Certain teachers were particularly admired in the Colarossi. Raphael Collin (1850-1916) was one such. ‘His force and exaltation of temperament impresses one as being the rare gift or the finer inflorescence of character’.53 Others were the Orientalist Louis Giradot (1858-1933), Gustave Courtois (1852-1923), the Czech Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) who taught decorative arts, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929) and the Norwegian Christian Krohg (1852-1925). Night-time drawing classes were also available, where it was said the level of accomplishment was higher. Both Loy and Haweis attended these classes.54 The Colarossi’s reputation grew and it drew large numbers of students. One could learn as much outside of class as in. The most interesting discussions took place in the cafés – as described in Chapter 1. However, to attend the cafés a lady needed to be chaperoned. One solution was to visit other students in their studios or to dine in expensive restaurants. Students would also hire models to their studios and share the cost.
Gray soon transferred to the Académie Julian. Of the private schools the Académie, founded in 1868 by Rodolphe Julian (1839-1907), reproduced most faithfully the discipline of the École des Beaux-Arts and they were seen as rivals. If one wanted access to the most successful painters of the day it was the place to enrol. Its liberal enrolment policies attracted many international students and, though it received no subsidy of any sort, Julian rented ateliers, which he could open and close as demand dictated, keeping costs at a minimum. ‘Paris in those years was filled with students from all over the globe, all filled with a high resolve to learn as much as they could and to seize every opportunity to perfect themselves in their particular arts’.55 The academy prospered and so could award prizes and fees were reduced to a moderate sum. The staff included a number of the professors from the École des Beaux-Arts or some who had previously studied there. But, as Henry noted, it was more than just the professors who contributed to the school’s reputation. ‘I often thought that in the free companionship there and mixing with a large cosmopolitan crowd I learnt more than could ever be taught by the formal masters in the schools’.56 Julian felt that women should be given the same opportunities afforded to male artists, and the presence of women in the ateliers is recorded as early as 1873. Due to impropriety and some awkwardness in the shared studios, studios were established exclusively for women in 1876-77. Julian responded more to the needs of bourgeois families, who felt that the study of art was essential for the education of their daughters but they were fearful of mixed classes.57 The school’s brochure actually prided itself on its segregated classes, where in ‘an atmosphere of impeccable character and advanced technical values’, a woman could ‘acquire a professional attitude which, quite unlike the plague of amateurism, had made these women’s classes successful’.58 Women were taught by the same professors as their male counterparts. Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-84), who enrolled in the Académie in 1877, elected to attend the women’s atelier primarily because she felt that there was no essential difference between the classes, since the women also drew from the male nude.59 Henry noted that during his time at the Académie ‘There was also an Académie Julian for women somewhere or another... but the number of women students must have been considerable to judge by the number of portfolios which I passed daily’.60
An elaborate system of competitions involving both men and women took place. Rivalry among students was apparent but also considered engaging. Once a month all the students competed together. Examining professors did not know either the sex or the name of the students until the results were announced. Women often fared much better in these competitions, especially in portraiture.61 Standards remained high and competition was keen. Those who showed talent were encouraged, and received valuable advice and criticism. Exhibitions of work and prizes prepared the students for the experience of exhibiting in the Salon where standards were exceedingly high. In fact Julian was confident that his students’ work would be shown in the Salon. The Salon was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From 1881 onward it was organised by the Société des Artistes Français. In 1903 a group of painters and sculptors led by Auguste Rodin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir organised the Salon d’Automne in response to what many believed to be a bureaucratic and conservative organisation.
Professors were chosen for their ability to teach and for the influence that they exerted on their students. Some students favoured one instructor, whereas others worked with several. The programmes of studies for men and women were similar. Henry wrote ‘In the studios nude models, male and female stood all day. The students of sculpture worked in one set of studios and painters in another. Twice a week the masters came in to inspect our work. If for any reason you did not feel inclined to have your work criticised you either absented yourself or just turned the drawing around with its face to the wall’.62 The school was described as an overcrowded hive of activity, ‘a congerie of studios crowded with students, the walls thick with palette scrapings, hot airless and extremely noisy’.63 Henry also describes life at the Académie. ‘The studios of the Julian group were crowded and overflowing, and teachers and masters of all kinds were available’.64 Women were provided with the services of a ‘bonne’ or assistant who ran errands for them. As in the men’s studios the work was almost entirely technical, with long sessions of life classes. By 1885 there was a course of lectures on anatomy and perspective and dissections of dead bodies were performed in the students’ presence. Fees were double for women, possibly because of the extra expense of providing segregated studios. The first women’s atelier was located on the second floor at 27 Galerie Montmartre in the Passage des Panoramas. It was ‘located near one of the principal boulevards and approached by a flight of steps leading up to the first landing. A small door opened into a moderate sized room with a skylight, a stove in the centre, an evident lack of ventilation and a platform on which sat a draped model’.65 As the number of students increased, a second studio for women was opened in the nearby rue Vivienne, but this later closed. The main studio for men moved to the rue du Faubourg St Denis. Eventually the Passage des Panoramas became the site of Jean-Paul Laurens’s (1838-1921) studio, the site of popular women’s classes which continued until the beginning of the First World War. Haweis describes Laurens. ‘He was very kind to me, but he could be quite the reverse at times. He was a big man, not unlike a highly civilised gorilla, and it was the custom of the class to follow him around from easel to easel, listening to all the criticisms he made upon the different studies’. In 1888 another women’s studio was added at 28 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and a more permanent atelier soon opened at 5 rue de Berri, just off the Champs Élysées, with 400 square metres of space. In addition to classes for drawing and painting, there were sculpture, watercolour and miniature painting classes. William Bouguereau (1825-1905) taught there. Henri Chapu (1833-1891), followed by Raoul Verlet (1857-1923) and Paul Landowski (1875-1961) taught sculpture. About 1890 two more women’s studios opened, one at 28 rue Fontaine and the other adjacent to the men’s atelier at 5 rue Fromentin. Jules Lefebvre (1836-1911) and Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1912) took charge of these studios. In that year the main studio for men was transferred to 31 rue du Dragon. A further women’s atelier opened at 55 rue du Cherche-Midi nearby and occupied the entire building. This is possibly where Gray studied.
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