Katherine Keenum

Article alert: Artists' diaries and correspondence were treasure troves when I was researching Where the Light Falls. I always specially loved pages on which the writer had included little sketches. How I wish A City of One's Own: The Parisian Letters of the Swedish Painter Hanna Hirsch-Pauli had been available to me then! No matter, the topic of women artists in Paris remains fascinating; and this article not only furthers scholarly understanding, but may well enrich someone else's historical fiction.

Well, I first added this image to my collection of paintings that give an idea of how much light was available at night before the advent of electricity. Now it seems like an emblem of how most of us are handling the election: withdrawing from the darkness into what little light we can find in reading and the company of friends. For more about the artist and the painting, see Hanna Hirsch-Pauli: Friendship Goals and Feminism in the 19th-Century Stockholm.