Chapter 5 Studying in France 1867

Paris was the art capital of the of the 19thcentury world. As Henry James said in 1887: “It sounds like a paradox, but it is a very simple truth, that when today we look for ‘American art’ we find it mainly in Paris. Whenwe find it out of Paris, we at least find a great deal of Paris in it.”

One of the major advantages of study in Paris was the possible attendance at the prestigious art school,the École des Beaux-Arts. The École was open not only to French artists, but foreign ones as well. To be admitted to the École, applicants had to be men between fifteen and twenty-five years of age and had to pass an examination that was given only twice a year. Foreign artists also had to apply for admission to the École through their country’s government, which could take up to nine months.The École de Dessin was the only other alternative as a government supported art school.

Many students who couldn’t get in to either of these schools opted to study at an independent atelier. Very few Americans were admitted into the French state art schools before the 1860s. A shift in leadership of the E’cole des Beaux-Arts bythe Comte de Niewerkerke changed the school’s curriculum and administration in 1863. The result was that teaching positions shifted to practicing artists and the curriculum was broadened. Some of the artists initially appointed as professors included Jean-Léon Gérôme,Alexandre Cabanel, and Isidore Pils. This proved instrumental in the admittance of some of Poole’s friends to the Ecole, although Poole himself was never admitted and instead studied independently with several of the teachers of the Ecole.

By the late 1860s, American artists were going to Europe in unprecedented numbers. The 1863 reforms atthe Ecole des Beaux-Arts gave Americans new opportunities to join in the activities of the French art community. French academic masters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme were generously patronized by the new American collectors, and as a result, they were increasingly willing to take on Americans as pupils.At the age of 26, Poole responded to the siren call of the Parisian art scene. Recognition from the Parisian art world would ensure hisfuture success and allow him to further hone his skills.

From his passport application in June of 1867, we know that, at the time, Poole was 5’ 11” tall, with grey eyes, brown hair, an oval face with a broad forehead, and a large mouth. A month after his application, on July 13, 1867, he left for Paris,France. His diary confirms that Poole’s trip was financed in large part by his mother, although he had made some money while in Baltimore by selling his Civil War busts. On the way abroad, Poole would visit some old haunts and friends, and would experience a cosmopolitan adventure or two.

In his diary, he describes spending a night in Philadelphia, visiting PAFA and getting a shave and a wash, shaking off the coal dust. He went to see a friend from PAFA, Charles Fussell(1840–1909), another young artist at the studio of their teacher, Peter Rothermel(1812—1895). He wrote, “Found him there at work on a piece, he called noise, several children blowing tin horns.” Then there was a visit with his friend Milne Ramsey (1847–1915), another PAFA colleague and Pennsylvania native. Poole noted that Ramsey “is going to startfor Europe next week.” Poole would later live and study with Ramsey in Paris.

From Philadelphia, Poole’s travels took him to New York, where he would await trans-Atlantic conveyance to France.His brief time in New York City included stops at the Free and Easy and the Eureka, both bars and taverns on Broadway. He stayed overnight at the “Marcoe House on Chestnut Street with Mr. Salters.”He spent the next day making several stops including Barnum and Baileys, where he noted, “I could not help thinking him (Barnum) a great humbug.” He also went to the Museum of Anatomy, which he enjoyed greatly. That evening, with Will Smoot, a friend from Washington, D.C.,he went to one of the most successful, if not infamous, musicals of the day at Niblo’s Garden, a location owned by John F. Poole & E.G.Gilmore, called The Black Crook. He wrote, “There seemed to be quite an opposition to it by some of the editors of the New York Paper on account of the way in which the girls are dressed.” The New York Herald had published an op-ed piece “condemning” the play for the indecency of the costumes and dancing “and urging those determined to gaze on the indecent and dazzling brilliancy of the Black Crook” to “provide themselves with a piece of smoked glass.”

For his part, Poole was unwilling to call the play immoral. “I know their dresses are considerably above their knees and also some of them displayed very pretty calves and above were equally fine looking,” but he expressed the thought that “there is always a fascination in seeking and seeing those things which are usually denied us.” His closing thought was, “Though the women, the modest, unassuming women of our day, would turn away from sucha display of hidden beauties, and why the New York ladies do not, Icannot imagine. New York is a fast city. Its men and women are fast.”

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Eventually, the time came for his departure for Europe. He reported steaming off from Pier 20 on the steamer Britannia, Anchorline. In his diary, he wrote, “I think of home and all the dear friends I leave behind, but hope tells me look not back, but ahead. Think as little aspossible of those you have parted with...Remember what you werewhen you left: a promising youth of whom much is expected, and goahead and look forward, keep your eyes open, see and take not of it. Listen and learn, be wary, be watchful, and havean object always in view. And that is to excel.”

