A Woman’s Life of War Pictures: Elizabeth Butler (1846–1933)

Nathalie Saudo-Welby (1)

1 CORPUS - Conflits, représentations et dialogues dans l'univers anglo-saxon - UR UPJV 4295

Elizabeth Butler made a career as a battle artist and narrated the progress of her career and many travels abroad in several pieces of autobiographical writing (Letters from the Holy Land, 1903; From Sketchbook and Diary, 1909) illustrated with her own watercolours. In 1922, at the age of 76, she published her autobiography, which included reproductions from her sketchbooks. These texts give a rare glimpse of the formative years of a woman artist, one who was to excel in a genre dominated by men. The autobiography uses a double-voiced narrative to an ironic effect, thus rebutting the traditional masculine ethos of life writing: extracts from her teenage diary expressing youthful enthusiasm and na\"ive hopes are included, contrasting with the words of the mature and successful artist. Butler also tackles her legitimacy as a female military artist, describing how she was able to overcome the hurdle of her sex. \textcopyright 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Nathalie Saudo-Welby. A Woman’s Life of War Pictures: Elizabeth Butler (1846–1933). Text and Image in Women's Life Writing, Springer International Publishing, pp.199-214, 2021, Palgrave Studies in Life Writing, ⟨10.1007/978-3-030-84875-0_11⟩. ⟨hal-04231701⟩