[00:00.00]Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.
[00:07.51]MALE PROFESSOR: We've been talking about the art world of the late nineteenth century in Paris, [00:12.24]and today I’d like to look at the women who went to Paris at that time to become artists.[00:18.29]Now, um, from your reading, what do you know about Paris…about the art world of Paris during the late nineteenth century?
[00:26.76]MALE STUDENT: People came there from all over the world to study.
[00:30.80]FEMALE STUDENT: It had a lot of art schools and artists who taught painting. [00:34.92]There were…our book mentions classes for women artists. [00:39.68]And, uh, it was a good place to go to study art.
[00:43.79]MALE PROFESSOR: If you wanted to become an artist, Paris was not a good place to go– Paris was the place to go. [00:51.95]And women could find skilled instructors there. [00:55.67]Um, before the late nineteenth century, if they…women who wanted to become artists had to take private lessons or learn from family members. [01:06.64]They had more limited options than men did.
[01:09.36]But around 1870, some artists in Paris began to offer classes for female students. [01:15.89]These classes were for women only.[01:18.45]And by the end of the nineteenth century, it became much more common for women and men to study together in the same classes. [01:26.87]So…so within a few decades, things had changed significantly.
[01:31.66]Uh, OK, let's back up again and talk about the time period from the 1860s to the 1880s, and talk more about what happened in women’s art classes. [01:43.26]In 1868, a private art academy opened in Paris—and for decades it was probably the most famous private art school in the world. [01:54.49]Its founder, Rodolphe Julian, was a canny businessman. [02:00.03]and quickly established his school as a premiere destination for women artists. [02:05.96]What he did was, after an initial trial period of mixed classes, he changed the school policy; [02:13.42]he completely separated the men and women students.
[02:17.38]FEMALE STUDENT: Any reason why he did that?
[02:19.21]MALE PROFESSOR: Well, like I said, Julian was a brilliant businessman with progressive ideas—[02:25.11]he saw that another small private art school where all the students were women was very popular at that time, [02:32.74]and that’s probably why he adopted the women-only classes.[02:36.92]These classes were typically offered by, um…by established artists and were held in the studio, the…the place where they painted.
[02:46.01]This was a big deal because finally women could study art in a formal setting. [02:52.07]And there was another benefit to the group setting of these classes. The classes included weekly criticism. [02:59.15]And the teacher would rank the art of all the students in the class, from best to worst. [03:05.68]How would you like it if I did that in this class?
[03:08.72]MALE STUDENT: No way!
[03:10.25]FEMALE STUDENT: But our textbook said that the competitive…the competition was good for women.[03:14.90]It helped them see where they needed to improve.
[03:17.46]MALE PROFESSOR: Isn't that interesting? [03:19.18]One woman artist, um her name was Marie Bashkirtseff. [03:24.64]Uh, Bashkirtseff once wrote how she felt about a classmate's work. [03:30.97]She thought her classmate’s art was much better than her own, and it gave her an incentive to do better.
[03:38.12]Overall, the competition in the women’s art classes gave women more confidence… [03:44.13]confidence that they could also compete in the art world after their schooling.[03:48.47]And even though Bashkirtseff couldn’t study in the same classes as men, she was having an impact as an artist. [03:56.27]Um, just look at the Salon. [03:59.59]What do you know about the Salon?
[04:02.50]FEMALE STUDENT: It was a big exhibition, um, a big art show that they had in Paris every year. [04:09.57]The art had to be accepted by judges.
[04:11.93]MALE STUDENT: It was a big deal. [04:13.13]You could make a name for yourself.
[04:14.75]MALE PROFESSOR: You could have a painting or sculpture in the Salon and go back to your home country saying you’d been a success in Paris. [04:22.71]Um, it was sort of a seal of approval. [04:25.85]It was a great encouragement for an artists’ career. [04:29.61]And by the last two decades of the nineteenth century, one fifth of the paintings in the Salon were by women—much higher than in the past.
[04:38.23]In fact, Marie Bashkirtseff herself had a painting in the Salon in 1881.[04:44.19]Interestingly, this masterpiece, called In the Studio, is a painting of the interior of Julian’s art school. [04:53.54]Um, it's not in your textbook—[04:55.50]I’ll show you the painting next week… [04:57.33]Uh, the painting depicts an active, crowded studio with women drawing and painting a live model.
[05:04.75]It was actually, Bashkirtseff actually followed Julian’s savvy suggestion, and painted her fellow students in a class at the school with the artist herself at the far right—[05:18.22]a great advertisement for the school when the painting eventually hung at the Salon, for a women’s studio had never been painted before.
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