St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-09-14
Copyright. by Joseph B. Bowles.)

Copyright. by Joseph B. Bowles.)
(Mrs. Alfred Clifford Barney is one of
the cleverest of the women artists of this
country. Some of her pictures have been
hung Ia the Paris salon and several of her
portraits OF American statesmen, ordered
by the state department at Washington,
are now on the walls of the large recep-
ton room of that department. AS Mrs.
Barney is possessed of wealth, all the
money received by her. from the sale of
her paintings is devoted to the assistance
OF american young women who are study
ing art IN Paris For years she has been
ment in Washington. She has had more
sltt1ngs from ambassadors and other dis
tinguished members of the diplomatic
corps than any other artist in this coun-
try)
1t will be admitted that up to the
last few years gentlewomen were open
to but one honorable, and almost al
ways possible, fieId-marriage Now
instead of marrying for her support
and living, as she often did, miser-
able and distasteful existence with a
man she neither loved nor admired,
we find her living and living well by
her pen, her brush, her music-her
profession. She may have to struggle
and almost starve to gain her end, but
her will and determination, her talent,
her power of endurance and her pow
ers of mind are being daily tested and
are bearing the test well. During the
last ten years women, both painters
and sculptors, are no longer matter
of wonder They are accepted facts
and their work is judged not as the
work of women but as the work of
artists. The strong mailed hand that
has bound her daring spirit to the linn
its of home is powerless. Her wings,
well feathered and strong, carry her
beyond its profound but narrow linn
it's into the great field of workers,
where her talents demand and COM
mand recognition.
Naturally men have objected to
women entering any of the money
making fields. They know, in the ma
ture of things-in each department
there is only so much money, or sue
cess, to be gained; and that money,
success and fame will fall to those DOS
sessing the greater talent and applica-
ton. Women entering the field of art
and forging ahead, as they are doing,
means that men of less talent and men
of like talent and less application will
do without the success and money
that the competing women carry of.
They know that in all things when you
can keep down the number of compel
itors greater are the chances of sue
cess and the standards-except where
genius exists-less high.
Remember, it is in the boys early
years that the seed of example is
planted, and from that seed, perhaps
Of ambition, the man becomes war
rior, statesman, scientist or an
artist. Boys from the beginning are
taught OF the great deeds of Caesar,
Washington, Newton and Columbus.
Who were Michael Angelo and Wales
quez? Were they not men? Were
not all the great men but men? And
will he not, as he daily studies their
deeds, the deeds of great, powerful
minds, will he not think, II shall be
mana great man." Year after wear
he grows with the idea firmly planted
in his mind that he is man to whom
all things are possible. And unless he
is great in mind and deed It often
takes time and many hard knocks be-
fore much, if not all, of his conceit is
knocked out Of him.
But would it not be well if the com.
ing woman were taught. that women
can, and shall, attain that glorious
fame, that victories are in some fields
equally possible for women as for
men? And to that end let the women
who cannot but who desire to progress
help these women who have already
started on the way, aiding them, at
least, by encouragement and cheer so
far as their talent and strength will
carry them, thereby making the road
less hard for the future woman. If
every idle woman who says she has
no talent, no power of expression.
would interest herself in some woman
to attain, would encourage
SAu AC4 at InOSH
when the artist feels despair
she would find that the mere effort to
help another would awaken in herself
first an interest and then a desire to
create, and little by little her artistic
temperament would be aroused until
the desire to Try herself to accomplish
something would thrill her heart and
she would feel arise the power of ex-
preston that is within each one of US.
1t may be she would become interest
ed in woman struggling to become
a painter and thereby would awaken
the powers of painter within herself
or, encouraging painter, the sleeping
musician or poet or the active prac-
teal worker in the world of progress
would be aroused.
1t was religion that awakened the
first crude effort of man to express by
means of pigments and marble his
Ideals. The great statues Of the gods