Maria Konstantinowna Bashkirtseff

{"Id":267,"Name":"Maria Konstantinowna Bashkirtseff","Biography":"Painter, sculptor, proto-feminist and creator of one of the most extraordinary journals ever written, Marie Bashkirtseff (November 24, 1858 - October, 31 1884) was born in Ukraine to a somewhat nomadic and eccentric family of \u003Ci\u003Epetite noblesse\u003C/i\u003E. From an early age, Marie\u0027s intelligence and the force of her personality held sway over her wandering, expatriate family. And wander they did, back and forth across the face of Europe and Russia.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\nIn 1873 she was 14 years old, living in a sun swept villa on the shore of Mediterranean - along with her mother, aunt, brother, grandfather, family doctor, a train of servants, a monkey and dogs (always her beloved dogs) - when she began inscribing the events of her seaside days: her infatuations, acute and precocious observations, passions, dreams, radiant artistic notions, loves - every topic that fell into the ken of her encompassing mind and luminous vision. \u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EMarie\u0027s devotion to beauty and the fine arts defined the focus of her brief, prolific life. In 1877 - against the wishes of family and the orders of her doctors - she moved from the temperate climate of Nice to Paris in order to study painting. She enrolled in the Academie Julian, the only art school in Paris at that time accepting women; during this period Marie also began attending meetings of \u0022Le Droit des Femmes,\u0022 the leading society of the emerging French feminist movement. At the Academie, Rodolphe Julian, the founder, and Tony Robert-Fleury took an immediate and great interest in her talent, and of the overwhelming force of her fiercely determined self. Simultaneous to her artistic development, Marie published articles regarding the Rights of Women, writing under the nom de plume of Pauline Orell. Always, in every endeavor, Marie seemed engaged in an inexorable battle with passing time, sensing from early on that her own time was short. In spite of her personal wealth and illness, she worked tirelessly - eight to twelve or more hours a day, virtually for the remainder of her life. After a relatively short period of study, M. Julian asked Marie to paint a large canvas depicting his Academie, for submission to the Salon. Her painting, \u003Ci\u003EL\u0027Atelier Julian (The Studio)\u003C/i\u003E, has long been regarded as a masterwork of La Belle Epoque.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\nScarcely known in her lifetime, Marie Bashkirtseff\u0027s paintings, sculptures and her epic, monumental Journal have established her as one of the great women of the 19th century.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EShe died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) in Paris at the age of 25, feeling she had accomplished little. Her mausoleum in Cimetiere de Passy depicts an artist\u0027s studio in stone, and is a French Heritage site.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EUpwards of two hundred of Marie Bashkirtseff\u0027s paintings, sculptures and sketches disappeared during Hitler\u0027s destruction of Europe; nevertheless, today her art is known throughout the world, and the Journal is ranked among literature\u0027s eminent, encompassing examples of belles-lettres-parallel to the diaries of Virginia Woolf, Samuel Pepys, and Anais Nin, and like the letters of Vincent van Gogh and the sonnets of Michelangelo, the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff stands as a literary witness of the creative life and is now accorded the status of world literature.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EExcerpts from\u003Cbr\u003ETHE JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF\u0026copy;\u003Cbr\u003ETranslated by Katherine Kernberger\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ci\u003EAll distinctions disappear in the studio; I have neither name nor family; I\u0027m not my mother\u0027s daughter; I am myself, an individual with art in front of me - art and nothing else. I feel so happy, so free, so proud! Finally, I am what I have wanted to be for so long...I will be what no woman artist has been before.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI have not omitted one of my actions or one of my thoughts from this journal. I am real and natural, like souls before God.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI pay attention to everything because I\u0027m like a chemist, patient and tireless, who passes his nights in front of his test tubes in order not to miss the moment when the expected effect will occur. Every day it seems to me that it is coming, so I think and I wait.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EYouth is a beautiful thing! No matter what kind of life you have, youth finds an hour, here or there, of pleasure.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI\u0027m beginning to be what I want to be, sure of myself and calm. I avoid bickering and gossip. In short, I perfect myself little by little.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EWith my family I feel like a reasonable person locked in an asylum. It\u0027s as if my feet were caught in the sea by plants climbing and enlacing me; I can only shout, feeling that even that is useless. \u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ENow that it\u0027s 2:00 in the morning and I\u0027m locked in my room, dressed in a long white peignoir, barefoot, my hair loose like a virgin martyr, I can devote myself to bitter thoughts.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI wonder whose hands my journal will fall into? Until now it\u0027s of interest only to my family. I would like to become the kind of person whose journal will be interesting to everyone. Now it\u0027s for me, and I love to read it!\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAt dinner under a tent at the Provencaux, we heard some voices: it was the notorious cocotte Saxe quarrelling with the restaurant owner, striking him with her fan. He shouted, \u0022Don\u0027t touch me or I\u0027ll hit you!\u0022 He said such things to her as I don\u0027t want to write, and ended bellowing, \u0022I don\u0027t want prostitutes in my cafe. Leave, you filthy tart, or I\u0027ll pull off your skirt and spank your...\u0022 What a horror! We were acting as if we heard nothing, but I wanted to hear everything.