Studio: international art (17.1899)

Cecilia Beaux

remains very distinctly individual, with a simpli-
city, directness, and unconventionality all its own.
It is essentially modern in spirit. With no ornate
accessories she goes straight to the point in
everything she does: her children are nineteenth-
century little ones, just as they appear in their every-
day life at home; her men and women are repre-
sented as they really are, with no striving after
pictorial effect. There is something almost amusing
in the naive surprise expressed by certain French
critics, notably Henri Rochefort and Paul Bion, at
the fact revealed by Cecilia Beaux’s portraits of the
existence of such a thing as home life in America.
Bion, indeed, frankly admits that until he saw the
work of Cecilia Beaux he did not know that there
were lovable maidens,
“ even more beautiful than
the fair daughters of France,
on the other side of the
Atlantic.”

An earnest and untiring
worker and of a very quiet
unassuming character,
Cecilia Beaux made many
true and influential friends
in Paris and at Concar-
neau, where she spent a
summer. The fame of her
class-work spread rapidly
amongst her fellow-stu-
dents, always keen critics
of each other’s powers, and,
had she remained in
France, she might have
become one of the chief
members of the American
colony now established on
the banks of the Seine.
She did, indeed, for a short
time occupy a studio of
her own in the Rue Vau-
girard, and hither she says
came M. Julian himself,
who after a long conversa-
tion in which he “ made all
his compliments,” wound
up by exclaiming tragically,
“ Mais je crains pour vous!
Je crains pour vous ! ” but
what he feared did not
appear. In spite of all the
encouragement she re-
ceived, Cecilia Beaux was

“mother and son” by ckcilia beaux too truly a daughter of

216

herself says she received most help from Robert
Fleury, who took a real interest in her work, and
from Charles Lasar, whose precepts she still applies
more than those of any other teacher. She speaks,
too, with gratitude of the encouragement given her
by Lefebvre and Constant, the latter telling her that
she was dans une tr'es bonne voie. She adds that some-
times Robert Fleury would summon her before the
whole class to receive what she felt to be a sort of
mock applause, but which was, of course, genuine,
for her compositions. “ The whole experience,” she
concludes, “was immensely illuminating to one
who had never before worked in an art school even
in America.”

For all this, however, the work of Cecila Beaux