Clara H. Mountcastle (26 November 1837 – 24 May 1908)[1] was a Canadian artist and author who published her early work under the pseudonym Caris Sima.
Clara Mountcastle | |
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| Born | 26 November 1837 Huron Tract, Upper Canada |
| Died | 24 May 1908 (aged 70) Clinton, Ontario, Canada |
| Known for | |
Early years and education edit
Clara H. Mountcastle was born in Clinton, Upper Canada in 1837, one of 12 children of Sidney Harmon Mountcastle, a farmer, and Frances Laura (Meikle) Mountcastle.[1] Mountcastle received early art training from her mother, an amateur painter,[1] and later (1855–57) studied art in Toronto while living with her uncle John George Howard, an architect.[1][2] At that time she attended a private girls’ school for a term and took instruction from an English artist, one Chatterton, in working from nature.[3] By 1881, she had returned to Clinton, where she lived with two of her sisters for the remainder of her life.[1]
Career edit
Mountcastle's watercolors won five prizes at the 1870 Provincial Exhibition in Toronto.[1] She continued exhibiting at provincial and national exhibitions through the 1880s.[1][2] Critics noted her skill with traditional marine subjects.[1] In 1897, as the new Impressionist style gained favor, her work was rejected by the Ontario Society of Artists, where she had previously exhibited, and she was also prevented from joining the society.[1] She joined the Women's Art Association of Canada instead.[1]
Mountcastle's writing career did not begin until the 1880s. She published both poetry and prose and also gave dramatic readings of her work.[2] Her first two books, The Mission of Love (poems, 1882) and A Mystery (novella, 1886) came out under the pseudonym Caris Sima, which she derived from her childhood nickname of 'Carissima'.[1] Her third book, Is Marriage a Failure? (essay, 1899), came out under her own name.[1] She earned praise for her ability to write poems in a wide range of forms spanning from hymns to dialect verse, though she did not handle all equally well and her poems tended towards conventional sentimentality rather than originality.[1] Recurring subjects included rural life, ill-fated love, and attacks on critics.[1] Her meditations on aging and poverty speak to the struggles of genteel poverty which many women of her day faced, including the Mountcastle sisters.[1]
She died of kidney cancer in 1908.[4]
Publications edit
- The Mission of Love (poems, 1882)
- A Mystery (novella, 1886)
- Is Marriage a Failure? (essay, 1899)
References edit
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Godard, Barbara (1994). "Mountcastle, Clara". Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
- ^ a b c Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore, eds. A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks Of Life. Moulton, 1893, pp. 527–28.
- ^ Barbara Godard. "MOUNTCASTLE, CLARA H."
- ^ "Mountcastle, Clara". Canada's Early Women Writers. Simon Fraser University. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.