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6? . C. Jerome
J hikk op a French painting and your mind's eye
may picture a wildly abstract canvas on which you
can't tell a rose from a rhinoceros!
But French artists don't start out that way. As
proved in a traveling exhibit of paintings by pupils in
French public schools, their early days are devoted to
drawing things precisely as they look to the camera;
their strict assignment is to "reflect nature."
"Here in the United States, painters are abstract in
the beginning," says a member of the French Embassy.
"In France, they first must learn to draw by the classical
system." Art instruction begins in nursery school,
where pupils are as young as two. Some 600 works by
pupils at Parisian public schools are to be shown in
35 states between now and December. The budding
artists range in age from 8 to 17.
4 Family Weekly, April 14, 1957