Hi John,

Charles-Émile-Auguste Durand, who changed his name to Carolus-Duran, is famed today as the teacher of John Singer Sargent.

In this very detailed piece on his method, we learn more about the practices that shaped well known artists' style. Sargent wasn't the only famous student of Carolus-Duran.

Enjoy,

BoldBrush Studio Team

Charles-Émile-Auguste Durand, who changed his name to Carolus-Duran, is famed today as the teacher of John Singer Sargent. He himself was strongly influenced by Velazquez and built a name for himself as a portraitist who worked with the same loose brushwork and simplification that characterizes Velazquez's later portraits. He had a successful career as a portraitist and, in time, became recognized by and involved with the French artistic establishment; but early in his career he was considered a rebel who rejected good drawing and chose style over substance. Subsequently, in the 1870s, when Sargent was studying there, Atelier Carolus-Duran was considered a daring choice for an art school, a school with a focus on bravura over basics. Another of Duran's students, the American Will H. Low, describes Carolus-Duran's teaching method and the controversy surrounding it:

"In these days, when our master (Carolus-Duran) has achieved nearly all the honour which France bestows on a successful painter, when, as President of the National Society of Fine Arts, Member of the Institute, and Director of the Academy of France at Rome, his authority is no longer questioned, it is a far call to the early seventies when the Institute, still implacable, and the majority of the eminent painters then in vogue looked upon him as a dangerous innovator, whose personal product might with reason be considered interesting, but whose teachings were to be avoided."

"The vogue of an atelier in Paris then or now is not altogether due to the popularity of the master's work. Perhaps no deep-settled conviction as to the pre-eminence of a master presides at their foundation, but so loyal is youth, so tenacious of newly acquired beliefs, and so enthusiastic in conforming to them, that soon after their entrance into the ranks of a given atelier the students evince a remarkable esprit du corps and can see but little salvation outside of their chosen path. Such, at least, was the atelier Duran and we had need of our convictions, for we were classed as outlaws by the conservative pupils of the government schools, and even the independent atelier of M. Bonnat looked askance on the newcomer. It differed indeed in one particular from all the other schools of Paris. Our master adopted a principle, admirable in its logic, yet seductive to the young painter anxious to scale the painful ascent of the ladder of art at a bound."

"The ordinary methods of instruction in art divide drawing from painting, and further subdivide drawing into drawing from the plaster cast and from life. The evident reason for thus attacking the problems of artistic production seriatim is not to confuse the student with form and colour at the same time. The disadvantage of such a method lies in the danger, in after work, of continuing this subdivision and producing tinted drawings instead of the fully coloured, freely drawn products of the brush, which is the final instrument of the painter. It is equally evident that by giving the neophyte the task of reproducing in colour and form the ever-changing living model his difficulties are multiplied manifold. But this is more or less unknown to the unpracticed beginner, and the charm of arriving at once at the point held in reserve during long years of study in other schools overbalances any feeling of timidity which he may have. The struggles of one who cannot swim and who is thrown into deep water are nothing, however, compared with the floundering in colour and shapeless form which characterize the first studies according to this method. Logical rectitude reinforced by the example of the great Velasquez are but feeble props for the despairing student struggling in the mesh of overpowering difficulty. Hence there were frequent departures from our ranks, and many a defeated painter found it expedient to become an humble draughtsman in the halls of antique sculpture of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The grave M. Bouguereau was quoted as asking one of our comrades, 'Does M. Duran ever make you draw?' and Ingres's axiom that drawing is the probity of art was repeated to us on all occasions by students of rival ateliers solicitous of our welfare."

"Given, however, a sufficiently eclectic appreciation of the qualities of form and colour which make a work of art, and a nature not to be baffled by a multiplication of difficulties at the outset, this method of study has its advantages. It keeps ever present in the student's mind the final end to be attained, and the incessant use of the brush, with its implied rendition of form and colour by masses and planes which exist before his eyes, rather than by the point and masses of black and white tones which are the necessary conventions of the usual method, gives him a mastery of his tools which is superior and, as I have already repeated, is absolutely logical. Joined to a sincere and stimulating enthusiasm as a teacher, our master showed great perception and consideration for the individual temperament of his pupils; and I have known him to recommend diametrically opposite courses to different men, as he judged might be useful to one or the other."

"As temperament varies in different painters, greater or less stress is laid by them upon qualities of form or colour, and there were men in Duran's who drew well and have since continued to do so, and, despite the heresies of our youthful career in the estimation of academical Paris, few of the ateliers of the time have turned out men of more renown to-day in the various branches of art."

"The atelier was organized on a democratic basis, all students paying a certain amount each month, which went for the expenses of rent, heating, and the hire of models; our master giving gratuitously, in the service of art and in gratitude for similar gratuitous instruction received in his youth, his services two mornings of every week. This was no light sacrifice of the time of a busy portrait-painter and, but little later, the service given was increased by visits to our own studios; when we were preparing pictures for the Salon, when he was ever willing to counsel and help us."

In light of this detailed and articulate description of Carolus-Duran's method and why it was more difficult for the student than the standard academic method, it can help make sense why Sargent, who was naturally apt at working in this particular way, quickly rose to the top of his class. But, as Low pointed out above, Carolus-Duran did have quite a number of outstanding students (although some of them only stayed at Atelier Carolus-Duran for a few months or so before transferring to methods that emphasized drawing more), including Kenyon Cox, Theodore Robinson, James Carroll Beckwith, Jan Stanislawski, Paul Helleu, and Ramon Casas.

(Excerpt fromA Chronicle of Friendshipsby Will H. Low)

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