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Palais des Études of the École Nationale Superieur des Beaux-Arts, Paris

École des Beaux-Arts (French pronunciation: [ekɔl de bozaʁ], School of Fine Arts) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years, training many of the great artists in Europe. Beaux Arts style was modeled on classical "antiquities," preserving these idealized forms and passing the style on to future generations.

History[link]

The origins of the school go back to 1648 when the Académie des Beaux-Arts was founded by Cardinal Mazarin to educate the most talented students in drawing, painting, sculpture, engraving, architecture and other media. Louis XIV was known to select graduates from the school to decorate the royal apartments at Versailles, and in 1863 Napoleon III granted the school independence from the government, changing the name to "L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts". Women were admitted beginning in 1897. In October 1898 after her third try, Julia Morgan of San Francisco, California, was accepted as the first woman to be enrolled in the Architecture Department.

The curriculum was divided into the "Academy of Painting and Sculpture" and the "Academy of Architecture". Both programs focused on classical arts and architecture from Ancient Greek and Roman culture. All students were required to prove their skills with basic drawing tasks before advancing to figure drawing and painting. This culminated in a competition for the Grand Prix de Rome, awarding a full scholarship to study in Rome. The three trials to obtain the prize lasted for nearly three months. [1] Many of the most famous artists in Europe were trained here, to name but a few, they include Géricault, Degas, Delacroix, Fragonard, Ingres, Monet, Moreau, Renoir, Seurat, Cassandre and Sisley. Rodin however, applied on three occasions but was refused entry.

The buildings of the school are largely the creation of French architect Félix Duban, who was commissioned for the main building in 1830. His work realigned the campus, and continued through 1861, completing an architectural program out towards the Quai Malaquias.

The Paris school is the namesake and founding location of the Beaux Arts architectural movement in the early twentieth century. Known for demanding classwork and setting the highest standards for education, the École attracted students from around the world – including the United States, where students returned to design buildings that would influence the history of architecture in America, including the Boston Public Library, 1888–1895 (McKim, Mead & White) and the New York Public Library, 1897–1911 (Carrère and Hastings). Architectural graduates, especially in France, are granted the title élève.

The architecture department was separated from the École after the May 1968 student strikes at the Sorbonne. The name was changed to École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and now over 500 students make use of an extensive collection of classical art, with modern additions to the curriculum including photography and hypermedia.

Locations[link]

• Paris: École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Ensb-a)
• Dijon: École nationale des beaux arts de Dijon
• Bourges: École nationale des beaux arts de Bourges
• Nancy: École nationale des beaux arts de Nancy
• Lyon: École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts Lyon
• Lorient, Rennes, Quimper, Brest: A network of Écoles supérieures des beaux arts in Brittany

Famous instructors, Paris[link]

Notable alumni, Paris[link]

See also[link]

• Beaux-Arts architecture
• Académie des Beaux-Arts
• Paris Salon
• École des beaux-arts de Montréal

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts

• The Ecole des Beaux-Arts – Historical essay
• École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts – Official website
• École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts – History

Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°20′01″E / 48.85667°N 2.33361°E / 48.85667; 2.33361

view of the École des Beaux-Arts courtyard

Jacques Félix Duban (French pronunciation: [ʒak feliks dybɑ̃]) (14 October 1798, Paris - 8 October 1870, Bordeaux) was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Henri Labrouste.

Duban won the Prix de Rome in 1823, the most prestigious award of the École des Beaux-Arts. He was much influenced by his five-year stay in Italy, particularly his sense of color, influenced by the polychrome paintings of ancient Pompeii, newly uncovered Etruscan tombs, and the tradition of the great decorations painted in the Renaissance.

By far Duban's most visible work is the main building of the École, undertaken in 1830. The main building, the Palace of Studies, was designed with integral paintings and interior sculpture for artists' education. His redesign and alignment of the entire campus frames the main building from the entrance on Rue Bonaparte. With other expansions towards the Seine, this work was completed around 1861.

