warm sun, singing their native lullabies, forgetful of
lia ing trod on Oriental carpets, worn brocaded coats,
or of having posed (disgraceful ones !) in the very
simplest and liglitest of costumes !
Frequently, in fine, the crowds do not always
come back ; some of the more indomitable cliaracters
have said farewell to their hills and to their past
and give themselves up entirely to the life which
cliance has opened up to them, and, giddy and
dazzled by the fascinating novelty, have found that
it is worth more tlian the bare smoi<y walls of their
poor homes.
Up there in their country in the cold winters or
in the years of deartli, hunger has knocked at the
door more than once, wjiilst in Rome it is quite
different ; there ai-e restaurants where there is
everything- good to eat, and kind artists wjio gave
jewellery ; there are furnished rooms in which you
can sleep golden slumbers, and where the hens do
not fly on to the bed nor the pig of the house waken
you with its grunting. Those who act thus discard
with horror the costume of the ' Ciociara to dress
according to the fasiiion of the citv, and become the
models described as ' minentc. Then after some
years of Bohemian life, and according to chance,
when youth is ]5ast and freshness fails, they become
either the lovers of some miserable wretch who makes
money by them and beats them, or the lawful wife
of some infatuated artist, some eccentric banker, or
some man of title without relations, or else the doors
are ojiened wide and they are liidden for ever — sad
reality — within the walls of an liospital.
AUNALDC FeUKAGUTI.
{Trnitslated from tlic Italian by M. E. C. C.)
NOTES FROM PARIS STUDIOS.
Of course the great qtiestion among the artists just now is, ' What will the "big men" send to the Exposition next year? ' Of course, too, these same '.big men ' keep their secret to themselves. Still we can catch a rumour here or there of what this or that great professor has 'on the stocks,' or rather on the easel. For instance, they say that Lefevre — who ' has taken out a patent ' for the painting of delicate young girls and children— is this year to produce a ' Lady Godiva.' One can hardly doubt that, looked at from an academical standpoint, he will make a success of the picture — at least so far as the painting of ' Miladi' goes ; though one may be permitted to doubt about the horse. I think a good many Frenchmen look upon a horse with a certain kind of terror, and prefer not to go too near it. Our friend Lefevre may, how- ever, work from a stufled horse; in which case he will be in but little danger from its hoofs. I remember passing the studio of an artist of some repute who had recently painted a ' Leda and the Swan.' As I passed, the swan was brought out, very much the worse for wear — need I add that it Was stufled ? Vivc' le Rialisinc fraii^ais. M. Tony Robert-Fleury is engaged on a picture of ' Washington parting from his Officers.' He has been at great pains to get his costumes and faces of the utmost historical truth. He eagerly asks his American friends difficult questions about the uniforms of continental officers — questions not easy to answer. Gerome is at work at several pictures, — one being ' A Lion gazing at the Sun rising from the Sea,' — a subject w'hich I think he has painted before. One student relates that, going to call on the revered master, he was horrified to discover him tracing a photograph of a lion for use on his picture. How true this may be I know not ; let us hope not at all. The death of Gustave Boulanger has made a serious gap in the ranks of professors at the Kcole des Beaux-Arts. Boulanger, like Ingres, was one of those men who, rather mediocre as an artist, was an immense power as a teacher. Hundreds of men, from Julien's Academy, or from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, remember his searching criticism with gratitude even if that criticism were crushing, which it generally was. Old students fondly recall some of his sweeping corrections. ' The model has all the distinction of a Grande Duchesse, and you have made a washerwoman.' 'Why have you painted a gendarme instead of the young girl before you ? ' ' Your "Bonhomme" looks as if he were going to die of inanition. ' With all this roughness he had yet a kindly heart, and would do all that he could to help and encourage a young student whom he thought serious and in earnest. Having spent much time in Italy and other countries beside France, his sympathies were more cos- mopolitan than those of the average Frenchman, and he treated English and Americans with the same fairness that he did the French students. This, of course, made him the admiration of many of the American and English students, and among the throng that foUow-ed his body to the grave many w ere of those two nations. From all this wire-pulling of the academies it's rather a pleasure to turn to the out-door nran — the ' plein-assisto,' the impres- sionists. It was my lot last summer to spend a couple of months at Giverny, where the arch-impressionist Manet works, and there I saw a good deal and heard more of his ways and methods. Several enthusiastic young Englishmen and Americans down there had gone in for his theories, ' hook, line, and sinker,' and from them I used to hear stories amusing at least. It seems that he doesn't care to paint all effects of nature ; certain aspects, especially that of full sunlight, are what interest him. For a month of grey weather he may 'loaf about, his hands in his pockets, doing nothing ; a season of sunny weather will come on, and he will work like a fiend from seven in the morning till six at night. He is a great stickler for only painting the exact effect you wish, and for that reason will never work more than two hours a day at any one picture. For he maintains that even in that time the position of the sun has so much changed as to change the effect of the given suliject. For the same reason, if a cloud never so small cross the snn, he will stop — will not touch the canvas till his exact effect has returned. For this reason too, he will work on eight, sometimes so many as twelve canvases a day. One sees a little caravan following him out into the fields carrying his canvases. He will have two of the studies set up on easels, side by side, of the same subject, one a sunny effect, the other grey. Perhaps the whole two hours seance will be sunny — in that case, the grey picture remains untouched ; perhaps a large cloud passes over the sun, quick he runs to the grey study, and paints away for dear life till the cloud has passed. The two hours are done, out come two more studies, and at it again. An interval for lunch, and then more duplicate studies till sunset.
Although a ' come-outer ' and hater of all academic formulas — whether of composition or drawing — he nevertheless takes great pains about both, in his own particular way. So careful is he about the choice of a subject that I have heard of his going by rail to a spot, some ten miles from his home, which he wished to paint, work an hour and return, doing this for days till his study was finished.
