At Ease at Her Easel : Notes on Judith Leyster
July 28 is the birthday of a 17th century woman whose self-portrait is a standout at the National Gallery of Art. Meditations led by Rolf Gates on Facebook deepened my appreciation of this painting.
Wouldn’t you love to grab a cup of coffee or tea with the woman shown above? She looks like she’d be quite fun.
She has turned from her work to give her full attention to the viewer, who is after all her guest. Her smile and direct gaze show us a woman at ease, at ease at her easel, at ease in her life. She is at work on a masterpiece, but still has time to chat.
This is a self-portrait by Judith Leyster (1609–1660) who accomplished the extraordinary. She was one of the rare female artists allowed into the painters’ guild in the Dutch city of Haarlem.
To mark her works, Leyster devised an elegant and bold signature that was a play on her maiden name. It’s her initials ..J for Judith and L for Leyster and a star. Leyster means lodestar or guiding star. Below is my copy of her signature.
More than two centuries later, this signature would reclaim her identity. Her paintings had been misattributed as being works of her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer, or of the much more famous artist of that time, Frans Hals.
But the distinctive monogram led to a rediscovery of Leyster’s work — with financial costs for later owners of these paintings, Dominic Smith explained in a 2016 article in the Paris Review. (There’s a link at the end of this essay for a bibliography of works used in my research on Leyster.)
“The reattribution from Hals to Leyster knocked 25 percent off the final sales price,” Smith wrote, and then quoted Germaine Greer’s observation from “The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Woman Painters and Their Work.”
“At no time did anyone throw his cap in the air and rejoice that another painter, capable of equaling Hals at his best, had been discovered.”
Leyster is certainly showing off with her self-portrait.
Look at the expression in her eyes, that natural smile, the weight of that hand. Leyster paints herself in fine lace and an elegant dress, clothes she would not have work while working. But she likely wanted to appear to have prospered in her business.
On her easel is a portrait of a man playing violin. She often painted musicians and merrymakers. So this self-portrait is intended, it seems, to also drum up new business for Leyster, as it were.
Leyster chose to paint herself at ease at her easel, but her life must have its moments of stress, as anyone’s does. Leyster appears for example, to have sued the more famous painter, Frans Hals, over a dispute about a student who left her workshop without permission.
She was a woman working in a man’s field in the 17 century. Her artistic career seems to have dropped after her marriage. Perhaps she may have been busy running the family home or lent her talents to her husband’s work.
The title of this essay occurred to me after listening to meditations that yoga teacher Rolf Gates leads on Facebook.
Gates emphasizes the need for the kind of composure and calmness Leyster exudes in her self-portrait. He refers often to the idea of “ease” as a goal. He ended a recent session saying “May all beings be healthy, may all beings be happy, may all beings find their freedom, may they know peace and may they walk through the world with ease.”
I looked Gates up on Facebook after a recent chat with two friends whose meditations practices impress me. On a Zoom call, the three of us wound up talking about our initial immersions in yoga. My friends both had had yoga teachers in the past who pushed their students too far. They and some of their classmates wound up with injuries from their time on the mat.
Injured from time on your yoga mat…how odd that sounds to me.
My earliest immersion into yoga started around 2001, 2002 when I lived in Boston. Gates was my favorite of a good group of teachers at the yoga studio I frequented. I remember him telling us during at least one class about his own struggle with a posture. The message was to try your best with the postures, but to also acknowledge that you might not be able to do every pose every day for as long as you might want. Gates brought a calm and honest energy to his teaching.
My favorite part of his classes were the readings Gates included.
These reinforced the idea of our yoga practice as being integrated into our efforts to lead kinder lives. Gates since has published books exploring these same ideas.
We should take what we gain from time on the mat or meditation out into the world with us. A tremendous amount of work is required to be at ease in this world, to be open and engaged with others, as Leyster appears to be in her self-portrait.
There are days that will challenge us. They will put a quick end to the composure in which we have invested so many hours building on the mat. You may have own jokes about this, riffing on the clever titles of Charlotte Kasl’s books like “If the Buddha Dated” and “If the Buddha Got Stuck.” My entries in this category include “If the Buddha Were on Hold With Verizon for 72 Minutes.”
But the goal remains. That intention of walking with the world with the ease should be our leyster.
Click here for my bibliography of works used in writing on European artists.