Duban was elected as member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1854. Among his many students was Charles-Auguste Questel; he was the brother-in-law of fellow architect François Debret.

Work[link]

• Restoration of the castles of Château de Blois, Château de Gaillon, and Château de Dampierre
• Completion and restoration of the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre, beginning in 1848. It reflects and reinforces its structure and repairs coverage that protects the valuable decorated barrel vault, built in 1661 on the orders of the young Louis XIV.
• Restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle, with Jean-Baptiste Antoine Lassus and a young Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
• Restoration of various historical monuments and private monuments

Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California,^[1] she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Throughout her long career, she also designed multiple buildings for institutions serving women and girls.

Early life and education[link]

Born in San Francisco, California, she was raised in Oakland and graduated from Oakland High School in 1890. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1894 with a degree in civil engineering. At the urging of her friend and mentor Bernard Maybeck, whom she met in her final year in undergraduate school, she headed to Paris to apply to the famous École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Denied at first because the school was not accepting women, and a second time because she failed the entrance exam (she claimed in a letter that she had been failed deliberately because she was a woman^[2]), after two years she finally passed the entrance exams in the architecture program, placing 13th out of 376 applicants,^[3] and was duly admitted. She was the first woman to graduate with a degree in architecture from the school in Paris. American architect Fay Kellogg (1871–1918) was studying in Paris around the same time, advocating admission of women to the school, but acceptance came too late for her to attend.^[4]

Career[link]

Upon her return from Paris she took employment with the San Francisco architect John Galen Howard who was at that time supervising the University of California Master Plan. Morgan worked on several buildings on the Berkeley campus, most notably providing the decorative elements for the Hearst Mining Building, and designs for the Hearst Greek Theatre.

In 1904, she opened her own office in San Francisco. One of her earliest works from this period was North Star House in Grass Valley, California, commissioned in 1906 by mining engineer Arthur De Wint Foote and his wife, the author and illustrator, Mary Hallock Foote. Naturally, many commissions followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, ensuring her financial success.

Hearst projects[link]

The Hearst Castle facade.

The most famous of Morgan's patrons was the newspaper magnate and antiquities collector William Randolph Hearst, who had been introduced to Morgan by his mother Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the chief patron of the University of California at Berkeley. It is believed that this introduction led to Morgan's first downstate commission by Hearst, circa 1914, for the design of the Los Angeles Examiner Building, a Mission revival style project that included contributions by Los Angeles architects William J. Dodd and J. Martyn Haenkel. It's closed but still located at the southwest corner of Broadway and 11th Streets on a city block in Downtown Los Angeles, awaiting adaptive reuse.

In 1919 Hearst selected Morgan as the architect for La Cuesta Encantada, better known as Hearst Castle, which was built atop the family campsite overlooking San Simeon harbor. The project proved to be her largest and most complex, as Hearst's vision for his estate grew ever grander during planning and construction over the decades. It later included The Hacienda, a residence – private guest house complex built in hybrid Mission Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Moorish Revival styles. It was located a day's horseback ride inland from Hearst Castle next to the Mission San Antonio de Padua near Jolon, California. Her work on 'the Castle' and San Simeon Ranch continued until 1937, ending only due to Hearst's declining health.

Morgan became William Randolph Hearst's principal architect, producing the designs for dozens of buildings, such as Phoebe Apperson Hearst's Wyntoon which he inherited. It is also a 'castle,' with a "Bavarian village" of four villas all on 50,000 acres (202 km²) of forest reserve which includes the McCloud River near Mount Shasta in Northern California. She also did studio and site work for the uncompleted Babicora, Hearst's 1,625,000-acre (6,580 km²) Chihuahua, Mexico cattle rancho and retreat.^[5]

YWCA projects[link]

Julia Morgan's affiliation with the YWCA began when Phoebe Apperson Hearst recommended her for the organization's Asilomar summer conference center. The Asilomar Conference Center, no longer YWCA but State-run, is still in Pacific Grove near Monterey, California. Morgan also designed YWCAs in California, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii.

