ART REVIEW : 3 Centuries of Works by British Women

Suppose nobody read Jane Austen’s novels anymore, but once in a great while librarians put them out on a special shelf next to self-help books, bodice-rippers and economic treatises, all written by women.

A similar lack of context plagues the amiable contents of “More Than Flowers: British Women Artists in the Huntington Collection,” an exhibit of 18th-, 19th- and early 20th-Century watercolors and drawings at the Huntington (to Oct. 30).

For the most part--with the prominent exceptions of illustrator Kate Greenaway and Angelica Kauffman, a founding member of England’s Royal Academy of Art--the identities of these 30 artists are completely unfamiliar to today’s viewers. In some instances, details of their lives have been entirely swallowed up by the crush of history.

From the evidence that survives, it is clear that a good number of these women were able to extract a living from their art, while others were “amateurs” in the genteel tradition. Quite a few were born into artistic families, a boon during the surprisingly long period--which persisted into the 1880s in England--during which women were frequently denied admittance to major art schools.

The most vexing result of this state of affairs was the lack of opportunity to sketch from the nude, basic training for turning out the grandiose history paintings on which male artists made their reputations. So it comes as no surprise to see that most of these women specialized in book and magazine illustrations, scientific drawings, portraits, miniatures or landscape views.

But this group had varying talents and abilities. Some turned out expertly rendered sketches with great flair; others labored over cloying and pedestrian images.

In fact, the only things that the members of this group have in common are their sex and that their works have been collected by the Huntington. Although labels provide some delightful tidbits about individual artists in the show, the anecdotal detail very nearly overwhelms the visual aspect of the exhibit.

One option might have been a more selective and in-depth sampling of the work of a few of these artists rather than a Cook’s tour of unrelated images. Another approach might have emphasized a broader view of women’s place in the arts and society during the time span covered by the exhibit.

Curator Nancy Weston does make the point--in the accompanying leaflet--that none of these women produced specifically woman-oriented art but instead treated the same themes that occupied their male colleagues.

Well, granted there were no Judy Chicagos around back then, but isn’t it possible that women artists were partially responsible for the Victorian penchant for mother-and-child themes?

In any case, when the plethora of leafy bowers and quaint views begins to blur in this exhibit, it is a relief to settle the eyes on a distinctive image like Pre-Raphaelite Evelyn Pickering De Morgan’s sensitive chalk drawing, “Head of a Young Woman Playing a Reed Pipe,” or Margaret Geddes Carpenter’s shrewd character analysis of a weak-faced Scottish surgeon, Dr. Cardonell.

Lady Georgiana North’s satirical “Apotheosis of the Duke of Westminster” shows the esteemed general as a timid boy in skirts being fussed over by maternal ladies attired as Victory and Fame. Lady North’s family, a label explains, belonged to the opposition party.

There is one distinct surprise in the exhibit, the “private” style of a very public artist, Kate Greenaway.

Once secretly amused (she wrote) at hearing someone mock the foolish children’s fashions inspired by her famous stylized illustrations of dainty tots in high-waisted dresses, she worked in a much freer, more naturalistic style when left to her own devices.

In rural Nottinghamshire, where her mother’s family lived--and where she once confessed she found “such a wild delight in cowslips and appleblossoms,” because they made her feel as though she had known them in a former world--Greenaway painted watercolors of windmills and houses and sketched characteristic poses of people she knew. In London, she made small, detailed studies of architectural details.

A careful chalk drawing of the surface of a decorated vase, made for a school contest in 1862 when she was 15, shows the kind of handiwork young ladies were encouraged to do in those days. Later on, Greenaway managed to attend art school and subsequently went to work for the illustrated magazine that employed her father, a wood engraver.

This leisurely ramble through aspects of one artist’s life, work and jottings (which the Huntington, by virtue of its library holdings, is uniquely able to offer) gives the viewer the sort of familiarity and sense of groundedness that can’t be duplicated by whizzing through a mixed array of vastly different kinds of work.