WOMAN IN ART
The young artist worked in the Julian Studio for a few months under Boulanger and LeFebvre. Both encouraged her aspiration for an artistic career, and recognized not only her ability but a precious individuality that indicated a promising future. Boulanger, after seeing her drawing, warned her that to allow herself to be much under the influence of any other painter might impair her distinctive and quite remarkable individuality. This, with suggestions of other critics who appreciated her development, induced her to open a studio and work out her own salvation. In this she was wise. She met with immediate encouragement. Her pictures attracted buyers, and she soon became recognized as an artist of distinction. Queen Victoria purchased one of her canvases, and exhibitions welcomed them. She became noted as a true and strong painter, and prizes and medals came her way.
Being a pupil of some of the best painters in France, LeFebvre, Henner, and Carolus-Durand, it is not surprising that she received her first medal for work exhibited at the Columbian World Fair, 1893. It is a bit more surprising that her next exhibition winning a medal was at Carthage, Tunis, in 1897. Again and again did honors and prizes reward her work; from the noted Salon in Paris, of 1900; at the St. Louis Exposition, 1904; the Panama-Pacific at San Francisco, 1915, and many others.
Miss Nourse's subjects are invariably phases of motherhood and children, with a few exceptions. The Luxembourg has one of her earlier works, "Closed Shutters," and Toledo has a delightful "Twilight"; Detroit possesses her "Happy Baby"; the Chicago Art Institute owns a canvas before which can be seen a bevy of mothers and children almost any day: It is of a mother feeding her two little ones their supper of bread and milk, the baby on her lap; a little girl stands at the corner of the table drinking from a cup, one eye peering over the rim, watching the baby. "The Fisher Girl of Picardy" is a most interesting picture, and ably represents Elizabeth Nourse in the National Gallery at Washington, D. C.
The world recognizes the fact that the great Millet laid the foundation for a new and vigorous art for the world and for time, during the nineteenth century. He was only a peasant in the sparsely populated Provence of Normandy, and found his subjects at his own door. The people were of his own kith and kin, with the "beasties" and the chickens at the steps. Europe had been accustomed to the slick and silken fashions of the day and its art; to decorated or undecorated nudes; while the youth from Normandy, with his marvelous eye for form, and his love for nature and sympathy with the work-
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