MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF.

PIONEER IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The diary of Marie BashkirtsefT, which created so great a stir in several European,countries during the late nineteenth century, is now no longer widely read. The self - revelation which made it then seem so extraordinary and (to some) so shocking a production is now a familiar feature of autobiography. But Miss Dormer Creston in "Fountains of Youth: The Life of Marie BashkirtsefT" (Thornton Butterworth) has written a volume which will be of the greatest interest to those who are not familiar with the diary, and which will help to fill in important details in the picture in the minds of those to whom her name has become a household word.

The effect, of her diarv upon the world of ISS7 can be realised only by an effort of tlie imagination. Even now, when candour is there are those exponents of tne art who have far to go to catch up to Marie Bashkirtseff, for she had the unusual virtue of being perfectly well aware of her own overweening vanity and her intense desire for fame and recognition. With perfect frankness she dedicated herself to the pursuit of "la gloire." but in spite of beauty and wit achieved mainly notoriety and unpopularity. Nevertheless her attainments were considerable. So much excitement and adventure was packed into her short life that it is with a shock the reader realises that she was only twenty-four at the time of I her death. "Possessing nothing myself," began her will, "I enjoin my family to carry out my wishes." And these included the erection (with Aunt Sophie's money) of a chapel in her memory, as well as a scholarship in painting" and annual distributions of largesse to the poor. The family faithfully carried out these requests and impoverished itself in so doing, but one wishes that Marie could have kad the satisfaction of knowing the excitement that the publication of her diary would so soon create. Nothing would have pleased her more.