Mathilde Blind, in her "Study of Marie Bashkirtseff," says: "Marie loved to recall Balzac's questionable definition that the genius of observation is almost the whole of human genius. It was natural it should please her, since it was the most conspicuous of her many gifts. As we might expect, therefore, she was especially successful as a portrait painter, for she had a knack of catching her sitter's likeness with the bloom of nature yet fresh upon it. All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with their sadly stunted look. What observation is shown in the painting of those heavily bulging lips, which express weakness rather than wickedness of disposition--in those coarse hands engaged in the feminine occupation of knitting a blue and white stocking!"
<b>BAUCK, JEANNA.</b> Born in Stockholm in 1840. Portrait and landscape painter. In 1863 she went to Dresden, and studied figure work with Professor Ehrhardt; later she moved to Düsseldorf, where she devoted herself to landscape under Flamm, and in 1866 she settled in Munich, where she has since remained, making long visits to Paris, Venice, and parts of Switzerland. Her later work is marked by the romantic influence of C. Ludwig, who was for a time her instructor, but she shows unusual breadth and sureness in dealing with difficult subjects, such as dusky forests with dark waters or bare ruins bordered with stiff, ghost-like trees. Though not without talent and boldness, she lacks a feeling for style.
<b>BEALE, MARY.</b> 1632-97. This artist was the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Cradock. She married Mr. Beale, an artist and a color-maker. She studied under Sir Peter Lely, who obtained for her the privilege of copying some of Vandyck's most famous works.
Mrs. Beale's portraits of Charles II., Cowley, and the Duke of Norfolk are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and that of Archbishop Tillotson is in Lambeth Palace. This portrait was the first example of an ecclesiastic represented as wearing a wig instead of the usual silk coif.