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School · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th) · 6e arrondissement

École des Beaux-Arts

The buildingStill standing
Getting inOutside only
What's there nowStill the same

A working art school, so the courtyards and buildings are not generally open to casual visitors. The school does mount public exhibitions in its galleries, which is the ordinary way to get inside.

France's national art school, on the rue Bonaparte across from the Louvre. Almost every French painter of the nineteenth century passed through it, argued with it, or defined themselves against it — Degas entered in the 1850s.

Address
14 rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris
Years
The national art school on this site since the early nineteenth century
IllustrationColour illustration of the Cour Bonaparte at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris

The same courtyard in colour — the institutional architecture against which Degas trained and defined himself.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

The École des Beaux-Arts is the institution the nineteenth century in French painting is organised around. Entry was competitive, teaching was academic, and success ran through the Prix de Rome and the annual Salon. Whether a painter went through it, dropped out of it, or spent a career opposing what it stood for, it was the fixed point.

Edgar Degas entered in the 1850s, working within the academic tradition associated with Louis Lamothe, himself a pupil of Ingres. It is a lineage worth holding on to, because Degas is often filed with the Impressionists and does not quite belong there. He drew like an academic all his life, disliked the word Impressionism, and preferred to be called a realist. The line in his dancers comes from this building.

It sits on the rue Bonaparte in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, directly across the Seine from the Louvre — a five-minute walk between the school where painters were taught the tradition and the museum where they went to copy it.

The school is still operating and still selective. Its buildings are not open for general visiting, but it runs public exhibition programmes in its galleries, and the courtyard on the rue Bonaparte can usually be seen from the gate.

Key facts

Address
14 rue Bonaparte, 6th arrondissement
Degas
Entered in the 1850s; trained in the tradition of Louis Lamothe
Lineage
Lamothe was a pupil of Ingres — the source of Degas's draughtsmanship
Across the river from
The Louvre, a five-minute walk
Access
A working school; public access via its exhibition programme

In images

The Cour Bonaparte and Palais des Études at the École des Beaux-Arts, drawn from the surviving school complex.Editorial illustration
The same courtyard in colour — the institutional architecture against which Degas trained and defined himself.Editorial illustration

Timeline

  1. 1850s

    Degas enters the École des Beaux-Arts.

  2. 1859

    Manet and Degas probably meet while copying at the Louvre nearby.

On the map

Questions before you go

Did Degas study at the École des Beaux-Arts?

Yes. He entered in the 1850s and trained in the academic tradition associated with Louis Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres.

Can you visit the École des Beaux-Arts?

Not as a general visitor — it is a working art school. It does hold public exhibitions in its galleries, which is the usual way in.

Why does academic training matter for Degas?

Because it never left his work. He exhibited with the Impressionists but disliked the label, called himself a realist, and kept an academic draughtsman's line to the end.

People who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

French · Painter

Degas entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the 1850s and worked in the academic tradition associated with Louis Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres. The draughtsmanship of his later dance pictures comes out of this training.

Illustrated portrait of Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte

French · Painter

Caillebotte entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1873, studying under Leon Bonnat, before attaching himself to the independent exhibitions instead.

Illustrated portrait of Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro

French · Painter

Pissarro attended classes associated with the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1856, shortly after settling in Paris. His relationship with academic teaching was uneasy and brief.

Illustrated portrait of Amrita Sher-Gil

Amrita Sher-Gil

Hungarian-Indian · Painter

Sher-Gil entered Lucien Simon's studio at the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in October 1929 and remained at the school until July 1933.

Illustrated portrait of Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

French · Painter, Illustrator

Bonnard was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1889, where he met Ker-Xavier Roussel and Édouard Vuillard while taking part in the emerging Nabis circle.

Within walking distance

The Rue Bonaparte at nightfall, amber lamps and a violet sky over the wet street

Street · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Rue Bonaparte

The street that stitches the Left Bank together — river to Beaux-Arts to Saint-Germain to Saint-Sulpice — and the nightly walk Henry Miller could not stop remembering.

Visit the place
Colour photorealistic view of 5 rue Bonaparte beneath a bright blue sky

Apartment · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th)

5 rue Bonaparte

The house where Édouard Manet was born on 23 January 1832, on a street then called the rue des Petits-Augustins — a few doors from the art school and a bridge from the Louvre.

Visit the place
Bright color view of readers outside the Librairie des Femmes at 35 rue Jacob

School · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

35 rue Jacob

The Catholic girls' school Simone de Beauvoir attended from the age of six until her baccalauréat. The address is now occupied by the Librairie des Femmes — the feminist bookshop and publishing house — which makes it the most improbable coincidence on any Paris literary walk.

Visit the place
The 28 rue Jacob frontage in colour, its shuttered windows and ground-floor shops on the Left Bank street

Apartment · Saint-Germain-des-Prés

28 rue Jacob

Colette's first marital home in Paris, a third-floor apartment she took with her husband Willy in 1893.

Visit the place
References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document École des Beaux-Arts, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.

  1. 1Edgar Degas: About the Artist

    Website
    Clark Art Institute
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the École des Beaux-Arts page.

    View source

  2. 2L'Atelier de Degas / Degas' Studio (historical marker)

    Website
    The Historical Marker Database
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the École des Beaux-Arts page.

    View source

  3. 3Edgar Degas (1834–1917): Painting and Drawing

    Website
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the École des Beaux-Arts page.

    View source

  1. 4Degas at the Opéra

    Website
    Musée d'Orsay
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the École des Beaux-Arts page.

    View source

  2. 5Presentation and History of the Buildings

    Website
    Beaux-Arts de Paris
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the École des Beaux-Arts page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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