Five of the Southern California YWCA buildings were designed by Morgan.^[6] The 1918 Harbor Area YWCA in a Craftsman building is still standing, as is the 1926 Hollywood Studio Club YWCA. Morgan's Riverside YWCA from 1929 still stands, but as the Riverside Art Museum. Her 1925 Long Beach Italian Renaissance branch has been demolished. The "gorgeous" Pasadena YWCA is being acquired by the city for restoration and public use in 2010, after several decades of abandonment, closure, and slowly falling apart.^[7]

She also designed YWCAs in Northern California, including those in San Francisco's Chinatown and Oakland.

Mills College and other projects[link]

The following are her contributions to the women's college Mills College in the East Bay foothills of Oakland, California, which, like her work for the YWCA, were done in the hopes of advancing opportunities for women:

• The El Campanil, which is believed to be the first bell tower on a United States college campus^[8] and the first reinforced concrete structure on the west coast.^[9] Morgan's reputation grew when the tower was unscathed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.^[8] The bells in the tower "were cast for the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago-1893) and given to Mills by a trustee".^[9] It is not to be confused with The Campanile, a nickname for Sather Tower, the clock/bell tower of nearby UC Berkeley. Morgan helped draft parts of the UC Berkeley campus under John Galen Howard, but the Sather Tower was not her design.
• The Margaret Carnegie Library (1906), named after Andrew Carnegie's daughter.^[8]
• The Ming Quong Home for Chinese girls, built in 1924 and purchased by Mills in 1936, which was renamed Alderwood Hall^[9] and now houses the Julia Morgan School for Girls.^[8][10][11]
• The Student Union (1916)^[8]
• Kapiolani Cottage, which has served as an infirmary, faculty housing, and administration offices.^[8][9]
• Mills's original gymnasium and pool, which have been replaced by the Tea Shop and Suzanne Adams Plaza.^[8]

Her other projects include the redesign of the landmark Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco after it was damaged by the earthquake of 1906. She was chosen because of her then-rare knowledge of earthquake-resistant, reinforced concrete construction.

The former St. John's Presbyterian Church, which she considered to be her finest Craftsman-style building,^[12] is now the Berkeley Playhouse at 2640 College Avenue in Berkeley, California.^[13] Other projects include the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, the sanctuary of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church at 32 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, where Mission Bay Community Church also meets, and the large Berkeley City Club, adjacent to University of California. Her work also included a World War I YWCA Hostess House in Palo Alto which was later the site of the MacArthur Park Restaurant^[14]

Some of her residential projects, most of them located in the San Francisco Bay Area, may be categorized as ultimate bungalows, a term often associated with the work of Greene and Greene and some of Morgan's other contemporaries and teachers, express the Arts and Crafts Movement in the American Craftsman style of architecture. Several houses are on San Francisco's Russian Hill, as was her own residence.

Legacy[link]

Julia Morgan is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in the hills of Oakland, California.^[15]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008 that Julia Morgan would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. The induction ceremony took place on December 15 and her great-niece accepted the honor in her place.

The Julia Morgan Ballroom at the Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco was named in her honor.

