Frank W. Benson: Academie Julian, Paris

"The Open Window" by Frank Benson

"On his twenty-first birthday Frank Benson asked his father if he could study abroad. There probably was a long pause while the fiscally conservative cotton broker thought the matter over. Ultimately, perhaps because of Benson's teaching position in Salem and this public acknowledgment of his talent, or the paycheck he was able to bring home, his father relented. In the autumn of 1883, together with his classmate, Joseph Lindon Smith, Benson sailed for Paris. His parents gave him $1,000 and told him to come home when it was spent.

Benson's days in Paris were filled with his studies at the Académie Julian. Securing rooms for themselves at No. 10 Rue Croix des Petits Champs, he and Lindon Smith spent their days drawing from the models at the Académie where criticisms were given once a week by renowned instructors from the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Such men as Bouguereau, Lefebvre, Robert-Fleury, Constant, Doucet, and Boulanger gave 'crits' to students from all over Europe and America. It was Boulanger who gave Benson the highest commendation that any of the students had ever heard from him. 'Young man,' he said, studying Benson's portrait of an old man. 'Your career is in your hand... you will do very well.'

Although he enjoyed his studies, Benson always found time for sport and spent as much time as possible out-of-doors. With a group of friends, he soon found a French sparring club where they practiced boxing and tried their hand at fencing. Benson sketched them. It was not just the act of a sport that fascinated Benson, but the look of the people engaged in it. He studied their movements and their positions then translated these quickly to paper. Years later, when his own daughter announced her intention to become an artist, he encouraged her to take several anatomy classes, for it was an area in which he felt he had always been weak. He found that when he tried to paint the human figure from memory, it did not go well. His sketches of people were sometimes awkward and ill-proportioned."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson" by Faith Andrews Bedford.)