BASHKIRTSEFF, MARIE. Born in Russia of a noble family. 1860-84.  This remarkable young woman is interesting in various phases of her life, but here it is as an artist that she is to be considered.  Her journal, she tells us, is absolutely truthful, and it is but courteous to take the story of her artistic career from that.  She had lessons in drawing, as many children do, but she gives no indication of a special love for art until she visits Florence when fourteen years old, and her love of pictures and statues is awakened.  She spent hours in galleries, never sitting down, without fatigue, in spite of her delicacy.  She says:  “That is because the things one loves do not tire one.  So long as there are pictures and, better still, statues to be seen, I am made of iron.”  After questioning whether she dare say it, she confides to her readers:  “I don’t like the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael.  The countenance of the Virgin is pale, the color is not natural, the expression is that of a waiting-maid rather than of a Madonna.  Ah, but there is a Magdalen of Titian that enchanted me.  Only—­there must always be an only—­her wrists are too thick and her hands are too plump—­beautiful hands they would be on a woman of fifty.  There are things of Rubens and Vandyck that are ravishing.  The ‘Mensonge’ of Salvator Rosa is very natural.  I do not speak as a connoisseur; what most resembles nature pleases me most.  Is it not the aim of painting to copy nature?  I like very much the full, fresh countenance of the wife of Paul Veronese, painted by him.  I like the style of his faces.  I adore Titian and Vandyck; but that poor Raphael!  Provided only no one knows what I write; people would take me for a fool; I do not criticise Raphael; I do not understand him; in time I shall no doubt learn to appreciate his beauties.  The portrait of Pope Leo X.—­I think it is—­is admirable, however.”  A surprising critique for a girl of her age!

When seventeen she made her first picture of any importance.  “While they were playing cards last night I made a rough sketch of the players—­and this morning I transferred the sketch to canvas.  I am delighted to have made a picture of persons sitting down in different attitudes; I copied the position of the hands and arms, the expressions of the countenance, etc.  I had never before done anything but heads, which I was satisfied to scatter over the canvas like flowers.”

Her enthusiasm for her art constantly increased.  She was not willing to acknowledge her semi-invalidism and was filled with the desire to do something in art that would live after her.  She was opposed by her family, who wished her to be in fashionable society.  At length she had her way, and when not quite eighteen began to study regularly at the Julian Academy.  She worked eight and nine hours a day.  Julian encouraged her, she rejoiced in being with “real artists who have exhibited in the Salon and whose pictures are bought,” and declared herself “happy, happy!” Before long M. Julian told her that she might become a great artist, and the first time that Robert-Fleury saw her work and learned how little she had studied, and that she had never before drawn from a living model, he said:  “Well, then, you have extraordinary talent for painting; you are specially gifted, and I advise you to work hard.”