Lessons from Laurens and Benjamin-Constant

 

Jean-Paul Laurens: La Délivrance des emmurés de Carcassonne, 1879
(The delivery of immured, of Carcassonne)

Öljy kankaalle, 430 x 350 cm

Musee des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne

Lähde: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

I have told about the travel grant Richard Hall received from the Swedish government in my blog post The Royal Medal. It enabled him to continue his studies in Paris, which was the center of European fine arts at the time. The situation regarding state-funded art education in France was similar to that in Sweden: teaching at the École des beaux-arts de Paris was considered old-fashioned, which made private art schools popular.

The most famous schools included the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. In addition, many artists took on private students. There was plenty of demand for teaching, as young artists traveled to Paris from many countries. For instance among Finnish artists, Akseli Gallen-Kallela studied at the Académie Julian and Helene Schjerfbeck at the Académie Colarossi.

There is surprisingly little literature available on private art schools and teaching in Paris at the end of the 19th century, or it is difficult to access. For the time being, I am therefore relying on information found on the Internet. Richard Hall briefly described his studies in Paris in an interview with the newspaper Uusi Suometar in 1909. Otherwise, his further studies remain shrouded in mystery. We will content ourselves with reviewing the art of his teachers.

Memories of art studies in Paris

After moving to Paris in the fall of 1881, Richard Hall began private art studies with the help of a scholarship, which lasted a couple of years. According to him:

[---] But Richard Bergh was my studio mate in Paris, where we worked together for a couple of years as students of J. B. Laurens... and I also studied under Benjamin Constant...

Richard Bergh had been Hall's fellow student at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. Bergh studied at the Académie Colarossi in addition to Laurens' studio. In an interview with Uusi Suometar, Hall also says that he developed as an artist partially thanks to his teachers in Paris:

[---] ...and partly also thanks to my French teachers. J. B. Laurens was a good portrait painter... and Benj. Constant was one of France's best colorists and virtuosos... [---]

Laurens was a history painter, and Benjamin-Constant was known as an Orientalist who also painted historical subjects. Thus, both of Hall's teachers had a similar background to himself. However, we do not know why Hall chose these particular teachers and did not, for example, go to study at the Académie Julian or the Académie Colarossi.

Jean-Paul Laurens: Self-portrait, 1876

Oil, 43 x 37 cm

Uffizin taidemuseo
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Teachers

Jean-Paul Laurens (1838–1921) worked as a teacher at both the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, a state art school, and the Académie Julian. Laurens taught at the latter art school from at least 1890 onwards. Laurens was a republican and an opponent of the power of the church, which is reflected in the subjects of his historical paintings. He was respected as a technically skilled painter and an excellent teacher. Laurens also produced many commissioned works for public spaces. 

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902) began teaching at the Académie Julian in 1888. Benjamin-Constant was known for his Orientalist subjects, which he had been inspired to paint while living in Morocco in the early 1870s. They often depicted historical events. In the 1880s, he began to produce large murals and portraits. He became a popular portraitist, particularly among the English aristocracy.

 

L'Entrée du sultan Mehmet II à Constantinople le vingt-neuf mai 1453, 1876

(Entry of Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople)
Oil on canvas, 697 x 536 cm

Musée des Augustins

Source: Wikimedia Commons