Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1876 — Women and Art. [ARTICLE]

Women and Art.

ments are anything but frivolous if they y, WSOS, WHtpy.j/q turn UionmghJw. md least she will be competent to take a second in a duet, to transpose a song or improvise an accompaniment —all charming and rare advantage* The ordinary young lady can only play set pieces on the piano that she has learned at the price of heaven knows how many valuable hours’ practicing; she never remAnbert anything by heart, could not compose two notes to save her life, and cannot repeat by ear the simplest melody out of an opera, though she has heard it a hundred times. She is perfectly ignorant of the history bi mrisic, hates classical works,

knows few of the master’s names, save Verdf, Donizetti, Offenbach and Mo/art, the latter only as the composer Of ' Don Giovanni.” Gregorian or Latin chants convey ho especial meaning to her mind; all shAehiFtfell jrou about them is that they are used in the church; as for orchestration, scoring, and. such like, they ye only fit matters for professionals; - Bhe -will call Wagner horrid, Gounod lovely, Mendelssohn dull and Beethoven pretty, without knowing why she likes or dislikes anything. She yawns at an oratorio, is bored at a concert, and only enjoy* the opera because she knows everybody that sits in the boxes, and because it is an opportunity for wearing fine clothes, and fills up the Saturday evening, on which there are no balls. BtiH more deplorable is the younglady artist who dabbles in painting. Landscapes are possible; for skies may ba any arrangement of blue and white; trees can always be concocted with different splotches of green and brown; and stones and rocks every; one snows need havvLno particular shape. But when it comes to figures art is impotent; proportion tad perspective are again left to professionals, and the result is—what TA- series of simpering dolls with vermilion-and-white cheeks, vacuous in expression and unsteadjrabout the legs, draped as much as possible, partly from a view to propriety, partly from the inherent difficulty of drawing a hand, an arm or a leg correctly or to look like anything but a bit of wood. The artist’s (sfo) time is chiefly spent in copying a few lackadaisical models of her master’s style or in depicting a shepherdess or a Marquise on a bit of silk intended for a fan or a handscreen--Though our grandmothefs', J ~good, simple souls, were not artistic in the modern sense of the word (for their accomplishments consisted only in playing moderately well qq the harp, chiefly cultivated because it displayed a well-rounded arm to great advantage, and in working monstrous roses and lilies la woodwork, much admired by that generation), yet what knowledge they did possess was both thorough and practical. They could make all manner of dainty preserves, decoctions and distillations; they were conversant with every detail of the dairy, the bakehouse and the kitchen ; they loved flung needlework and took a pride in-the house-linen. They ruled the men and the maids with a firm and gentle hand and were not above giving an eyb to the arrangements when their ford, and master feasted the neighboring gentry.