He studied from 1880 under the academic painter Henri Lehmann at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris; there he befriended Georges Seurat with whom he shared a studio for several years. He also studied under Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, working as his assistant on the Sacred Grove (1884; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.). In 1886 he obtained a travel scholarship to Rome and on his return befriended Symbolist poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine and Philippe-Auguste Villiers de l'Isle Adam.