Art “Goes West” in Latin Quarter

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 22

Art “Goes West” in Latin Quarter

Students Live for Night Life, Says Mureil Painter .. . A

■I F you’re dreaming of I getting the thrill of a I lifetime by wandering | through the Latin Quar- | ter —if you are eager to absorb the spirit of great art in the colourful, romantic streets and studios frequented by students and artists —you may be disappointed in Paris. - If you're a doting parent, willing and perhaps proud to finance the visions of an artistic future for your son or daughter, investigate before you send the youngster to Paris. “As a matter of fact,” says tVilliam Tefft Schwarz, mural painter, who has just paid his first visit to Paris since the war, “any man who permits his boy or girl to go to Paris for art study is committing a crime against aspiring youth and is derelict in his duty as a father. “All the character of the Latin Quarter is gone,” declares Mr. Schwarz. “The atmosphere and the people who helped to create honest work in art and sincere and talented artists have almost completely dis- “ The camaraderie of the poor, hardworking students whom I knew 10 or 20 years ago has degenerated into looseness and licence, inspired by the wildest ideas about the freedom of the sexes. “An old friend of mine, who is the confidante of this generation as he was of the last, recited the most astounding tales of the difficulties into which young girls frequently fall.

“When I was a student 15 years ago there were few girls of any nationality studying in the quarter, but now the place is flooded with them and it is very easy to succumb to the vitiating influence of the heedless youngsters who reflect the current atmosphere.” Mr. Schwarz condemned the commercialism which, he claims, has converted the section into an octopus for sucking in money, and described in some detail the changes which have completely blotted out the cafes and gathering places that were the haunts of famous artists.

“The Cafe de Dome is one of the most famous points in the quarter. Here Whistler and Pennell and all the great artists of that time used to lounge after a day’s work in classes and studios. It was a leisurely, delightful place in which to spend an evening. “Tourists who seek the quarter have, of course, heard of the Dome. Buses dump them off in loads. What they see is not the Dome, but something transformed into a high speed machine to take money. The Rue Campayne Premier, once a delightful street of studios, now houses the largest garage in the world. The Germain was the scene of Fridaynight revels. No one dared wear a dinner jacket or a dress suit because the girls would rub charcoal on the soles of their shoes and leave shoeprints on the white shirt fronts. Friday was the night of the models’ parade, when artists, noting the girls in their most attractive costumes, would engage the ones they desired for posing during the following week.

“Two fine orchestras of 50 pieces each alternated from opposite sides of the hall. French girls, with their sweethearts and members of their families, also attended. But now this place is a hall no different from hundreds which may be seen in other lands.

“You have no doubt heard of the Jockey, a night club on the Boulevard Montparnasse. Tables are jammed into a small room so tightly that waiters have difficulty in weaving in and out. Coloured gigolos are provided for those white girls who consider black-and-tan dancing a thrill. “Even the models are not what they

used to be. Girls who grew up in tk, quarter and began posing in chilj! hood, acquiring in the course of tin* an extensive wardrobe for weir i ; | the studios, were the principal sonny of supply. They earned sufficient to keep them. But the rate has not h. creased and girls are still paid tl* same number of francs in depreciate currency.

“As a result, good models are rare. The girls come from the poorer wort ing classes. They are not we] 1 formed. Now the occupation of moot is only one step from being a habit-, of a low restaurant or the Greet. “All this has a most pernicious in. fluence on the quality of teachit; which is done and the kind of wort which emanates from the studios. “No parent who wishes a son or daughter to get a firm artistic found*, tion —I do not mean painting aloebut all of the fine arts —needs to coia sider a Parisian education.

“The Colarossi Academy, the oldest sketch club in France, founded ia 1815, Is the last of the sound schools now existing. It still has a fine, de voted staff and the comparatively lev hard-working students gravitate to it “Another school which used to have 54 instructors now has two. The theory is that students must be permitted to develop their own artistic instincts without criticism.

“The result is chaos. But when yon see the young students spending their nights and days hanging around the cafes and night clubs in the quarts: you know that they can’t be doing any work. Occasionally they play at pairing. One glance at the daubs they make is enough for an experienced eye to see that the boy or girl has new learned to draw.

“Today the atmosphere of the quarter does not encourage the hard and steady application which is required to learn the fundamentals of any art. Ten and 20 years ago the students of the quarter were amiably poor boys who laboured and denied themselves almost everything hut bare necessities in order lo achieve artistic ambitions. “The present student population of the quarter is composed laigely of the sons and daughters of the American middle class and rich. Their families are not only indulgent, which is common among Americans, but they feel that an artist adds a cultural aura to one s home surroundings.

“Parents with no knowledge of art are ready to believe that their children, having drawn some presentable figures or landscapes, have a hidden fire of genius which must be developed into a flame. •

“Most of these youngsters never had a burning desire to be artiste. It was easy to stoke up a pale glow and make oneself and one's parents believe it was a real ambition.

"What they had was a desire to go to Paris and indulge in the delights of the ‘Bohemian’ life. Once in Pari: caught in the current of the crowd already there who are trying deeper ately to compel Paris to give them a good it is easy to drift while pretending to work. “Paris is full of the most bewilder ing types of ‘isms.’ It seems easy for these youilgsters, whose feet are no: on the ground, to believe that th?' are making gestures of independent when they disregard all the codvce tions and live according to what they think are modern rules.

“Living is still cheap in Paris, if you know your way about, and it i» possible to survive on a small allowance. Hopeful parents believe what is conveyed to them in the letters written home, but if they made the trip abroad and investigated the customs and habits of their petted children the disclosures woukl be a shock to many respectable households.