands an exquisiteness in
exchange for strength; it gains its femi-
nine emphasis from the delicate taste
and refinement of fancy which in every
department of their life erects a fragile
barricade of beauty between their
thoughts and ours. Where so much
charm is contained as there is in femi-
ninity in art, it is more than a thousand
pities that so many women artists
should forsake the qualities which they
could easily give to their work in

struggling ambitiously after
achievements in which, by
the nature of things, men
easily dominate.
Where woman is content
that her art should be
first of all expressive of
her delicate instincts about
life, of her intimate ten-
derness towards it, towards
what is fleeting and fragile
—as, for instance, the
faces of children and the
shapes of flowers — upon
these lines her art becomes
in itself a Rower of ex-
quisite value, Riling a
definite place as the Rower
Rlls it in the scheme of
things. Where it is per-
fected in its expression it
becomes in its sweetness as endurable as man's art
is in its strength. In attempting to Rnd simple and
natural expression in art for herself, Miss Levick,
in each thing she produces, reveals the intimate
qualities that we so much prize. From the moment
when success in the schools ceased to be of im-
mediate consequence to herself, her art freed itself
from any competition for those qualities in her work
which always in the end remain at their best with

BY EMILIE MEDIZ-FELIKAN

BY RUBY LEVICK

IOO