WOMAN IN ART
eron has painted some exceptionally delicate and beautiful water colors; a bowl of white roses seem as fragile as the roses themselves, and a vase of tea roses bear the same hallmark of rare understanding and technique.
Flower painting is not a subject for impressionists, unless painted by the acre in the far west of the United States.
We have seen very attractive flower paintings from France and Belgium. From her studio in Ghent, Mrs. Clemence Jonnaert sent a strong yet delicately manipulated picture of "Peonies" to the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, and a second canvas of iris, so abundantly cultivated in the Netherlands. A mass of poppies from the studio of Miss Louise Laridon, of Antwerp, is worthy of recall at this later date, because it is—and always will be to Americans—the flower of Flanders' Fields. They are beautiful where they grow, where they cover as a blanket the Braves of the A. E. F. where they sleep.
Flowers are tempting to every human. They were made to beautify the earth and human life. Whoever uses color is tempted to try his hand on duplicating the brilliant or delicate colorings on perishing paper or canvas. And that is well, it has a refining influence, and influence is not so perishable as what they practice on, or as the flower the Great Artist has created.
There is an innate refinement in the soul and mind of a man who wants a flower in the lapel of his coat. You can trust him.
Mme. Lisbeth Devolve Carriere, of Paris, has a taste and a genius for making art productions of roses and orchids and other delicately constructed creations, and her productions are choice. Choice, too, are the flowers Mlle. Jeanne Lauvernay paints.
In America there are also numberless women who work at the floral subjects, but there is fashion in flowers as well as in hats and shoes so far as women and florists are concerned. However, there have been a few unusually fine flower painters in this country. Mrs. Tenana McLennan Hinman is said to be a rival of Paul de Longpre, which is high praise indeed. Miss Mabel Key, a descendant of Francis Scott Key, author of our national anthem, was acknowledged as a genius in painting flowers, but before her time she died. Before her life went out she had an exhibition of some thirty of her paintings.
Not everyone who uses paint can paint orchids. There are thousands of varieties of that tropical parasite and many of their blossoms are wonderfully beautiful. So when we hear that an artist paints orchids remarkably
182
