The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-07
PARIS ART STUDENTS
The Life of American Women in
the AtelierS.
GLIMPSE OF THE ACADEMIC JULIA
The Mixed Glasses and Do They Demoralize
the Girls Who Attend Them-Rum0rs
and Their Foundation.

PARIS, Sept. l, 1s9O.-lSpeciai CORES
pondence of The HERALD. I'm the two
ateliers Of the Academies Julien for men
there are perhaps six hundred stu
dents. In the two ateliers for women
there are about four hundred. ] do
not not say that these figures repre-
sent the numerical proportion between the
sexes in the multiplied art schools of Paris.
but in the student world of the Latin
quarter the women who are painting,
modelling and drawing come TO the surface
more and more frequently. In the CALLER
les of the Louvre and the Luxembourg one
IS constantly stumbling upon their easels.
Absorbed each in her copy of Murrillo or
a Raphael, they seem oblivioas of the crude
art criticism of the hordes of tourist look
ers-on. On the banks of the Seine, in the
cathedrals, in the narrow streets that di
vide the crumbiing medieval buildings of
G Rouen, everywhere the woman art student
If en- erideaee.
At Julian's they show the corner in
which
MARIE BAsuRIETsEFF SOMETIMES WORKED
by herself. her easel and some of her
sketches. They do not speak of her work
with a-y marked degree of respect, though
have heard young painter of the oppo-
site sex say they spoiled her with fiattery,
adding: at was pity, for she had good
81 dff in here
The Academic Julian is probably better
known in America through the number OF
American students it has attracted than
any other Partisan art school. The ateiier
for women in the Passage des Panoramas is
approached through one of those labyrinths
of roofed-in arcades bordered with shops
which are among the sights of continental
cities. One climbs narrow winding stair,
where models lie il wait to thrust their pro
1eSsional cards into ones hands on the
landing, and is admitted under the sky
light of long, dinghy orowE room, with
brown floor, brown walls hung with casts
and sketches, and raised platform in the
middle Of one side, behind which are hung
reddish brown draperies and on which
nude brownish woman is sitting.
CLUSTERED ABOUT THE MODEL,
their easels touching, are groups of women
painting, some the full figure, some the
head anu bust only. They do not look up
at a strangers entrance: they do not speak
except when the model changes ever so
slightly the position of one cramped arm.
Then comes volley of impatient excama-
tions and the brown woman silently and
without Il movement of her features re-
spmes her pose
The students are young, from nineteen
to twenty seven or twenty-eight, quietly
dressed, with Bohemian disregard for the
prevailing fashions, and as the minutes go
on in the stiffness OF the place you could
hear the drop of a pin. A clock strikes
At the first note the model rises and steps
down from her chair. There is the lifting
of heads and the voluble chatter of mag
pies. The atelier is not full. One should
see 1t in winter. Many have not returned
from the mountains, from the sea, from the
river. In January they sit so close they
cannot move. Mademoiselle, whose easel
is there, is the strongest worker. She is
not in to-day. They discuss one another
with perfect frankness and without jeal-
ousy, assigning to each her exact position
in the student world. The model stands
quietly meanwhile, looking, without much
interest, at Que or two of the easels The
students say nothing to her; her attitude
is unconscious, nonchalant. Presently she
winds scarf half about her person. In
fifteen minutes she IS to pose again. Her
face is dark and not without beauty; her
figure, heavy, indolent and unattractive.
THERE USED TO BE MIXED CLASSES
At Julian's for men and women, but the
separation is now so complete that the stu
dents of one sex know absolutely nothing
about the doings of the other. With the
exception of the professors, who are the
same for the different schools, and the
models. no male beings crosses the TIRES
holds of women's ateliers, and save for the
models, no women under any circum.
stances, are allowed to visit the studios of
the men.
Mixed classes, however, exist in Paris,
and the Academic Colorassi, which per-
mits them, is by some artists allowed a
higher rank than Julian's. American girls
in considerable numbers ale STUDYING al
both these schools, and their presence in
classes made upof both sexes before nude
models is frequently the topic of lively dis
cussion. That their attendance is some
times misunderstood, little conversation
repeated to me yesterday abundantly ex-
emplifies. A young Frenchman called on
an American friend at one of .the ateliers
Noticing the bright, intelligent looking
girls, why don't you set housekeeping
with one of the!'' was his immediate ques
ton.
''Hushi'' said the American. "You
donit know what you are talking about
These are my countrywomen, the truest
women in the world, and your thought
dishonors them"
Nonsense returned the Frenchman
"YoC can't play me for fool. Don't
know the habits and customs of respectable
women? Would respectable women be
here!"
1t must have been
SUCH MISUNDERSTANDING AS THIS
or else unwarrantable concentrations from
isolated instances which started the reports
that gained such currency in New York il
the spring, apropos of Mr.. ST. Gaudens
mixed class in sculpture at the Art Stu.
dents league, of the looseness of morals
into which women studying art in Paris
and especially American women, were
said to fall. These reports, if true, pointed
to such foulness in the atmosphere of tn.
steliers and such rottenness of life in the
side streets of Quarter Latin that i
seemed only right that parents with daugh
ters to educate, and for that matter sons.
should judge whether art were GOODIES
worth serving with mud knee deep abou
her temple
1t was with some idea of learning th,
true condition of affairs that set myself t.
making the acquaintance Of such of tn,
American students as / could find in tow
In the early autumn, and after talking will
them feel assured that, wholly aside from
ity of mixed classes in painting or sculp
ture, the young woman or man who studie
art in Paris mas much the same problems u
meet as in any other city. The French cap
ital is probably less wicked than New
York; the kind of life one lives depends
altogether on ones self, as everywhere.
There have been
INDIVIDUAL CASES OF SCANDAL,
prominent ones, among the American ar
students in Paris. The escapade of Georg,
Hitchcock recurs at once to every mind
Three prominent French artists are said Il