WOMAN IN ART
A young pupil was painting tea roses under an experienced teacher long ago, when a little yellow butterfly sailed into the open window, scented the roses, hovered over them a moment, then was away. It gave the girl an idea. She painted in the butterfly poised an instant over the deeper yellow flowers as if to alight, but the teacher's voice startled her: "O, but you must not paint a bird or butterfly in motion; they must be at rest, not in the act of flying."
Yet here we have a woman painting horses and men rushing furiously into battle; clouds of dust and smoke to right and left of them. Their nostrils snorting vapor as they strain neck and shoulders in eagerness and excitement for the fray. One almost hears ensign and banner snapple in the wind, like staccato notes amid the war cries of men, and snortings of the champers of the bit.
We have said that all subjects of Lady Butler's brush are characterized by action, which is true if the spark of life remains; but if dead—they are dead indeed! On the canvas representing "Halt!" a horse has dropped dead from exhaustion. You know he is dead. No compulsion can bring any response of life from outstretched legs or neck. He has breathed his last. "After the Battle" a horse and rider lie at the entrance of the bridge. They will be borne away, but never move of their own volition.
Another characteristic of Lady Butler's painting is her preservation or delineation of values. Her color strong, clear, harmonious, retains its proper value with added distance and atmosphere as the eye travels from rank to rank, or as smoke and dust of charge and battle serve as a screen for a staged drama. Her foreground is strengthened by knowledge and use of values.
The most exceptional work during her residence in Alexandria is "The Camel Corps," for which she made numerous studies on desert sands. Her own descriptions of camel-riding and camel ethics is amusing and vivid. One is an artist indeed who can formulate an interesting, and I may say a graceful, picture of camels in haste, with their long swinging strides across the yellow African sands. She painted them sixteen or twenty abreast, in tawny brown and a yellowish white. Their long legs have even a longer reach, and their soft-cushioned hoofs seem to spurn the hot sand, tossing it behind them in clouds as the picturesque, red-fezzed black drivers lash the semi-unruly creatures into some semblance of order. Amid the clouds of dust one sees a distant scarlet flag waving its Turkish star and crescent. An African picture to be remembered.
Lady Butler's successes have kept pace with the years. She has sketched and painted wherever duty called her military husband. From Scotland to the African Cape; domiciled at Plymouth, where three of her six children were
93
