Edgar Degas
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.
École des Beaux-Arts
Still standing
Outside only
Still the same
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.
- 14 rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris
- The national art school on this site since the early nineteenth century
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
- 14 rue Bonaparte, 6th arrondissement
- Entered in the 1850s; trained in the tradition of Louis Lamothe
- Lamothe was a pupil of Ingres — the source of Degas's draughtsmanship
- The Louvre, a five-minute walk
- A working school; public access via its exhibition programme
Timeline
Degas enters the École des Beaux-Arts.
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
Within walking distance
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 place5 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 place35 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
28 rue Jacob
Colette's first marital home in Paris, a third-floor apartment she took with her husband Willy in 1893.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.