Chasseresse

Date: 1920
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1968/1968.18.1_1a.jpg&max=460 width="288" height="388" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=2875"]] || Title: **Chasseresse**

Artist: **Romaine Brooks** Born: Rome, Italy 1874 Died: Nice, France 1970

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 51 3/8 x 38 3/8 in. (130.5 x 97.5 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the artist

Accession: 1968.18.1 || The figure is Diana the Huntress from ancient Greek myth. She prowls the forests seeking a means of survival. Diana is the call of the wild, the beating heart of the forests, the animal spirit within, urging us to remember our origins. She awakens nature within us so that we remember to feel the rustling wind. In the background there is a glacier, and at left stands an antelope. Brooks uses the same multi-patterned greys, blues and blacks in modernist presentation.
 * About the Artwork: **

Mme Eyre de Lanux of New York identified herself as the figure.

Brooks was a gifted artist, who challenged the typical views of female roles in society. She was a lesbian. Brooks had a very unhappy childhood that was haunted by the instability of her brother and the eccentricities of her mother. Independently wealthy, her large fortune allowed her personal and professional freedom. She was part of the Anglo-American gay community on the Isle of Capri, Italy where she was a noted hostess. She had a three year relationship with Ida Rubenstein and a lifelong relationship with Natalie Barney, the daughter of Alice Pike Barney. Although many of her peers were creating abstract art, she held to a representational style that explores female identity. She was particularly intrigued with the role that appearances (clothes and manners) played in sexual identity.
 * About the Artist: **

Women Artists
 * Resources: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page Diana Entry on Wikipedia
 * Links: **