 |
AlcottWeb: Official LMA: Scrap-Baggers: "The Lover of Beauty" by Jessie Gildea |
| AlcottWeb: Home | This article comes from the an issue of The
Scrap-Baggers' newsletter. You can learn more about the junior society of The Orchard
House by clicking here. The Lover of Beauty by Jessie Gildea "She is graceful and loves beauty so much, it is hard for her to be poor and wear other people's old things." These were the words used by Louisa May Alcott to describe her youngest sister, May Alcott. May did indeed love beauty. As the artist of the family, May was constantly sketching, painting, and doodling on any available surface. Her trademark lily panels graced the walls of many homes in Concord, including the wall of Ralph Waldo Emerson's study, and her many watercolors and oils adorned the walls of her own home. Her family, accepting and encouraging of any talent their daughters showed, urged her to create her art anywhere, on any surface at all, including her mother's breadboard, the walls of her studio and Louisa's Orchard House bedroom, and most famously, the walls of her own room. Louisa's relationship with May was a special one. Although many people, after reading Little Women, assume that Louisa considered May to be a brat or a nuisance, this could not be more unture. Louisa and May's relationship was not only that of close sisters, but also of dear friends. The two sisters traveled throughout Europe together while May studied art and Louisa fulfilled her dream of traveling abroad. When May died in December of 1879, Louisa was devastated. In a letter to an aunt, she wrote, "Dear May is dead. Gone to begin the new year with Mother, in a world where I hope there is no grief like this." When May died she left her only daughter in Louisa's care. Louisa described herself as being "bowed down with grief", but when she began to care for May's child, Louisa May, or Lulu, meaning was restored to life. "May is about her baby I feel, for out of the innocent blue eyes sometimes come looks so like her mother's that I am startled, for I tended May as a child as I now tend Lulu. The slight tie is enough to hold us still tenderly together . . ." Louisa and May both had extremely strong personalities that were unique and often very incongruous. Because of this, many may find it remarkable that the two were such good friends. However, they had at least one very important characteristic in common. Both had an extremely artistic and creative spirit, with an ambition and drive to be successful in their craft. Just as Louisa dreamed of the day when her books and stories would be widely read, May longed to be recognized as an artist in her lifetime. Both achieved their goals at a time when women would find achievement of such recognition close to impossible. The two sisters almost turned their striving for success into a game. After one of May's paintings was chosen to hang in the Paris Salon in 1877, May triumphantly wrote, "Who would have imagined such good fortune and so strong a proof that Lu does not monopolize the Alcott talent. Ha! Ha! sister, this is the first feather plucked from your cap!" It was probably this shared struggle that brought May and Louisa so close together. When one considers the many sides of May, her love of laughter and fun, her special artistic talent, her mischievous nature, and her relationship with Louisa and her family, we see that Louisa was correct in her description of her sister; May was truly a lover of beauty.
|
| This site is unaffiliated with Orchard House or any other official LMA organization. It's just a fan site. The official site is http://www.louisamayalcott.org . |
|