Twilight Confidences

Born in Philadelphia, Cecilia Beaux studied art in Paris and became the first woman teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In the summer of 1888, she traveled to the picturesque seaside village of Concarneau in Brittany. For Beaux, painting in the open air held the promise of a new artistic era. Twilight Confidences reflects her fascination with the crisp white collars and wing-like caps that the women there wore. Its subject also suggests her ambition. Years earlier, while an art student in Philadelphia, she had seen a copy of Jean-Francois Millet’s painting Angelus, which also shows French peasants. As Beaux recalled, the “romantic dignity” of Millet’s picture “made the paintings near it look common.”

During Beaux’s studies at twilight, she sought to capture colors as they glanced across her models’ faces and clothing. Her lessons that summer with American painters Charles Lasar and Alexander Harrison nurtured this interest in the shifting light and brilliant colors of French Impressionism. Canvases like this one, which were the result of her diligent study, led Harrison to declare that Beaux had “the stuff that digs and thinks and will not be satisfied and is never weary of the effort of painting nor counts the cost.”

We present today's painting thanks to the Georgia Museum Of Art.  : )

If you would like to learn more about women artists, please check our Women Artists Paper Notebook.  : ))

P.S. Here's more on the beautiful portraiture of Cecilia Beaux.  <3