Maria Konstantinova Bashkirtseva Paintings

Maria Konstantinova Bashkirtseva, known as Marie Bashkirtseff, was a Ukrainian-born Russian diarist, painter, and sculptor, who spent much of her abbreviated life in France. Born on November 11, 1858, in Gavrontsi near Poltava, to a wealthy noble family, she experienced an itinerant childhood that exposed her to various European cultures, due to her mother's insistence on traveling to escape the constraints of provincial life.

Marie showed an early interest in the arts and, once her family settled in France in the early 1870s, she was able to pursue her passion for painting. She joined the Académie Julian in Paris, which was one of the few art schools accepting female students at the time. Under the tutelage of Tony Robert-Fleury and other prominent artists, she honed her skills in a realist style, often focusing on portraiture and genre scenes that captured the lives and emotions of everyday people. Despite her short career, she was a prolific artist, leaving behind a substantial body of work that included over 200 paintings and numerous drawings and sculptures.

Bashkirtseff's ambition was to achieve fame and recognition in the art world, which was a challenging feat for a woman at the time. Her work was exhibited at the Paris Salon and received positive critical attention, which was an impressive accomplishment for a young female artist. Her most famous painting, 'The Meeting', was exhibited at the Salon in 1884 and is now held in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Sadly, Marie Bashkirtseff's promising career was cut short by tuberculosis, which claimed her life on October 31, 1884, at the young age of 25. Her legacy, however, was cemented not only through her artwork but also through her published diary, which she began keeping at the age of 13. The diary is an insightful chronicle of her thoughts on art, her personal struggles, and her ambitions, offering a rare glimpse into the life of a young female artist in the late 19th century. It remains a valuable document for understanding the social and cultural milieu of the time, as well as the challenges faced by women in the arts.