International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

The Paintings of Elizabeth Nourse

students of certain art-schools in Paris, good work
seldom remains unnoticed. When Puvis de
Chavannes, Dagnan-Bouveret and a number of the
younger artists founded the Societe Nationale des
Beaux-Arts, Miss Nourse decided to send her
pictures to this New Salon. They were received
■“with acclamation,” and three years later she
was made an Associee. Puvis de Chavannes
was the first to congratulate her. “ I am
rejoiced to know that you have obtained the
Tecognition which your talent so richly deserves.”
Death had placed its seal on the master’s
lips before she was made a Societaire; but Dagnan-
Bouveret, Cazin, Besnard, Rodin, and a host of
■other noted artists showered upon her the con-
gratulations which Puvis would so gladly have
■offered had he been alive, not only because he
.admired her work, but from the fact that she was
the first American woman on whom this coveted
honour had been conferred.
To these Frenchmen Elizabeth Nourse is an
•enigma—“She paints like a man six feet tall, yet
she is frail, delicate : a child in appearance and
manner.” They cannot reconcile her sweet, gentle
womanliness with the virile
force of her drawing and
brushwork. With clear,
strong strokes she inter-
prets the life of the poor
and hurnble. No painting
leaves her Studio that does
not bear the impress of
deep thought. Through
the homely scenes wh'ch
•she loves to depict, shine
forththefundamental truths
■of humanity. The simplest
action, as a mother handing
a cup of cold water to her
•child, reveals the underly-
ing spiritual life. This is
the gift of her genius, and
herein lies the value of her
work.
A sincere Student ot
nature, of the real, the
actual, Elizabeth Nourse
paints only what she sees ;
■but hers is the vision of a
noble soul which pierces
through the conventional-
ities to the poetry and
beauty that underlie all
life. Her pictures are not

portraits of models, but types of human character
—-of the woman who toils for the little one at her
breast, of the man who earns his bread in the sweat
of his brow. She shows us not only the struggles
of those who labour, but their participation in the
great joys of life. Motherhood ; the pleasure of a
man resting from toil in the haven of his hurnble
home; the happiness of children in their play ; the
deep consolation that religion brings to those who
suffer—such are the themes which appeal to her rnost
strongly. “If all the world could see her as I have,”
says an American writer, “walking along the
Volendam dykes, her eyes searching the faces of
man, woman and child, her heart stealing into
theirs; could see her delicate hand touch lovingly
the cheek of child or mother, as if to say, ‘This I
love, this will I paint ’;—if all the world could
watch the lovelight come into the weary faces,
then all the world would want to possess the
pictures which teil the story.”
That, indeed, is the universal story in which
each of us has some part. It matters little whether
an artist paints in light tones or sombre colours;
whether the picture be made en plein cur, or in his


“ LA PITITE SCEUR ”

BY ELIZABETH NOURSE