Books[link]

• Boutelle, Sara Holmes (1988). Julia Morgan, Architect. New York: Abbeville Press.
• Morgan, J. (1976). Architectural drawings by Julia Morgan: beau-arts assignments and other buildings. Oakland, Calif: Oakland Museum, Art Dept.
• Steilberg, W. T., & Morgan, J. (1983). Some examples of the work of Julia Morgan. San Francisco: Architect and Engineer of California.
• Morgan, J., Hearst, W. R., & Loe, N. E. (1987). San Simeon revisited: the correspondence between architect Julia Morgan and William Randolph Hearst. San Luis Obispo, Calif: Library Associates, California Polytechnic State University.
• Morgan, J. (1987). Berkeley houses by Julia Morgan. Berkeley, California: The Association.
• Wilson, Mark (2007). Julia Morgan. Kaysville: Gibbs Smith Publisher

Further reading[link]

• Longstreth, R. W. (1977). Julia Morgan, architect. Berkeley Architectural Heritage publication series, no. 1. Berkeley, California: Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.
• University of California, Berkeley. (1986). Julia Morgan, architectural drawings: inventory of holdings, College of Environmental Design. Berkeley: The College.
• Pasadena Cultural Heritage Commission. (1988). Report on reuse of the Julia Morgan YWCA building: YWCA & YMCA Pasadena, California. New York: Halsband.
• Quacchia, R. L. (2005). Julia Morgan, architect, and the creation of the Asilomar Conference Grounds: including a comparison with Hearst Castle. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Q Pub.
• McNeill, Karen (May 2007). "Julia Morgan: Gender, Architecture, and Professional Style." Pacific Historical Review, pp. 229–267.
• Wilson, Mark (2007). Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 978-1-4236-0088-6. 

See also[link]

• Women in architecture

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Julia Morgan

• The Julia Morgan Collection at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
• Julia Morgan — An Online Exhibition
• Julia Morgan at Hearst Castle
• Index of Buildings by Julia Morgan
• Julia Morgan Architectural Drawings, 1907–1929, The Bancroft Library
• North Star Historic Conservancy
• Wyntoon at Great Buildings Online
• Women in Architecture
• Carrillo Rec Center in Santa Barbara
• William J. Dodd: American Architect & Designer - Los Angeles
• Julia Morgan Center for the Arts - Berkeley, CA
• UC Berkeley Environmental Design Archives
• Landmark Heritage Foundation

Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert in 1961
Born	(1900-02-04)4 February 1900 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Died	11 April 1977(1977-04-11) (aged 77) Omonville-la-Petite, France
Occupation	Poet, Screenwriter
Genres	Poetry
Literary movement	Surrealism, Symbolism
Signature

Jacques Prévert (French pronunciation: [ʒak pʁeˈvɛʁ]; 4 February 1900 – 11 April 1977) was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.^[1][2]

Life and education[link]

Prévert was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine and grew up in Paris. After receiving his Certificat d'études upon completing his primary education, he quit school and went to work in Le Bon Marché, a major department store in Paris. Called up for military service in 1918, after the war, he was sent to the Near East to defend French interests there.

Grave

He died in Omonville-la-Petite, on 11 April 1977. He had been working on the last scene of the animated movie Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird) with his friend and collaborator Paul Grimault. When the film was released in 1980, it was dedicated to Prévert's memory, and on opening night, Grimault kept the seat next to him empty.

Poetry[link]

Prévert participated actively in the Surrealist movement.^[1] Together with the writer Raymond Queneau and artist Marcel Duchamp, he was a member of the Rue du Château group.^[3] He was also a member of the agitprop Groupe Octobre.

Prévert's poems were collected and published in his books: Paroles (Words) (1946), Spectacle (1951), La Pluie et le beau temps (Rain and Good Weather) (1955), Histoires (Stories) (1963), Fatras (1971) and Choses et autres (Things and Others) (1973).

His poems are often about life in Paris and life after the Second World War. They are widely taught in schools in France and frequently appear in French language textbooks throughout the world.