Poole’s diaries covered in detail his trip to Edinburg, then bytrain to Liverpool, London, and eventually to Paris. In Liverpool, hesaid farewell to his shipboard friend, the 21-year-old Henry Oldham Hanlon. “I missed him very much, for I am not very good at making advancements towards strangers.” Hanlon would go on to write several theatrical pieces, “A Picked-up Dinner: A Farce in One Act,”“Facing the Music: A Comedietta in One Act,” and a “Double Shuffle.”

In London, he visited St Paul’s Cathedral. Unfortunately, also during his visit, Poole was accosted. He may not have been aware of how unsafe the streets of London were during this time, with one report say-ing the streets were “rife” with crime.“I have just been robbed,” noted Poole in his diary. “Robbed of what some would say, filthy lucre, but Ohow much in need of it I am. My last resort is to work hard to regain it.If inclination did not lead me to such a course, poverty would, and the two combined, well, will have the effect I wish; they will make me great.” Leaving London on Aug 2nd, he arrived in Paris the next day. He started to look for several contacts, including Thomas Eakins.

He lamented not speaking French, which slowed his ability to find his contacts and his friends. He visited a noted American portrait artist,Edward May, and found that he did not take pupils.He spent time at the Exposition which was the premiere juried artists exposition in Europe at the time. In October 1867, the decentennial Exposition Universelle in Paris drew 11 million visitors. It is certain that Poole was a repeat visitor to the Exposition, which was located on the extensive grounds of the Champs de Mars. In fact, the Exposition may have been one of the reasons that drew him to Parisat this time.

The 75 paintings that comprised the American collectionwere primarily landscapes. He noted, “Twilight and autumnal scenes predominated, notably Kensett’s ‘Autumn Afternoon on Lake George,’ Gifford’s ‘Hunter Mountain, Twilight,’ and George Boughton’s‘ Winter Twilight near Albany’...these works lent a somber, nostalgic tone to the exhibition.”Perhaps this was an inspiration to the future painting style of the young artist who would later make his reputation for his own autumnal landscapes. While in Paris, Poole also looked up Earl Shinn, his friend from PAFA and another American who, along with Eakins, had beenaccepted into the École de Beaux Arts.His lodgings were varied. At one point, Poole stayed at the Hotel d’Angleterre, Rue St. Lazare, 132. The hotel, which no longer exists, was very close to the Gare L’Est.

He later lived at a boarding house with his friend Milne Ramsey. In January 1868, he lived at Rue Frochat.The boarding house was close to the studio where he studied, near Montmartre, which was a center of artists and bohemian culture. He hoped to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where many ofthe most famous artists in Europe were trained. The curriculum at the Ecole was very strict. Only after completing several years ofdrawing, as well as geometry and human anatomy, were students allowed to paint that is, to use color. In fact, there was no painting at all on the curriculum of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until three years before Poole arrived in 1863.

To learn how to paint, students had to join a workshop of another painter. His friend Thomas Eakins had been admitted, but Poole was told that his admittance could take 18 months. Poole instead decided to study under well-respected artists and educators like Leon Bonnat (1833–1922) and Adolphe Yvon. Bonnat was popular with American students in Paris because he spoke English, to the relief of many monolingual Americans like Poole. Bonnat’s studiowas at the Place Vintimille at the foot of Montmartre. Yvon was known as the leading teacher of drawing at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts during the period of 1863–83. Eakins may have recommended Poole to Bonnat, and both Poole and Eakins studied with the famous artistat the same time, along with Milne Ramsey.

Bonnat, who could speak Italian and Spanish (in addition toEnglish), took no payment from his pupils. His method of instructionwas described by Edwin Howland Blashfield: “[Bonnat]...insisted upon our making hard, close studies as preparatoryto doing, later, things as vigorous as his if we pleased, more vigorous than his if we could.” Blashfield also studied with Bonnat in 1867,going on to a career as a muralist. Bonnat also insisted on a precise relationship of values and impressed that point upon young artists.

The students in his atelier were like those elsewhere, freely indulging in loud talk, smoking, sing-ing, and playing practical jokes, except when the master came twice each week to give instruction. Complete attention would then be given to him. “One of the best of the many good qualities of the Paris art student in those days,” Blashfield remembered, “was his intense respect for his master.” Several entries in Poole’s diary describe the kind of work he wasdoing under Bonnat’s tutelage. “Mr. Bonnat is very kind and will advance me all that he can after drawing a couple of hands, he put me on outlines.” From outlines, he progressed to shading. “If studywill make me an artist, then I think I will be one if I keep doing what I am doing.” His daily routine included drawing at school in the morning and at night and painting in the afternoon.

In 1868, he started the new year by describing his resolutions. Among those, he committed to writing more in his diary, and reported on a Christmas Eve oyster supper at the home of one of the students. Ten people attended, including three wives. “Or three women, for students seldom ever get married, the poor class ofwomen think themselves lucky if they can get a good man to keep them.” The party broke up at 5:00 am, too late for Poole to get into his boarding house. So, he strolled the streets until he could get in.

