Marie Bashkirtseff

From Philosopedia

Marie Bashkirtseff (Мария Константиновна Башкирцева) (11 November 1858 - 31 October 1884)

Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva was born in the Ukraine to a wealthy noble family. She grew up in France and Italy and studied painting in Paris. Educated privately, she studied painting in France at the Académie Julian, one of the few establishments that accepted female students. The Académie attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States.

Although a number of her paintings were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, she is still well-known for two canvasses: "The Meeting," depicting Parisian slum children, and "In the Studio," depicting fellow artists at work.

From the age of 13, she kept a journal, which included her correspondence with writer Guy De Maupassant. Still in print, the journal was first published in 1891, and was called I Am the Most Interesting book of All. Her later journal entries, originally published in Revue des Revues, in February and September, 1900, reveal her skepticism.

One of her famous feminist quotes is: "Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures."

At the very time she had become an intellectual powerhouse in the Paris of the 1880s, she died of of tuberculosis at the age of 25. A feminist, in 1881, using the nom de plume "Pauline Orrel," she wrote several articles for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper, La Citoyenne.

She is buried in Cimetière de Passy, Paris, France. Her monument is a full-sized artist studio that has been declared a historic monument by the government of France.

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