Philip de Laszlo: Studying at Academie Julien, Pt. 1

"Man Wearing a Fez," Academic work
by Philip de Laszlo

Philip de Laszlo wrote: "The Academie Julien was an old building, square and sombre without any artistic or architectural beauty - and a great lack of cleanliness! But the interior was enlivened by the aspirations, the hopes, the enthusiasm of hundreds of young artists gathered with one aim and one love - art and beauty. There was one studio after another with models of both sexes, surrounded by four or five rows of eager students. Each studio had its different master, whom the student was free to choose when he entered the Academie. It was the very world for which I had been longing, and I only wished I could have known it sooner.

The rules in force at Julien's were most ingenious. Every Monday morning each class had a new model for whom there were often fifty or sixty students. To avoid arguments about places, every Saturday the master gave out a subject for a composition to paint that afternoon or on Sunday morning - there was scarcely any time to read up the subject or the opportunity of making preliminary sketches at home.

We were each given a canvas, about ten by sixteen inches, to paint at the school, watched by the head of the class, so that no one should copy another's work. We left the sketches on the easels, signed them with a motto or pseudonym, so that the criticism should be quite impartial, and on Sunday the master inspected them and allotted them number from one to ten. The remainder were given no number at all. Each number one sketch was kept by the school and exhibited at the end of term; from those the Council bought the best, which was hung in its respective class as an example of contemporary work. Many of those sketches became famous. I remember that among the subjects we had to paint were 'Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon' and 'LAbandonnee' - a poor woman with a baby in her arms.

When the students assembled on Monday mornings the head of the class read out the pseudonyms on the selected sketches. The painter of number one had the right to choose his place first, and the other nine in succession. Those who saw they had no chance or had done no sketches, were looking round, easel in hand, and after the the numbers had been read out they ran to the places they had chosen and stood in them until everyone had been placed. Then the names were written in white chalk on the floor under the easels.

This rule had great moral advantages. It not only encouraged the students to practice expressing their thoughts on canvas, but prevented squabbling and jealousy."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Portrait of a Painter" by Owen Rutter.)