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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1907 



Art Schools for 

 Women 



in the 



Open Air 



An 



English Method 

 of Teaching Art 



By W. C. Fitz-Gerald 



HOUSANDS of women and girls in tlic old 

 countries take a thoroughly practical course 

 in art training for several years. One oi 

 England's most famous and successful por- 

 trait painters, Mrs. Jopling Rowe, did not 

 begin to learn drawing or painting until 

 four years after her marriage; and her in- 

 come to-day is probably $40,000 a year, chiefly from por- 

 traiture. Mrs. Rowe argues that even if a girl may not de- 

 velop into a Rosa Bonheur, she may at least turn in useful 

 dollars on black antl white illustration, miniature painting, 

 fan and china decoration, or even what is called "design" — 

 artistic antl original conceptions for wallpaper, carpets, cre- 

 tonnes and iigured goods of all kinds. The openings for 

 real talent are very many, and really good \\-ork is highly 

 paid. 



Moreover, as we shall see, an art training nowadays is 

 robbeci of much of its olcl-time drudgery. Of course, steady 

 hard work is absolutely necessary; what woman ever hoped 

 to play a sonata of Mozart or Beethoven without many 

 months of practice at monotonous scales and exercises? 



Nowadays the course at 

 an art school in Paris or 

 London, instead of being 

 suspended during the warm 

 summer months, is merely 

 transferred to the country, 

 where in a sweet environ- 

 ment of m e a d o w and 

 brook, birds and flowers 

 and trees, the students 

 work in the sunlight of 

 garden or lawn, with very 

 real instead of artificial 

 models of cows and horses, 

 rustics anci wagons ; lovely 

 landscapes and moonlit skies, 

 against a picturesque back- 

 ground of perhaps seven- 

 teenth century cottages. 



Some British art schools 

 for women are actually 

 transferred abroad in sum- 

 mer. Thus there is one 

 which migrates across the 

 English Channel from 

 May to August to the 

 lovely Norman seaside re- 

 sort of Dieppe, not far 

 from medieval Rouen, 

 whose venerable cathedral 



has for centuries been a favorite subject for artists. The 

 most popular open-air English art school is that of Mr. 

 Frank Calderon, son of a member of the British Royal 

 Academy. Jhe headquarters are in fashionable Baker 

 Street, London. The school year is divided into three terms 

 of about twelve weeks each, commencing in January, April 

 and October. Classes are held for drawing and painting 

 from live horses and dogs, as well as casts of all kinds, still 

 life, and also from the human figure, both nude and in 

 costume. 



Lectures by the most eminent living authorities are ar- 

 ranged on art and anatomy. But the moment the sun re- 

 turns in the spring the entire school is moved down into the 

 country. It is in the little village of Finchingfield, Essex, 

 not far from the Countess of Warwick's beautiful place at 

 Easton, that Mr. Calderon's school is found during the 

 summer months. 



His headquarters are established in a beautiful rambling 

 old country house covered with honeysuckle, purple Bou- 

 gainxillea, and vines. Behind stretch rolling meadows 

 starred with daisies, buttercups, and blue bells, and drop- 



A Summer Morning in an Outdoor Art School 



