GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



felt ; but is there any at all for the woman artist, who has not yet 

 received official position ? for since Angelica Kauffmann, no one 

 of my sex has passed within the sacred pale of the Royal Academy, 

 although I could mention at least half a dozen women whose work 

 during the last twenty-five years if measured by the masculine 

 standard ought to have carried them in ; they have not been 

 geniuses, it is true ; but the ranks of the Academicians would be 

 sadly depleted if all who are not geniuses walked out. 



At the period of which I have just been speaking, the would-be 

 woman artist had advanced a very little way, even on the road to 

 equal educational rights. The step taken by Laura Herford led, 

 it is true, straight to the closed door of the Academy Schools, which 

 was now set partly open ; but here someone within must have 

 cried " Halt ! " In vain we begged for fuller opportunities for 

 study. It was the year before mentioned, when the women, still 

 largely in the minority in the Schools, and permitted to compete for 

 but few of the premiums, had done well ; two silver medals, as well as 

 the gold, falling to our share. On the principle that half a loaf is 

 better than no bread, we asked for a partial removal of our dis- 

 abilities, and that at least we might be allowed to study from a 

 half-draped model. I had been made to head the petition, and back 

 came the reply to me : " Unanimously condemned as inexpedient." 

 Therefore we had to supplement the very excellent training we had 

 so far received, with the best practice from the life that we could 

 obtain elsewhere. 



I enlarge upon this subject, not only because it may be not 

 without interest to those who care for the fortunes of British art 

 to consider the difficulties that long beset the path of the woman 

 who was ambitious to become more than a mere amateur but also 

 because I think those who have freely enjoyed and others who 

 now enjoy, what came too late to be of use to us, already launched 

 as we were on our careers as exhibiting artists owe something of 

 their good fortune to our pioneer efforts, and most of all because I 

 am convinced that it was mainly the influence of Lord Leighton 

 as he afterwards became that so fortunately brought about the 

 change. No doubt Philip Calderon both before and after he 

 became Keeper, deserves some of the credit for I remember how 

 strongly t he always insisted that every draped figure in a costume 

 picture should firstpf all have been carefully/lrawn from the nude. 



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