DOI Heft:
Nr. 99 (June 1901)
DOI Artikel:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: On some water-colour pictures by Miss Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19788#0051
Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
prejudice that operates to the disadvantage of the Altogether, the highest praise that can be given
true sisterhood of artists. Those who keep this to a sister of art is to say that her genius grows
prejudice alive seem to glory in the fact that in strength without losing its womanliness. This
women, as a rule, are far more positive, more can be said of very few women, but it is beyond
matter-of-fact than the great majority of men. question true in the case of Miss Fortescue-
They may have presences all of poetry, but their Brickdale. Her genius, happily, is as feminine
minds are usually all of prose. Imagination in its as that, say, of Elisabetta Sirani (1640-1665),
highest form, that of stamping il piu nelP uno, they a wonderful girl whom Owen Meredith tried in
have never as yet possessed. Their genius " may a poem to rescue from undeserved neglect. But
be compared more justly to the bee, that keeps Miss Fortescue-Brickdale, before she found her
industriously close to the earth, than to the skylark true self, did some work which did not hint
in a song-flight, that is 'near at once to the point of at the present character of her thought and
heaven and the point of home.'" To this genius the manner. One has in mind several pen-drawings
world owes many debts of gratitude, but it has never wherein she aimed at a kind of strength quite at
produced its own Phidias, nor a Donna Raphael, nor variance with her own personality. The senti-
a Mrs. Shakespeare, nor any sculptor, painter, poet, ment is forced, and the craft of line is not only
or musician who has taken rank with the most gifted, unrhytbmic, it is sometimes even rude and uncouth.
There are men so constituted that they can- The truth is that Miss Fortescue-Brickdale had just
not mention this fact without sneering.
plemental beauty, cleverness, or greatness, „ AN 0pp0rtunity » by e. fortescde-brickdale
will ever be a sure proof of inferiority. (By permission of Messrs. Dowdeswell)
36
prejudice that operates to the disadvantage of the Altogether, the highest praise that can be given
true sisterhood of artists. Those who keep this to a sister of art is to say that her genius grows
prejudice alive seem to glory in the fact that in strength without losing its womanliness. This
women, as a rule, are far more positive, more can be said of very few women, but it is beyond
matter-of-fact than the great majority of men. question true in the case of Miss Fortescue-
They may have presences all of poetry, but their Brickdale. Her genius, happily, is as feminine
minds are usually all of prose. Imagination in its as that, say, of Elisabetta Sirani (1640-1665),
highest form, that of stamping il piu nelP uno, they a wonderful girl whom Owen Meredith tried in
have never as yet possessed. Their genius " may a poem to rescue from undeserved neglect. But
be compared more justly to the bee, that keeps Miss Fortescue-Brickdale, before she found her
industriously close to the earth, than to the skylark true self, did some work which did not hint
in a song-flight, that is 'near at once to the point of at the present character of her thought and
heaven and the point of home.'" To this genius the manner. One has in mind several pen-drawings
world owes many debts of gratitude, but it has never wherein she aimed at a kind of strength quite at
produced its own Phidias, nor a Donna Raphael, nor variance with her own personality. The senti-
a Mrs. Shakespeare, nor any sculptor, painter, poet, ment is forced, and the craft of line is not only
or musician who has taken rank with the most gifted, unrhytbmic, it is sometimes even rude and uncouth.
There are men so constituted that they can- The truth is that Miss Fortescue-Brickdale had just
not mention this fact without sneering.
plemental beauty, cleverness, or greatness, „ AN 0pp0rtunity » by e. fortescde-brickdale
will ever be a sure proof of inferiority. (By permission of Messrs. Dowdeswell)
36