Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.Waters, Clara Erskine Clement
History
Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.
Waters, Clara Erskine Clement
Women artists -- Biography
In 1664, when travelling with her brother, she became acquainted with
Labadie, the celebrated French enthusiast who preached new doctrines. He
had many disciples called Labadists. He taught that God used deceit with
man when He judged it well for man to be deceived; that contemplation led
to perfection; that self-mortification, self-denial, and prayer were
necessary to a godly life; and that the Holy Spirit constantly made new
revelations to the human beings prepared to receive them.
Anna Maria Schurmann heard these doctrines when prostrated by a double
sorrow, the deaths of her father and brother. She put aside all other
interests and devoted herself to those of the Labadists. It is said that
after the death of Labadie she gathered his disciples together and
conducted them to Vivert, in Friesland. William Penn saw her there, and
in his account of the meeting he tells how much he was impressed by her
grave solemnity and vigorous intellect.
From this time she devoted her fortune to charity and died in poverty at
the age of seventy-one. Besides her fame as an artist and a scholar, her
name was renowned for purity of heart and fervent religious feeling. Her
virtues were many and her few faults were such as could not belong to an
ignoble nature.
<b>SCUDDER, JANET.</b> Medal at Columbian Exposition, 1893. Two of her
medallion portraits are in the Luxembourg, Paris. Member of the National
Sculpture Society, New York. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Pupil of
Rebisso in Cincinnati, of Lorado Taft in Chicago, and of Frederic
MacMonnies in Paris.
At the Chicago Exposition Miss Scudder exhibited two heroic-sized statues
representing Illinois and Indiana. The portraits purchased by the French
Government are of American women and are the first work of an American
woman sculptor to be admitted to the Luxembourg. These medallions are in
bas-relief in marble, framed in bronze. Casts from them have been made in
gold and silver. The first is said to be the largest medallion ever made
in gold; it is about four inches long.
[Illustration: A FROG FOUNTAIN
JANET SCUDDER]
To the Pan-American Exposition Miss Scudder contributed four boys
standing on a snail, which made a part of the "Fountain of Abundance."
She has exhibited in New York and Philadelphia a fountain, representing a
boy dancing hilariously and snapping his fingers at four huge frogs round
his pedestal. The water spurts from the mouths of the frogs and covers
the naked child.
Miss Scudder is commissioned to make a portrait statue of heroic size for
the St. Louis Exposition. She will no doubt exhibit smaller works there.
Portraits are her specialty, and in these she has made a success, as is
proved by the appreciation of her work in Paris.
A memorial figure in marble is in Woodlawn Cemetery, also a cinerary urn
in stone and bronze; a bronze memorial tablet is in Union College. Miss
Scudder also made the seal for the Bar Association of New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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