Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams, 18571907 (Driftless Connecticut)

**The story of New England's own Mary Cassatt** Revolutionary artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857—1907), a baker's daughter from Hartford, Connecticut, biked and hiked from the Arctic Circle to Naples, exhibited from Paris to Indianapolis, trained at the Art Students League, chafed against art world rules that favored men, wrote thousands of pages about her travels and work, taught at Smith College for nearly two decades, but sadly ended up almost totally obscure. The book reproduces her unpublished artworks that capture pensive gowned women, Norwegian slopes reflected in icy waters, saw-tooth rooflines on French chateaus, and incense hazes in Italian chapels, and it offers a vivid portrayal of an adventurer, defying her era's expectations. "Over the course of nearly a decade (1983-1991), author Lyn Hejinian visited the USSR seven times, staying frequently with her friends the poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko and his wife Zina in Leningrad. During this period, she embarked on translating into English several volumes of Dragomoshcheko's poetry, and the two poets began an extensive correspondence, exchanging hundreds of letters until Dragomoshchenko's death in 2012. During her fifth visit, in conversation with Dragomoshchenko and other poets, she decided to write a novel reflecting her experiences of literary and lived life in Leningrad and Moscow. Cognizant of a general sense that the Russian novel is stereotypically "long," she determined that hers would be "short." What resulted is an experimental novel whose structure (284 chapters, each 14 lines long) pays homage to Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, which is generally regarded to be the first Russian novel: a verse novel composed in 14-line stanzas. From time to time, various members of Dragomoshchenko's circle of friends offered suggestions for the novel, as readers will note. There's abundant narrative content, but anecdotes and events are presented in non-linear form, since they unfolded over extended periods of time and thus came to Hejinian's attention piecemeal. Oxota (which means variously "huntress," "hunt," and "desire" in Russian) is a novel in which contexts, rather than contents, are kept in the foreground."--Amazon.com A verse novel composed of 14-line stanzas inspired by Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin. Between 1983 and 1991 author Lyn Hejinian visited the USSR seven times, often staying with her friends the poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko and his wife Zina in Leningrad. She decided to write a novel reflecting her experiences of literary and lived life in Leningrad and Moscow, and cognizant of a general sense that the Russian novel is stereotypically "long," she determined that hers would be "short." The result is an experimental novel whose structure (271 chapters, each 14 lines long) pays homage to Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (generally regarded to be the first Russian novel: a verse novel composed in 14-line stanzas). Oxota (which means variously "huntress," "hunt," and "desire" in Russian) is a novel in which contexts, rather than contents, are kept in the foreground. -- back cover

Revolutionary artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857—1907), a baker's daughter from Hartford, Connecticut, biked and hiked from the Arctic Circle to Naples, exhibited from Paris to Indianapolis, trained at the Art Students League, chafed against art world rules that favored men, wrote thousands of pages about her travels and work, taught at Smith College for nearly two decades, but sadly ended up almost totally obscure. The book reproduces her unpublished artworks that capture pensive gowned women, Norwegian slopes reflected in icy waters, saw-tooth rooflines on French chateaus, and incense hazes in Italian chapels, and it offers a vivid portrayal of an adventurer, defying her era's expectations.

"Mary Rogers Williams was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. She taught art at Smith College and travelled extensively through Europe and Scandinavia. Her work was shown in New York, Boston, and Paris; critics of the day didn't know what to make of her "poetic sensibility" and "shadowy quality". The book includes color reproductions and illustrations. About the author: Eve M. Kahn is a freelance writer specializing in architecture, design and preservation, and was Antiques Columnist at The New York Times, 2008-2016"-- Provided by publisher