The Versatile Master Artist

Grandma Kara claimed in her letter from France—”At dusk in Paris, my friends and I saw the fiery glow swirling above the Arc de Triomphe, and my dreams also floated upon it... A brand new artistic path unfolded before my eyes. Within the burning sky, I saw a river of dreamlike colors extending infinitely. I sensed that this would be the home of my life.”

In the nineteenth century.

The career paths for nobles were very singular,

Men would go to the military to get an officer’s title or seek a civilian post in the parliamentary cabinet.

Girls would specialize in how to become a gentle wife and dignified mother.

Painters, especially female painters, were very unrecognized professions.

Although art was sought after, the status of painters... how shall I put it, can be likened to celebrities in traditional Dongxia society,

Only so high.

Apart from great painters.

If you could paint like Menzel and become a confidant to the Prussian Imperial Family, frequenter of the court as if you were eating and drinking, your social status would still be quite high.

However,

How could a girl possibly become a great painter?

In the mainstream values of the affluent class, expensive artworks, like horse racing, salons, beautiful postal typists, and ballet dancers, were mainly consumables for the daily amusement of male aristocrats.

Playing around is fine,

But actually becoming a painter, that’s really quite unconventional.

Those years, the elders of the Ilyena family were nearly driven mad; they first stopped Grandma Kara’s family annuity and then continuously sent reprimanding letters, hoping she would ”correct her ways.”

Grandma Kara was quite a remarkable woman.

Facing the elders’ fury, she only responded to the family with a nude self-portrait as her confession.

Nude portraits are never vulgar.

On the contrary, they have always been regarded as the highest, most elegant forms of aesthetics.

Take Austria for instance, where one of the most famous great painters, Klimt, was known for his playful and passionate nature, and his love for painting nude models.

Countless National Art Galleries pride themselves on having a Klimt nude artwork.

However, painting nudes were once just a privilege for male painters.

Even if European nobles had chaotic private lives, syphilis was rampant, and illegitimate children abound,

Yet if a high society Miss merely set foot in an art studio with nude models, she would be considered very ”depraved” and ”improper.”

Kara’s actions were considered utterly rebellious.

Painting a nude self-portrait—this was her mockery of societal and family discipline.

The Ilyena family elders were so furious with Kara’s rebellious behavior that they nearly had a stroke, and at that time sent the housekeeper with servants by train to Paris to forcibly bind this girl who had tarnished the family’s reputation and bring her home.

Locked up, sent to the monastery, whipped, bound into the basement and imprisoned.

This medieval way of treating disobedient girls lingered in European high society longer than people imagined, lasting sporadically until after World War II with scattered reports.

In the nineteenth century, it was commonplace.

They burned all of Kara’s works, including the ”Self-portrait,” right in front of her.

Anna was moved every time she saw Kara’s story and also saddened.

She had gone to Paris more than once during her student days and wandered around the location of Grandma Kalazu’s former studio.

The studio was bought by a furniture contractor back then, and now it is an office of a Paris investment bank.

The traces from a hundred years ago have long scattered with the wind, leaving no marks to find.

Yet, just a few blocks away lies the famous Moulin Rouge Nightclub and the blue Seine River.

This was once the birthplace of modern world art.

Monet met the master painter Bisha’a here; Seurat painted his masterpiece ”A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” here; in 1876, 35-year-old Renoir, brimming with love for art and life, initiated ”The Dance at the Moulin de la Galette” here.

At the intersection near the investment bank’s traffic lights stands the statue of Miss Mary Stevenson Cassatt.

On the marble pedestal, Miss Mary holds a sketch pad, gazing at the Seine.

She wears a gentle smile, her dress fluttering, with flowers and letters of gratitude from art students worldwide and admirers of Miss Mary lining the sculpture.

This goddess of Impressionism and Madam Curie were both selected in Time Magazine’s list of one hundred outstanding independent women in human history.

To this day, every International Women’s Day.

The American Women’s Federation and representatives from the United States embassy come to Miss Mary’s statue, placing a bouquet of roses to commemorate this Impressionist’s first female painter’s remarkable contributions.

Whenever Anna saw Miss Mary’s statue, she would think of her Grandma Kara.

They shared similar backgrounds, identical life experiences, the same independent drive, and both saw art as their lifelong career.

After one hundred and fifty years, one achieved success and fame, received endless tributes from the art world.

But the other’s lifetime effort turned to ashes and dust, leaving only a small tombstone in the monastery.

This is the painter’s fickle fate.

After being imprisoned by the family for a year, Grandma Kalazu died of tuberculosis, despondent.

She left a brief will before she died—”In my life, I was satisfied with only two of my works; one self-portrait was destroyed by flames, and the other painting, I hid at the end of the world. The courage to pursue beauty is my driving force to fight against fate.”