Bruce’s autobiography she explains that at first none of the three friends (Gray, Gavin and herself) spoke French. Bruce also gives in-depth details of her daily routine and daily expenditure on food. She rose early at 6 a.m and went bathing. Then she had ‘a roll for breakfast with a cup of chocolate when funds were good, and so back to work at the art school at 8 a.m. At twelve, lunch in a little restaurant, and back to work at one. No tea. Dinner at seven. Occasionally back to the night class, occasionally a club dance or the gallery of the opera, but more usually home to bed’. Bruce’s daily expenditure on food was 95 centimes. She won a competition shortly after arrival and as a result did not have to pay fees. She was then appointed Massier where she became responsible for posing the model on the Monday morning, calling time for classes, stoking the fire and opening windows at lunchtime.
The integration of the students often resulted in men’s conversation evolving around whether the various foreign women were gentiles (sexually encouraging) or a nouvelle (a new female student). One female student at the Colarossi wrote ‘what seems simply rowdy in the men immediately appears unattractive in the girls ... we do have it harder’.48 Haweis also remarks on this in his memoirs, ‘Soon clean, neatly dressed American and English girls were seen in the Latin Quarter and they had come to study art but not so assiduously as the art students studied them’.49 Of the Parisian lack of reserve one student noted, ‘There is a childish joy in living, in letting oneself go the way nature seems to like it best, without much concern about whether it is good or bad’.50 Haweis noted that those ladies who fell for this Parisian lack of reserve sullied their own reputation. ‘Due to champagne and association with French girls a few girls encountered trouble and such risks had to be curtailed. An American girls club started which tried its best to provide protection for pure maidens – with considerable success – but the sinful remained outside’.51 Anatomy classes at the École des Beaux-Arts provided a forum where students watched their professor articulate the movement of the bones with plaster casts, skeletons and at times cadavers. Mina Loy describes in detail one such anatomy class. ‘It (the cadaver) was hung from an iron hook fixed in its cranium to a seated posture on a rickety chair’, she recalled, ‘When the lecturer hurrying across the platform to specify a muscle lifted its arm and, on being dropped, that arm slid off the dead man’s thigh’.52 The corpses for this class were mostly fished out of the river Seine.
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
