Wichita eagle., 1886-12-22
-zSSAHLS~
9aily eagle
TIE STUDY OF ART.
PICTURE OF GIRL STUDENTS LIFE
IN A PARIS ATELIER.
What One of Their Number Says Of Their
Work-A Pleasant Bit of Student Life.
Sunday Afternoons-Not Unfeminized.


Work-A Pleasant Bit of Student Life
Sunday Afternoons-Not Unfeminized
Better than any words of mine is what one
OF these girl students says herself in some
notes which / asked her TO make for me il
addition to the sketches made by another Cir
at the same atelier. give them just as they
are:
GFor any girls coming to study art in Paris,
to live IS we DO in a quiet hotel, Is far better
and more economical than TO board with q
French family or pension, unless with a wish
10 master the language. Nothing can be
more simple than our habits We have one
room. and we descend to table d'hoto when
we chooso-not otherwise. We cook our own
breakfast over spirit lamp at 8 a. n. and go
straight TO the atelier, where we work till =.
Then dejeuner at q cTemerie and work again
till ) p. m. Returning to our hotel we can
dine il we Ike, but more often we boil our
kettle, have tea and an egg, and spend the
evening over q book. 1t sounds rather a
monotonous life, yet we all find it very at
tractivc, and the weeks slip by only too fast
Even the regular morning walk is pleas
ant. at the hour the Quarter Latin is filed
with street sellers wheeling their stalls about,
housewives marketing III their white caps,
and little children in black pinafores mot
white ones being taken to school by their
bonne or garcon. Streams OF men, too, on
their way to business, newspaper in one
hand and a roll in the other, imply that hard
working Paris is waking up to its daily life.
STUDY OF CHARACTER.
Our atelier gives us every opportunity for
the study of character. In daily work to-
gether most peoples natures are clearly dis
played. There is the elderly spinster, pre-
vented from study in her youth, and always
envying the younger students who have their
life before them. Beside her is a patient
artist who has been toiling for years without
making any visible progress, but who still
hopes to succeed one day. Another, equally
hardworking, with her whole soul in her
work, scorns such thing as outward APP
pearance, and her dress, once aesthetic, looks
like worn out robe de chambre slowly
melting into a bundle of rags. But q few
who combine the love of fashion with the
love OF art comes here in costumes more
suitod to the Champs Elysees than our
crowded studio, where they are in serious
danger of rubbing against pallets, knocking
down eaSelS, etc
bits of student life Our frugal tea parties,
when the hostess boils the kettle and sets the
table, and we ali sit round the fire and dis
cusS the last exhibition, especially our own
professors work therein, or the success of
one of Us in getting into the salon, which is
held as a universal triumph to all CONVEX
sation never flags, for some of us have lived
at the ends of the earth, and can describe
them well, and others arc political spirits who
belong to debating society, and wish to re-
construct tho world after their pattern,
which the rest good-naturedly but resolutely
disapprove. Then where to spend our Sun
day afternoons is always an important con-
sheraton Nearly always we go out Of
town by road or rail, and after six days
spent in the atelier, its close atmosphere reek-
ing with oil and turpentine, the smells, sights
and sounds of the country are only too de- |
lightful
INTERESTED IN WORK.
"Such are our pleasures; but, after ALL the |
most interesting thing is our work. Every |
Monday we have the excitement of posing the |
new model. We begin enthusiastically, but |
Tuesday, after the professor has criticised our
drawings, our spirits usually sink little |
Lower still they get Wednesday and Thurs |
day; By Friday, when the second professor |
comes, they are usually down at zero Satur-
lay finds us in deepest despair, only comfort
ID by the resolution to do better next week.
md that day is generally devoted to water
,olors, or pen and ink sketches, or portraits
IF some picturesque fellow student, usually
Kept as a souvenir when the time for leaving
lie atelier comes, and the girls who have been
working together all winter go their several
ways, TO meet again-when and where, who
inows' Probably never"
But still they have done good work, poor
yirlsi and mingled it with great deal of in
lccent enjoyment. And though Paris is
most will agree, not desirable place for a
,irl TO study in alone, still necessity has no
aw, and in community is much safety Then
young students seem to gothrough the ordeal
and, SO far as | could Judge, with
,ut being unfeminized. For they are work
ngwomen, and, as they honestly say, have
mo time" for anything but work 1t is idle
aess which breeds the follieS, or worse than
'olliss, OF many young people, teaching them
10 substitute Irritation for love, and the crav-
ns for mere admiration instead Of that self
svotodness which, however sad, is, at least,
more noble than the selfish vanity of a con-
Iuering beauty. The busy life of working
woman may harden her little, but it will
never degrade or detoriorato flcr.-Harper's
8azAr.