WOMAN IN ART
heroism, religion, wordly ambition, learning, benevolence, etc. Art is one of the latest fields she has entered, and the twentieth century the Red Letter period when she began to find her place, her freedom and voice in any department or activity her choice and ability have fitted her for, even to positions of municipal and Federal Government "of the people, for the people, and by the people."
It is interesting to find a few names scattered through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of women who reached distinction in painting in their time. It is also of interest to note that in nearly every case we will cite that as girls they began painting with their fathers, which counts for heredity and home influence.
Sofonisba Angussola was born in the old walled town Cremona, on the river Po. Its cathedral was five hundred years in building, and the interior has been decorated from time to time by native artists and might be said to represent the various stages of decorative art from the year 1100, as its exterior represents a composite architecture. Beside its slowly growing cathedral, Cremona expressed appreciation of the beautiful in the tones of the wonderful violins, its remarkable pottery, and a number of developing painters.
One of those artists was a direct descendant of the ancient Cremona family from whom the town and the province took the name.
Sofonisba was born to a family of means, in 1533, and was one of six daughters all of whom, in some line of artistry, "adorned the fine arts." She studied under Bernardino Campi, and must have reached a high degree of proficiency in her own country, for in 1560 at the invitation of Philip II she visited the court of Madrid. She painted a portrait of Philip, also a number of court celebrities, and her work was highly commended and praised.
On returning to Italy she painted portraits of Pope Pius IV and a number of Italian princes. Some of her paintings are to be seen in Florence and in Madrid. She painted several fine portraits of herself, one of which is in the portrait gallery in the Uffizi in Florence. A group picture of three of her sisters was in the collection once owned by Lucien Bonaparte, but is now in Berlin.
Sofonisba died in Genoa in 1620, aged eighty-seven years.
Elisabetta Sirani we mention here as a connecting link showing woman's ambition for and influence in art during the century that marked the decline of the Renaissance. Her birthplace was Bologna (1638), another walled city
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