Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D Part 28

"Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpa.s.sed the image of her mind."

Of her portrait of James II. he says:

"For, not content to express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart; His warlike mind--his soul devoid of fear-- His high designing thoughts were figured there."

Having repeated these panegyrics, it is but just to add that two opinions existed concerning the merit of Mistress Killigrew's art and of Dryden's ode, which another critic called "a harmonious hyperbole, composed of the Fall of Adam--Arethusa--Vestal Virgins--Dian--Cupid--Noah's Ark--the Pleiades--the fall of Jehoshaphat--and the last a.s.sizes."

Anthony Wood, however, says: "There is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior, and if there had not been more true history in her praises than compliment, her father never would have suffered them to pa.s.s the press."

KINDT, ADELE. This painter of history and of genre subjects won her first prize at Ghent when less than twenty-two, and received medals at Douai, Cambrai, Ghent, and Brussels before she was thirty-two. Was made a member of the Brussels, Ghent, and Lisbon Academies. Born in Brussels, 1805. Pupil of Sophie Fremiet and of Navez. Her picture of the "Last Moments of Egmont" is in the Ghent Museum; among her other historical pictures are "Melancthon Predicting Prince Willem's Future" and "Elizabeth Sentencing Mary Stuart," which is in the Hague Museum. The "Obstinate Scholar" and "Happier than a King" are two of her best genre pictures.

KING, JESSIE M. A most successful ill.u.s.trator and designer of book-covers, who was educated as an artist in the Glasgow School of Decorative Art. In this school and at that of South Kensington she was considered a failure, by reason of her utterly unacademic manner. She did not see things by rule and she persistently represented them as she saw them. Her love of nature is intense, and when she ill.u.s.trated the "Jungle Book" she could more easily imagine that the animals could speak a language that Mowgli could understand, than an academic artist could bring himself to fancy for a moment. Her work is full of poetic imagination, of symbolism, and of the spirit of her subject.

Walter P. Watson, in a comprehensive critique of her work, says: "Her imaginations are more perfect and more minutely organized than what is seen by the bodily eye, and she does not permit the outward creation to be a hindrance to the expression of her artistic creed. The force of representation plants her imagined figures before her; she treats them as real, and talks to them as if they were bodily there; puts words in their mouths such as they should have spoken, and is affected by them as by persons. Such creation is poetry in the literal sense of the term, and Miss King's dreamy and poetical nature enables her to create the persons of the drama, to invest them with appropriate figures, faces, costumes, and surroundings; to make them speak after their own characters."

Her important works are in part the ill.u.s.trations of "The Little Princess," "The Magic Grammar," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," "L'Evangile de l'Enfance," "The Romance of the Swan's Nest," etc.

She also makes exquisite designs for book-covers, which have the spirit of the book for which they are made so clearly indicated that they add to the meaning as well as to the beauty of the book.

[_No reply to circular_.]

KIRCHSBERG, ERNESTINE VON. Medal at Chicago Exposition, 1893. Born in Verona, 1857. Pupil of Schaffer and Darnaut. This artist has exhibited in Vienna since 1881, and some of her works have been purchased for the royal collection. Her landscapes, both in oil and water-colors, have established her reputation as an excellent artist, and she gains the same happy effects in both mediums. Her picture shown at Chicago was "A Peasant Home in Southern Austria."

KIRSCHNER, MARIE. Born at Prague, 1852. Pupil of Adolf Lier in Munich, and Jules Dupre and Alfred Stevens in Paris. In 1883 she travelled in Italy, and has had her studio in Berlin and in Prague. The Rudolfinum at Prague contains her "Village Tulleschitz in Bohemia." She is also, known by many flower pieces and by the "Storm on the Downs of Heyst," "Spring Morning," and a "Scene on the Moldau."

KITSON, MRS. H. H. Honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1889; and the same at Paris Salon, 1890; two medals from Ma.s.sachusetts Charitable a.s.sociation; and has exhibited in all the princ.i.p.al exhibitions of the United States. Born in Brookline. Pupil of her husband, Henry H. Kitson, and of Dagnan-Bouveret in Paris.

The women of Michigan commissioned Mrs. Kitson to make two bronze statues representing the woods of their State for the Columbian Exhibition at Chicago. Her princ.i.p.al works are the statue of a volunteer for the Soldiers' Monument at Newburyport; Soldiers' Monument at Ashburnham; Ma.s.sachusetts State Monument to 29th, 35th, and 36th Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteer Infantry at National Military Park at Vicksburg; also medallion portraits of Generals Dodge, Ransom, Logan, Blair, Howard, A. J. Smith, Grierson, and McPherson, for the Sherman Monument at Was.h.i.+ngton.

[_No reply to circular_.]

KLUMPKE, ANNA ELIZABETH. Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1885; silver medal, Versailles, 1886; grand prize, Julian Academy, 1889; Temple gold medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1889; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1889. Member of the Copley Society, Boston; of the Society of Baron Taylor, Paris; and of the Paris Astronomical Society. Born in San Francisco. Pupil of the Julian Academy, under Robert-Fleury, and Jules Lefebvre, where she received, in 1888, the prize of the silver medal and one hundred francs--the highest award given at the annual Portrait Concours, between the men and women students of the above Academy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF ROSA BONHEUR

ANNA E. KLUMPKE]

Among Miss Klumpke's princ.i.p.al works are: "In the Wash-house," owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; portrait of Mrs. Nancy Foster, at the Chicago University; "Maternal Instruction," in the collection of Mr.