\u003Cbr\u003EThis woman pleases me very much. You can tell she\u0027s amusing because it shows in her face. Such women of fourth quality, kept hidden like a great mystery, interest me. I would like to become a fly and follow them in their excursions, or even get inside their skins to know what they feel. Poor Saxe has trouble everywhere; she was thrown out of the casino at Monte Carlo. Here in Vienna, she wears beautiful dresses.\u003Cbr\u003EBut let\u0027s forget this. I lower myself by talking about these creatures, and I\u0027m ashamed to have tarnished my journal with this stupid, improper story. However, I have to add that I am very sympathetic toward her, and I would very much like (incognito, of course) to become her friend. Oh, what horror! Horror!\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EDressing is an art, and even though I go nowhere, I dress for myself, for the love of art.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EHow short life is; how sad to live so little! How much women are to be pitied! At least men are free. They have absolute freedom in ordinary life - the liberty to go and come, to go out, to dine at a cabaret or at home, to walk to the park or to a cafe. Having liberty is half the battle in developing talent, and it\u0027s three-quarters of ordinary happiness. But you will ask, \u0022Superior woman that you are, why not take this freedom for yourself?\u0022 It\u0027s impossible, because a young pretty woman who emancipates herself this way blacklists herself; she becomes singular, talked-about, criticized, and censured. And as a consequence she is less free than when she observes those idiotic customs. So there\u0027s nothing to do but regret my sex and come back to my dreams of Italy and Spain. Giant trees, pure sky, streams, oleanders, roses, sun, shade, peace, calm, harmony, poetry, inspiration... \u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI\u0027m frightened by the flight of time!\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIf we look closely, most things in this world are the results of imagination.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\n L\u0027art! If I didn\u0027t have these four magical letters in the distance, I would be dead. But for art I need no one else; I depend on myself. And if I fail, I am nothing and can\u0027t live any more. Art! I see it as a great light very far away over there, and I forget everything else. I walk with my eyes fixed on this light. I\u0027m a little old to be starting, especially for a woman. But I will try.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022Did you do that by yourself?\u0022 Julian asked.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022Yes, Monsieur,\u0022 and I blushed, as if I were lying.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022Well, I am very pleased.\u0022\u003Cbr\u003EI\u0027m still struck by the superiority of the others, but I\u0027m already less afraid. Some of the women have spent three or four years in the atelier, at the Louvre, in serious study. \u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EI would like horribly to pose in the gentlemen\u0027s studio - nude. People are ashamed to be nude because they are afraid they aren\u0027t perfect. Otherwise we would go out without clothes. The sense of \u0022modesty\u0022 disappears before perfection, beauty being all - powerful, and it even prevents embarrassment and consequently suppresses any feeling of shame.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThe street! On the way back from Tony\u0027s we passed through the avenues around the Arc de Triomphe at about 6:30. Summer - the concierges, children, messenger boys, women - all at their doors or sitting on the public benches or chatting in front of the wine shops. They would make such pictures! In this life, in this truth, there are wonderful things. The greatest masters are great only through their truth to life. I came home marveling at the street.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E Upon leaving the studio, I took Mme de Daillens with me and we went to see Hubertine Auclert...We had rung 3 times with no response when the porter called us back. Mlle Auclert invited us to go up. On the door were written these words, \u0022Rights of Women - head office.\u0022\u003Cbr\u003EThe office was very poor and simple. She lighted a fire and sat down in front of the fireplace, de Daillens on her right and I on her left. I said that I could not help feeling very emotional in the presence of the woman who has so daringly asserted our rights...\u003Cbr\u003EI want to do a portrait of Hubertine for the Salon...She will be good for the painting...dark, very nice appearance...she gave us a program and a little pamphlet and we shook hands. We joined the organization, promising to come again and pay our twenty-five-centimes per month. We will go to the meetings.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022Next Wednesday at 8:00.\u0022\u003Cbr\u003EI told her that the main argument of the Reactionaries - that Women\u0027s Rights members were ugly, old, and grotesque - certainly did not apply to her.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAh, gentlemen, you thought you\u0027d find a rich, extravagant - let\u0027s say the word - foreigner. But I\u0027m no Russian and no foreigner, I am ME, I am what a woman should be with my ambitions...the moment to satisfy them is now. Well, let\u0027s wait a little.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETo die would be absurd. However, I feel that I\u0027m going to die. I can\u0027t live; I\u0027m not born to the normal pattern. I have too much of some things, but other things are missing. My character\u0027s not made to last. If I were a Goddess with the whole universe to serve me, I should find that I was ill served. It\u0027s impossible to be more capricious, more exacting, more impatient than I am. Sometimes, or rather, always I have a certain undercurrent of reason and calm, but I can\u0027t explain my meaning exactly. I tell you only that my life cannot last.\u003C/i\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\nExcerpted from THE JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, translated and edited by Katherine Kernberger. Copyright \u0026copy; 2012 by Katherine Kernberger. Marie Bashkirtseff\u0027s biographical summary adapted for the use of Art Renewal Center by Vincent Nicolosi. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from FONTHILL PRESS LLC, New York, NY","Awards":null,"HasAlbums":false,"HasPortraits":true,"HasRelationships":true,"HasArticles":false,"HasDepictedPlaces":false,"HasLetters":false,"HasLibraryItems":true,"HasProducts":true,"HasSignatures":false,"HasVideos":false,"HasMapLocations":true,"TotalArtworks":26}