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.

Although Lilias Trotter studied informally with John Ruskin, she probably thought of herself primarily as a missionary, not as an artist. Yet no one can paint with her flair without its meaning a lot to her. In other words, like many multi-talented people with strong callings, Trotter was complex. Personally, I dislike fictionalized biographies. Secondary and walk-on parts for real people in historical fiction? Of course. But it takes chutzpah to pretend to "bring them to life" as central characters. Still, if discovering someone like Lilias Trotter prompts a wholly fictional character to emerge in my imagination and demand that her story to be told, won't I be grateful!

Image via James Gurney. For a website devoted to her, click here.

 
Blog post alert: This 1777 eye-witness sketch of camp followers is a reminder that women participate in wars whether military commanders want them to or not. Wives, cooks, laundresses, and prostitutes—for writers of historical fiction, they can provide more than local color. A story could be told from their point of view. Also, of course, consider the artists and photographers who record wars. In this case, what would it have been like to be Swiss-born artist and coin collector, Pierre Eugène du Simitiére, during the Revolutionary War?
 

When I saw this sketch in a study of Cézanne's watercolors, it took my breath away. Such sureness and elegance of line! Such vitality in just a few strokes of pigment! The peculiarly expressive hands continue to fascinate me. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that a sculptor might be a superb draftsman, but it did. In the well-illustrated Cambodian Dancers, Auguste Rodin, and the Imperial Imagination, you can read a lot more about the visit of a Cambodian dance troupe that elicited this quick sketch and other studies—and a lot about current thinking on "cultural appropriation," the evils of colonialism, and related social topics.

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Jackie Morris's superb paintings and Robert MacFarlane's intriguing "spells" combine in The Lost Words to make a book that is greater than the sum of its equally splendid parts. You would treasure a print of any of the pictures; you might memorize one of the clever acrostic verses (spells as MacFarlane punningly calls them) to chant against the evils of our days. Together with the book's size, depth of color printing, and lovely page design (including a set of puzzles that delight once you figure out what they are doing), they combine into a classic.

 

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Sketches in gouache and watercolor by Pierre Prévost for his panorama of Paris were auctioned on October 23, 2019, by Sotheby's. I love being able to zoom in on the catalogue essay for details like the one shown here. The location of the Académie Julian in Paris's Passage des Panoramas had sent me to 19th C panoramas years ago when I was researching Where the Light Falls. At that time, I had read about Prévost in The Painted Panorama by Bernard Comment (which has lots of fold-out pages). Now, as a stimulus to building a world in historical fiction, just look at the washing on the houseboat, the cabs, and the lamps strung across the bridge! Much, much more available at the Sotheby's site.

Reviewing some old files, I found these sketches by Edgar Degas, which I had labeled "Effie studies." It made me smile. Ordinarily, I like to highlight female artists in this blog, but who can resist the occasional work by the other sex? In this case, I remember thinking that it was as if I were seeing dimensions of my own character revealed to me by an artist who had seen her in a slightly different way. The seated woman in the middle one is, self-effacing, but not unintelligent. The one on the right—unself-consciously clutching her bag or a book and her umbrella—catches aspects of the Cousin Effie who made her way around Paris on her own while Jeanette was in class in Where the Light Falls. And, of course, they really pertain to Degas' depiction of Mary Cassatt in the Louvre (ca. 1880).
 

Sketches, studies, and unfinished work of any kind have an appealing immediacy. They are good for characterizing artists, and good reminders that rough drafts, false starts, and revision are all part of writing any sort of story. Cecilia Beaux's autobiography, Background with Figures, was a key source for me when I was researching Where the Light Falls. Wouldn't I have loved to have this image then! For anyone who wants a quick look at Beaux and the Breton art scene, the blog my daily art display has a good post on Beaux in Concarneau, the summer of 1888.

Website tip: I've just run across this drawing of Claude Monet by Carolus-Duran, which is up for sale. They were friends, and it's fun to see that they posed for each other informally. I suspect both would be astonished (and flattered?) at the asking price of $26,000!

Blog tip: In my fiction, I stay away from religion except for the externals, e.g., glances at my characters’ church attendance and Christmas. In recognition of the solemnity of Good Friday, however, I’m posting these studies as a reminder that artists have been drawn to religious topics throughout the ages. I first ran across the image in the archives of the Inspirational Artwork blog, which are worth exploring. Read More