Some of Prévert's poems, such as "Les Feuilles mortes" (Autumn Leaves), "La grasse matinée" (Sleeping in), "Les bruits de la nuit" (The sounds of the night), and "Chasse à l'enfant" (The hunt for the child) were set to music by Joseph Kosma—and in some cases by Germaine Tailleferre of Les six, Christiane Verger, and Hanns Eisler. They have been sung by prominent 20th century French vocalists, including Marianne Oswald, Yves Montand, and Édith Piaf, as well as by the later American singers Joan Baez and Nat King Cole. In 1961, French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg paid tribute to "Les feuilles mortes" in his own song "La chanson de Prévert."^[4]

More recently, the British remix DJ's Coldcut released their own version in 1993. A German version has been published and covered by Didier Caesar (alias Dieter Kaiser), which he named "Das welke Laub". "Les feuilles mortes" also bookends Iggy Pop's 2009 album, Préliminaires.

Film[link]

Prévert wrote a number of screenplays for the film director Marcel Carné. Among the films were Drôle de drame (Bizarre, Bizarre, 1937), Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows, 1938), Le Jour se lève (Daybreak, 1939), Les Visiteurs du soir (The Night Visitors, 1942) and Les Enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945). The latter often appears on critics' lists of the greatest films of all time.

His poems were the basis for a film by the director and documentarian Joris Ivens, La Seine a rencontré Paris (The Seine Meets Paris, 1957), about the River Seine. The poem was read as narration during the film by singer Serge Reggiani.^[5]

Prévert had a long working relationship with Paul Grimault, also a member of Groupe Octobre. Together they wrote the screenplays of a number of animated movies, starting with the short "Le Petit Soldat" ("The Little Soldier") in 1947. They worked together until his death in 1977, when he was finishing "Le Roi et l'Oiseau" ("The King and the Bird").

Prévert adapted several Hans Christian Andersen tales into animated or mixed live-action/animated movies, often in versions loosely connected to the original. Two of these were with Grimault, including "Le Roi et l'Oiseau", which is considered one of the greatest animated films of all time, while one was with his brother Pierre Prévert.

Books[link]

• Paroles (1946)
• Le Petit Lion, illustrated by Ylla (1947, reprinted 1984)
• Contes pour enfants pas sages (Tales for naughty children) (1947)
• Des Bêtes, illustrated by Ylla (1950, reprinted 1984)
• Spectacle (1951)
• Grand bal du printemps, with photographs by Izis Bidermanas (1951)
• Lettre des îles Baladar (Letter from the Baladar Islands) (1952)
• Tour de chant (1953)
• La pluie et le beau temps (Rain and sunshine) (1955)
• Histoires (1963) (Stories)
• Les Halles: L'Album du Coeur de Paris, with photographs by Romain Urhausen (Editions des Deux Mondes, 1963)
• Le Cirque d'Izis, with photographs by Izis Bidermanas and original artwork by Marc Chagall (André Sauret, 1965)
• Fatras (1966)
• Charmes de Londres, with photographs by Izis Bidermanas (Editions de Monza, 1999)

Selected filmography[link]

Prévert wrote the scenarios and sometimes the dialogue in the following films:

• Le Crime de monsieur Lange (1935)
• Drôle de drame (1937)
• Quai des brumes (1938)
• Les Disparus de Saint-Agil (1938)
• Le Jour se lève (1939)
• Remorques (1941)
• Les Visiteurs du soir (1942)
• Les Enfants du paradis (1945)
• Les Portes de la nuit (1945)
• Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) (short animated film, 1947), with Paul Grimault, after The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen
• La Bergère et le ramoneur (The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep) (animated film, 1953), with Paul Grimault after tale by Hans Christian Andersen, later revised and finished as Le Roi et l'oiseau
• Le Petit Claus et le Grand Claus, by Pierre Prévert, after the tale Little Claus and Big Claus by Hans Christian Andersen (live action and animation, 1964)
• Le diamant (The diamond) (short animated film, 1970), with Paul Grimault, complement to L'Aveu of Costa-Gavras
• Le Chien mélomane (The Music-Loving Dog) (short animated film, 1973), with Paul Grimault
• Le Roi et l'oiseau (animated film, 1980), with Paul Grimault

See also[link]

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes Paroles

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jacques Prévert