Cormon opened his studio at number 104 boulevard de Clichy in 1882. While he did receive his students there, corrections were also done in the studio in rue La Bruyère. The syllabus did not differ much from that of his predecessor
Léon Bonnat. Cormon’s was less rigidly structured, though, and it was above all this more liberal attitude that won him a favourable reputation among a younger generation of artists.
Students drew (classical) plaster casts and from life, and Cormon demanded from his students an extremely accurate, lifelike drawing. He advocated a painting technique based on a dark design, on which the painting was worked up with transparent and light colours. He also encouraged his students to work en plein air; sketching trips were a regular feature of the timetable. The studio was particularly popular with foreign artists. See Gauzi 1992, pp. 16-32; exhib. cat. Paris 1988, pp. 10-27; Welsh-Ovcharov 1976, p. 13; Galbally 1977, pp. 29-30; Destremau 1997.
From the subsequent letters it emerges that Theo’s willingness to let Vincent study with Cormon was linked to Theo’s move at the end of June, since the lease on his apartment ran out then (
see letter 559). Theo must have recognized that this marked the start of a new situation, in terms both of his accommodation and of Vincent’s studio. The precise solution was the subject of discussion in the next few months, with Vincent pressing increasingly hard to be allowed to go to Paris, on the pretext that he would be able to prepare himself to go to Cormon better there than he could in, say, Antwerp or Nuenen. See also Van Tilborgh 2007.
4. Neither of these drawings is known. Niobe was a mother who was turned to stone by grief (Ovid,
Metamorphoses vi, 146 ff – according to Pliny, Praxiteles made a sculpture group of her and her children). Because of the expressiveness of the heads, depictions of Niobe were often used at art academies. Cf. cat. Amsterdam 2001, p. 69, and for the hand the drawings
Sketch of a left hand (
F 1693f / JH 989 and
F 1693g / JH 990), which are part of a sketchbook.
5. During his forty years in teaching,
Jean Léon Gérôme had had more than 2000 students.
Cabanel’s studio, likewise in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, was also very popular with students from France and other countries. This makes it impossible to identify these Englishmen. See on the training: Ackerman 1986, pp. 168-177, and Dumas 1882-1888, p. 260.
6. The phrase ‘neither teeth nor breath’ (ni dents ni soufflé) is derived from what
Silvestre said about
Delacroix in
Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers: ‘The very writer who, with all the fervour of youth and emotion, is confused and muddled, that is to say mediocre and even bad, can turn out to be excellent later in life, like wine, and be at the height of his powers just when he has neither teeth nor breath left’ (L’écrivain même qui, dans toute l’ardeur de la jeunesse et du sentiment, est confus, désordonné, c’est-à-dire médiocre et même mauvais, peut devenir, comme le vin, excellent en vieillissant, et se trouver dans toute sa puissance, précisément à l’heure où il n’a plus ni dents ni soufflé) (see Silvestre,
Histoire, p. 43). Van Gogh quotes this expression again in
letters 655,
800 and
801.
7. Although Van Gogh wrote ‘maitres’ he must have meant ‘maïtresse’ in this context of
Delacroix looking after himself. There is not the slightest evidence that he was supported by teachers or benefactors, but what we do know is that
Jenny le Guillou, whom
Silvestre calls his governess, looked after him for a long time with ‘blind devotion’ (see Silvestre 1864, p. 57). Le Guillou, who entered Delacroix’s service in 1835, became his lover and confidante, and cared for him until his death in 1863.
11. A literal source for this expression has not been identified; Van Gogh may be referring to the article by Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, ‘Ivan Serguiévitch Tourguénef’,
Revue des Deux Mondes 53 (15 October 1883), 3rd series, vol. 49, pp. 786-820. In this description of
Turgenev’s life and work we read: ‘Ivan Sergeyevich encapsulated Russian society there; he summarized his view of it in a few general types’ (Ivan Serguiévitch y a logé la société russe; il a résumé la conception qu’il s’en faisait dans quelques types généraux) (p. 816).
Daudet is not mentioned in the article, but the comparison between the two writers was one that was often drawn at the time, in part because they were friends. Van Gogh was also familiar with Daudet’s article on Turgenev;
see letter 560, n. 5.
15. Taken from the preface to
Edmond de Goncourt’s
Chérie: ‘Well! when you have done that... it will be really difficult not to be
someone in the future’ (Eh bien! quand on a fait cela... c’est vraiment difficile de n’être pas
quelqu’un dans l’avenir). Goncourt 1884, p.
xvi. Van Gogh had previously written ‘we’ll show that we are
someone’ (
letter 551).