Poole wrote that “my work and sightseeing” are the only pleasures he has here, “rather than calling on his lady friends which would have done at home.” On January 9th, he wrote, “I have no desire to see anyone. My greatest wish is excelling in painting and to so do that soon, I must study very hard.” Keeping his diary, he reported, is “very hard,”especially given the routine he seems to have been establishing. “The life I am leading at present is so monotonous that one day’swork is like another.”

From his diary, we know that he would visit other artists in their studios to paint. One such trip was on January 20, 1868. “Commenced a picture, Wust’s studio. Bottle of brandy and [c.] Complaining with a bad cold and not feeling in the humor of working at school, for change of variety, I have attempted this little composition.” Ferdinand Alexander Wust (1837-1876) was a Dutch-born painter who was the same age as Poole and who had immigrated to the Unites States and then returned to Europe. He and Poole may have become acquainted when Wust exhibited his art at PAFA.

With snow falling, he reported that his room was cold and that he and Milne Ramsey drank milk punches. They were joined byThomas Eakins. In his diary, Poole writes about spending many evenings with Eakins, including a trip to the opera of Martha and day trips to Écouen, a small village located 11.4miles from the center ofParis on February 16th. Trips to the country were common following the Salon season. Student artists were attracted by cheap accommodationsand by local people who were willing to pose for a few sous.

One trip was to visit Eliza Holderman and Mary Cassatt who had lived in the village since 1862. Both women were ill, and so Poole and Eakins instead visited the studio of Henry Bacon (1839-1912).The two men also visited the Bois de Boulogne (March 22) and then went to Versailles the following week (March 29-April 5). Eakins introduced him to Mrs. Moore, the mother of Eakin’s friend Henry Moore, who also attended Jean-Léon Gérôme’s studio. A trip to Pont Aven followed in early May.

Later that week, Poole expressed his homesickness. “Rained all morning. Went to see Eakins in the afternoon. We went then to the garden of the plantes [Jardin des Plantes, which had a menagerie where we saw quite a few animals. The day being damp and disagreeable, most of them were in cages. Cough is getting better. Have had the blues like the mischief. No letter from home for twomonths and nearly out of money.”

The eight-week Salon season was the most prestigious annual/biannual art exhibition in the world. As many as 50,000 visitors might attend the Salon on a single Sunday, and a total of 500,000 might visit the exhibition during the season. By July, after the Salon season had ended, Americans painters in Paris, like their international counterparts, sought respite from the city’s art scene and summer heat. They often settled temporarily in rural villages.

In another letter that Eakins wrote his sister on Good Friday in May of 1868, Eakins described such a trip with Poole to Montmorency. The aspiring artists hired two donkeys to go up the hill. In his letter,Eakins reported that he got on the donkey first because “...Poole has such awful long legs he didn’t want to get on first because before somany people because you have to hold your legs up or they touch the ground because their legs are so little.” Poole described the same trip in his diary.In several diary passages, Poole noted that he was expecting money from his mother, and on May 28th, he noted receiving “a letter from mother with 530 francs.” He frequently wrote his mother and siblings, his brother, Dick, and sisters Sue and Mary. Sadly, hismother died while he was in Paris, on September 27, 1868.

Eakins’s letters to his Aunt Eliza on December 27, 1868, mentioned Poole. “An old friend of mine and Fussell’s comes to see me every once in a while, Poole of Baltimore. Ramsey comes with him. He is a pretty nice follow, but not so nice as Poole, nor can he paint so good. They study at Bonnat. I fear they will never get into our school, for even Frenchmen are now getting turned out when they don’t improve enough.” Charles Lewis Fussell(1840–1909) was another landscapeartist and friend from PAFA.

The year 1869 found Poole still in Paris, and on January 12th he reported selling his furniture for 35 francs (after having paid 125 francs for it). His teacher, Adolphe Yvon, gave him a ticket to attend his class at Beaux Arts. It is possible that at this point, Eakins joined Poole at Bonnat’s studio. After the spring semester of the Ecole, Eakins decided to study with Bonnat along with Will Sartain in Montmartre.Operas and concerts were also popular venues for young American artists abroad. Apparently, attending musical events was a popular pastime for Americans who did not speak the language. In April, Poole attended the Italian opera with Eakins and heard Adelina Pitti sing. Pitti was an enormously popular Italian opera starin Europe and the United States.

His diary ends on April 13, 1869 with a visit to the Grand Opera at Versailles for Paris Opera’s production of Faust, sung by Christina Nilsson, a Swedish soprano and contemporary of Pitti who was regarded as a leading soprano of the era.Perhaps Poole felt the same as his friend Eakins, namely that his time in Paris had finished his education.

In 1869, Eakins wrote, “I feel now that my school days are over at last and sooner than I daredhoped. What I have come to France for I accomplished...”Or, perhaps Poole was simply homesick and eager to ply his newly honed skills in his native country. With Eakins and other friends returning to the U.S., Poole likely felt it was time to do likewise.

He now would be entering a new chapter of his career as he left Paris, sailing home.