Elizabeth Eastlake
Elizabeth Eastlake, born in Rigby, ( born November 17 1809 in Norwich, Norwich, † October 2, 1893 in London) was an English art critic and writer.
Life
Rigby was a daughter of the physician Dr. Edward Rigby and his second wife Anne Palgrave. Rigby's father was a disciple of the scientist Joseph Priestley and a college friend of the physician Dr. Edward Jenner; at home, there was a liberal attitude and Rigby learned early among other journalists Henry Reve ( The Times), know the writer Lucie Duff Gordon, the polar explorer William Edward Parry. A maternal aunt was married to the botanist Francis Palgrave.
Dr. Rigby furthered his children as early and as best he could, and most of his friends supported him there. As Rigby died in 1821, the family moved to her estate in Framingham Earl and Rigby was only granted a French governess.
At age 18, became ill with typhoid fever and Rigby 1827 for recreation sent her stepmother to Switzerland and later to Germany ( Heidelberg). During this nearly two years among spa, Rigby learned the German language. Started out of boredom, but soon with the ambition to be financially independent as a translator of her family. Her debut it was a work of art historian Johann David Passavant ( " Essay on English art collections" ).
In July 1832 Rigby went to London to spend a year studying literature and art. Next to the British Museum and the National Gallery it was - by his own admission - the painter Henry Sass, the ( Sass 's Academy " in Bloomsbury ) offered an" art class for ladies " in his private art school.
1835 Rigby took another trip to Germany and after their return published an important essay on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the journal Foreign Quarterly. Beginning in October 1838, she began to travel through the Russian Empire with a longer stay in Tallinn (Estonia), where one of her sisters was married. Her letters of these trips were published later collected by the publisher John Murray.
The publisher of the journal Quarterly Review, George Lockhart, attention was drawn to Rigby and hired her as a journalist. With their article in the March 1842 she became the first woman who could publish in the QR regularly.
In October 1842 her step- mother sold the family estate in Framingham and settled with her family in Edinburgh. There Rigby, support was given by the publisher Lockhart and Murray, will soon have access to some salons; she learned there to Sir William Drysdale, literary critic Lord Francis Jeffrey, the philosopher John Wilson and H. O. Hill know. The latter photographed Rigby and so is guaranteed that it was an over 1.80 m wide phenomenon.
1844 Rigby spent some months in London, where she learned, among others, the historian Thomas Carlyle, George Borrow, the writer Agnes Strickland and the painter William Turner know. From London Rigby again visited her sister in Estonia and the return trip took them to Stockholm where she was staying for several weeks.
In 1845, she spent eight weeks after Germany and occupied himself there in detail with the Cologne Cathedral; a remarkable documentary about it was published in September 1846 in the Quarterley Review.
As Rigby at exhibitions of the painter William Etty, Charles Lock Eastlake the elder, Edwin Landseer and William Turner bored again in London in the spring of 1844, she was (probably by Turner) presented Eastlake and this leads them on May 19, 1846 for dinner.
1848 Rigby was again eight weeks in Germany, the majority of the time thereof in Frankfurt am Main. She attended this Johann David Passavant, who wanted to know his translator. After returning in autumn 1848 appeared to her 's most famous products in the QR: a critical essay on the books Vanity Fair ( William Makepeace Thackeray ) and Jane Eyre ( Charlotte Brontë ) in December of the same year.
On April 9, 1849 the couple married in Edinburgh and 1 May of the same year they moved into their apartment together in London ( Fitzroy Square ). The marriage was from the very beginning under a lucky star; up to the drama of the stillbirth of her only child in June 1851.
Due to the position of her husband ( knighted in 1850 ) played East Lake from the beginning an important role in London society. As would be friends from that time to call: Lady Marion Alford, the mathematician Charles Babbage, the philanthropist Angela Burdett - Coutts, Thomas Carlyle, the writer Charles Dickens, Lady Ada Lovelace (Lord Byron George Gordon 's daughter ), the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, Caroline Norton, and many others.
When in 1851 her husband was appointed director of the Royal Academy, the social obligations multiply many times over. Besides Edwin Landseer, Charles Landseer, Henry and William Challon, David Roberts, William Dyce many others were regular guests. But Lady Eastlake was a welcome guest at many important social occasions; among other things, the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851 or the funeral of Wellington in November 1852.
1854 became Lady Eastlake in a minor scandal when she became the confidante and honor of Effie Ruskin to have in their effort to nullify her marriage to John Ruskin.
In the fall of 1852, the couple Eastlake made an extensive trip to Europe. Apart from 1853 and 1856 such a trip took place until the death of her husband in 1865 year. These were in addition to the recreation and the collective passion and the purchases for the Royal Gallery. All these trips always ended with a long stay in Italy.
When Anna Jameson, one of the first art historians died, Lady Eastlake was asked to finish the iconography of Jesus Christ. With great success she could then publish the "History of our Lord " in 1864.
The last journey together with her husband she undertook in August 1865. After a short illness, Charles Eastlake, died on 24 December 1865 in Pisa. According to their own statements, they mastered a part of their grieving process by writing. 1868 was " Fellowship " and two years later the first biography of her late husband. Also, the sculptor John Gibson she sat with a biography of a literary monument. During these years, she became friends with Harriet Grote, the wife of the Ancient Historian George Grote. Published in 1880 Lady Eastlake, a biography of her friend.
1871 she traveled only by the Holbein exhibition in Dresden and also reported about it in the QR. Other, shorter trips followed: the spring of 1872 Paris, Autumn 1873 Scotland, Spring 1877 Venice, 1878 St. Petersburg. Also about the readers were informed, as well as on major exhibitions in London, such as the George Pinwell (1873 ) or Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1883 ).
From 1873 ailing Lady Eastlake and in 1880 she fell seriously ill with rheumatism. In August 1893, she was bedridden and on October 2, 1893, died at the age of almost 84 years. Your final resting place she found on October 6, 1893 in the cemetery of Kensal Green next to her husband.
Besides Harriet Martineau and Frances Power Cobbe Lady Eastlake is one of the first journalists. As an art critic, she is often called before Mary Calcott and Julia Cartwright. More than sixty years, Lady Eastlake busy with art and with her articles she put some in motion.
Works (selection)
- Baltic letters. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1846. ( 2 vols )
- Fellowship. Letters Addressed to my sister mourners. 1868.
- Five great painters. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, Albrecht Durer. Murray, London 1883. ( 2 vols )
- Harriet Grote. A sketch. In 1880.
- Life of John Gibson. Sculptor. In 1870.
- Livonian Tales. Murray, London, 1846.
- Contributions to the literature of the fine arts. With a memoir compiled by Lady Eastlake. (contains CV of Lord Eastlake ) Publisher: John Murray, London 1870
Translations
- Franz Theodor Kugler: Handbook of the history of painting. ( "Handbook of Painting" ).
- Johann David Passavant: Tour of a German artist in England. With notices of private galleries on the state of art.
- Gustav Friedrich scales: Treasures of art in Great Britain. Murray, London, 1854. (4 vols ) Gustav Friedrich scales translated by Elizabeth Eastlake in the Internet Archive