Randolph Jefferson Coolidge, Boston; many portraits, among which are those of Madame Klumpke, Rosa Bonheur, Mrs. Thorp, Mrs. Sargent, Count Kergaradec, etc.

In writing me of her own life-work and that of her family, she says, what we may well believe: "Longfellow's thought, 'Your purpose in life must be to accomplish well your task,' has been our motto from childhood."

Anna Klumpke, being the eldest of the four daughters of her mother, had a double duty: her own studies and profession and the loving aid and care of her sisters. In the beginning of her art studies it was only when her home duties were discharged that she could hasten to the Luxembourg, where, curiously enough, her time was devoted to copying "Le Labourage Nivernais," by Rosa Bonheur, whose beloved and devoted friend she later became.

Meantime Anna Klumpke had visited Boston and other cities of her native land, and made a success, not only as an artist, but as a woman, whose intelligence, cheerfulness, and broad interests in life made her a delightful companion. Sailing from Antwerp one autumn, I was told by a friend that a lady on board had a letter of introduction to me from Madame Bouguereau. It proved to be Miss Klumpke, and the acquaintance thus begun, as time went on, disclosed to me a remarkable character, founded on a remarkable experience, and it was no surprise to me that the great and good Rosa Bonheur found in Anna Klumpke a sympathetic and reliable friend and companion for her last days.

The history of this friends.h.i.+p and its results are too well known to require more than a pa.s.sing mention. Miss Klumpke is now established in Paris, and writes me that, in addition to her painting, she is writing of Rosa Bonheur. She says: "This biography consists of reminiscences of Rosa Bonheur's life, her impressions of Nature, G.o.d, and Art, with perhaps a short sketch of how I became acquainted with the ill.u.s.trious woman whose precious maternal tenderness will remain forever the most glorious event of my life."

At the Salon des Artistes Francais, 1903, Miss Klumpke exhibited a picture called "Maternal Affection."

k.n.o.bLOCH, GERTRUDE. Born at Breslau, 1867. Pupil of Skirbina in Berlin. Her studio is in Brussels. She paints in oil and water-colors.

Among her best pictures are "In the Children's Shoes," "The Forester's Leisure Hours," and a "Madonna with the Christ Child."

Two of her works in gouache are worthy of mention: "An Effeminate" and "Children Returning from School."

KOLLOCK, MARY. Born at Norfolk, Virginia, 1840. Studied at the Pennsylvania Academy under Robert Wylie, and in New York under J. B.

Bristol and A. H. Wynant. Her landscapes have been exhibited at the National Academy, New York. Several of these were scenes about Lake George and the Adirondack regions. "Morning in the Mountains" and "On the Road to Mt. Marcy" were exhibited in 1877; "A November Day" and an "Evening Walk," in 1878; "A House in East Hampton, Two Hundred and Twenty Years Old," in 1880; "On Rondout Creek," in 1881; and "The Brook," in 1882.

KOKER, ANNA MARIA DE. A Dutch etcher and engraver of the seventeenth century, who pursued her art from pure love of it, never trying to make her works popular or to sell them. A few of her landscapes fell into the hands of collectors and are much valued for their rarity and excellence.

Three examples are the "Landscape with a View of a Village," "The Square Tower," and "Huts by the Water."

KOMLOSI, IRMA. Born in Prague, 1850. Pupil of Friederich Sturm. This flower painter resides in Vienna, where her pictures are much appreciated and are seen in good collections. They have been purchased for the Art a.s.sociations of Brunn, Prague, and Budapest.

KONDELKA, BARONESS PAULINE VON--Frau von Schmerling. Born at Vienna.

1806-1840. She inherited from her father a strong inclination for art, and was placed by him under the instruction of Franz Potter. In the Royal Gallery, Vienna, is her picture called "Silence," 1834. It represents the Virgin with her finger on her lip to warn against disturbing the sleep of the Infant Jesus. The picture is surrounded by a beautiful arrangement of flowers. In 1836 she painted a charming picture called "A Bunch of Flowers." Her favorite subjects were floral, and her works of this sort are much admired.

KONEK, IDA. Born at Budapest, 1856. Her early art studies were under G. Vastagh, C. von Telepy, W. Lindenschmit, and Munkacsy; later she was a pupil at the Julian Academy in Paris and the Scuola libera in Florence.

In the Parish Church at Kobolkut are three of her pictures of sacred subjects, and in the Hungarian National Museum a picture of still-life.

Her "Old Woman," 1885, is mentioned as attracting favorable notice.

KORA OR CALLIRHOe. It is a well-authenticated fact that in the Greek city of Sicyonia, about the middle of the seventh century before Christ, there lived the first woman artist of whom we have a reliable account.

Her story has been often told, and runs in this wise: Kora, or Callirhoe, was much admired by the young men of Sicyonia for her grace and beauty, of which they caught but fleeting glimpses through her veil when they met her in the flower-market. By reason of Kora's attraction the studio of her father, Dibutades, was frequented by many young Greeks, who watched for a sight of his daughter, while they praised his models in clay.