#WatercolorWednesday :
Jemima Blackburn (Scottish, 1823-1909) Hedgehog with young in their habitat, 1858
watercolour heightened with white, 23.5 x 33cm #WomenArtists
Katze - Auf der Lauer, 1969
pastel, 17x25cm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katze_-_Auf_der_Lauer,_Margret_Hofheinz-D%C3%B6ring,_Pastell,_1969_(WV-Nr.4323).JPG
"Bouquet of Flowers," Maria van Oosterwijck, second half of the 17th century.
Van Oosterwijck (1630-1693) was a Dutch painter of still lifes, mostly florals. She was quite a success, and a canny businesswoman, marketing her works to various crowned heads of Europe. She was a professional painter at a time when few women were, but she was still denied membership in the Painter's Guild because of her sex.
By all accounts, she was a deeply religious woman, and many of her paintings include symbols, either through color or other means, of her religious views. Butterflies were to mean the Resurrection, for instance.
She never married, but dedicated herself to her painting. She raised her nephew, and taught one of her servants to paint and be an artist herself, so she could be self-supporting. I like that aspect of her; not only being independent and self-determined, but helping others to be so as well, even if she was denied some opportunities because of the prejudices of the time.
(1/2) Maria Sibylla Merian was born #OTD (2 Apr 1647 – 13 Jan 1717).
Here is a 1719 copy of Metamorphosibus Insectorum Surinamensium turned to
“Pineapple with Cockroaches” that was on display at the “Making Her Mark: A History of #WomenArtists in Europe, 1400-1800” exhibition at the BMA:
Mabel Allington Royds (1874-1941) was famous for her woodcuts. This particular image was part of a series of florals she did in the 1930s, either of flowers in full bloom or dying flowers, which she found interesting to depict.
Although she traveled extensively with her husband, painter Ernest Stephen Lumsden, throughout India, the Himalayas, and Canada, she seemed to most enjoy depictions of flowers, children growing up, neighborhood animals, and other scenes of everyday life.
Her woodcuts are technically classified "Japonisme" as she follows the techniques of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblocks, but uses a distinct personal style in the images she depicts.
From the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
"Two Tulips and Two Irises," Johanna Helena Herolt, c. 1700.
Herolt (1668-Sometime after 1723) was a German botanical artist. She came from a family of artists, with some turbulence in that her parents separated, her mother took her to live in a religious commune, and Johanna later left and married another escapee from the commune.
She collaborated with her mother on a number of botanical works, and later, on her own, illustrated a book on botany, from which this painting is taken. She and her husband moved to Surinam, in South America, where she died sometime after 1723.
And this is so redolent of springtime...I need this visual.
Janoszanka (1889-1952) was a Polish painter, although remembered today mostly as being the model and muse for another artist, Jacek Malczewski. Her solo output in oils is mostly undistinguished still lifes and florals, but it's her few glass paintings that really stand out in their use of color.
Here we have a mixture of folk art influences with the Young Poland movement and maybe some surrealism in the blend. It's really impossible to assign to any single art school. Her glass paintings are few but are her best, most original work, and sadly get very little notice.