NATIONAL INSTRUCTION IN ART: SCHOOLS OF DESIGN.
WE adverted incidentally, last week, to the limited and partial views taken by our legislators of the nature and extent of popular instruc- tion in the arts of design ; we will now enter more fully upon the subject.
The institution of Schools of Design in this country is founded on a narrow basis ; the course of teaching pursued in them is superficial and imperfect ; in short, the whole scheme is utterly inadequate to supply the national want of instruction in the principles of art. This is not an opinion hastily formed or lightly hazarded, but a deliberate conviction, the result of practical observation and reflection ; and we trust to be able to convince our readers of the validity of the conclusion to which we have arrived.
Let us look back to the origin of these Schools of Design. Our ma- nufacturers, finding that they could not compete with foreigners in the beauty of their patterns, and ascertaining that the Continental workmen were trained in schools of design, jumped to the conclusion that if English operatives had similar schools to go to, English manufacturers would be placed on a par with their foreign rivals in respect of patterns. In this reasoning per saltum an important link in the chain of cause and effect is omitted, and that is, the cultivated taste of the people of those countries. A sense of the beautiful is almost innate among the French and Germans, for the study of art is with them a branch of national educa- tion : their embryo artisans attend the schools of design with senses already awakened to the perception of beauty in form and colour ; and in those schools they are taught to understand the natural principles on which the beauties they perceive are founded, as well as the elements of the arts they are to learn. The mass of the people being capable of ap- preciating what is beautiful in ornament, require to be supplied with it ; and a constant stimulus to the production of novelty and elegance is the result. The Italians inherit a taste for art from their progenitors, and it is constantly ministered to by the splendours around them : they breathe as it were an atmosphere of beauty : hence graceful proportion and rich combinations of colour are prevalent in their worst manu- factured articles ; while with us the best workmanship and costliest materials are associated with ugly shapes. In those countries the poorest peasant is alive to the enjoyments resulting from a sense of the picturesque in costume and decoration, architecture and scenery ; whereas the wealthiest and best educated in this country have but im- perfect perceptions and understanding of the beautiful.
Instruction in the principles of the arts of design, therefore, is a national want, that can only be supplied by making the study of them a branch of national education. It is of little use training artists and artificers without preparing the public to appreciate their labours ; it is only teaching a few to do what has been better done before. The in- centive of demand ie necessary to stimulate the production of novelty ; and without possessing the power of creating new shapes of beauty, the artist or artisan degenerates into a mere copying-machine. To this condition, the Schools of Design, as at present established, would raise our artificers : we say raise, because they have much to learn to become good copyists even. Nay, we almost doubt if they would rise to that low level, so essentially defective is the instruction afforded them.
In the Government School of Design, for instance, which is under the direction of Mr. DYCE, an artist of original talent and extensive practical knowledge, the teaching- is inefficient, and utterly inadequate to its purpose. The pupils are taught to copy mechanically what is placed before them—and that on a bad method : of principles they know nothing. The effect is visible in their drawings, which exhibit labour and pears without intelligence, timid servility without correct- ness; the consequence of following out details without comprehending the scope of the whole design, and of exercising the eye and hand without the guidance of science and understanding. Their productions manifest a deficiency of knowledge by the absence of accuracy and spirit in the delineation of form : their colouring is better; but nothing can atone for defect in form and proportion. We have no other means of offering proof of the justness of these strictures, than by referring to the evidences on the walls of the school ; and we invite the scrutiny of competent and impartial judges of works of art. The School of the Society for Promoting Practicer Design, in Lei- cester Square, exhibits much more glaring instances of the erroneous course of instruction. It is ludicrous, though lamentable, to see boys caricaturing Apollos and Venues in all the varieties of distortion in- cidental to entire, ignorance of the proportions and structure of the human form, and of the simplest elements of art. The-notion of set- ting a tyro to study creations of art that have defied the genius of the world to equal, and which the ablest sculptors have in vain essayed to imitate, is so preposterous that one should think it would strike the most unreflecting with a sense of incongruity. And be it observed, that the absurdity is proportionably as great of setting pupils to copy architectural ornaments, the characteristic beauties of which they can- not analyze : the result is in this case deformity no less conspicuous to the educated eye ; and in both instances the labour of the student is equally barren of profit. Mr. HAYDON'S recipe for teaching art is, " Study the anatomy of the human figure ": that is, begin by doing what RAFFAELLE and Luce- NARDO spent half their lives in attaining, and considered they had never fully accomplished.
We say, let the pupils study the characteristics and conformation of every object, whether in nature or art, before they begin to draw it ; taking with them, as a guide to its study, a thorough knowledge of the elementary laws of art, and of the principles of beauty in form and proportion, light and shade, and colour. Let them begin with objects of the simplest shape, that are easily understood, whereupon to exercise the eye and the hand, while the mind is occupied in acquiring a know- ledge of the rules by which the appearance of solidity is represented on a flat surface by lines alone ; instead of wasting their time by imitating the indifferent drawing of others. The first step in every stage of their progress should be to understand thoroughly the shape and proportion of what is before them, and the principles of the art that produced it, if it be an artificial object, and its anatomical structure if it be a natural creation : but these they must be taught—they cannot learn it of them- selves ; and there is more to know in the most familiar things than can he supposed by those who have not studied them well. Why is it that we are compelled to make servile imitations of Chinese porcelain, Indian shawls, Turkey carpets, Japan cabinets, Arabesque ornaments, Etruscan vases, Greek architecture, and so on, instead of ori- ginating similar productions ourselves ? Nay, further, why is it that our copies are inferior ? Simply because the elements of beauty in the ornamenting of these articles have not been thoroughly investigated, in order that their characteristic excellences might be preserved in exact imitations, and the principles of art in their design be applied to the production of varieties .pf the same kind. Where do we meet with a new form of vase, or a new architectural ornament even, that is worthy of admiration ? How rarely do we see the graceful forms of the old ones preserved. Even the proportions of the Greek orders, often as they have been measured, are seldom accurately rendered in modern architecture ; or else their symmetry is destroyed by misappropriation. Our architects have found nothing better than skulls of oxen hung with garlands to ornament our churches; and thb Greek honeysuckle and "egg and an- chor " moulding are stock properties in cornices. The ram's-horn capitals of Regent Street, and the wine-glass and bottle-end string- courses of our gin-palaces, bespeak the vulgar, nnideal character of mo- dern "invention." We may not possess the genius to apply natural and familiar forms to decorative purposes ; but if we had, it could only be developed through a knowledge of the principles of art by which the Greeks turned the simplest and the meanest things to beautiful account in architecture. If we are not taught to understand what constitutes the graceful proportions in the volute of an Ionic capital, how can we hope ever to attain to the power of availing ourselves of the accidental combinations of form constantly presented to us, in the spirit of the Ionian, who, in the curves of a scroll laid upon the fragment of a column and kept from being blown off by a tile placed over it, perceived the beautiful volute which taxes our utmost skill to imitate ? The charm of the most ideal form is referable to natural laws, and capable of analytical demonstration. It is a vulgar error to suppose that taste to appreciate or genius to invent are independent of knowledge : science will not confer either power, but without it neither can be satisfactorily exercised. Oar national deficiency in respect of the arts of design is manifest in the prevalence of the false notion that taste is arbitrary liking : the most refined taste is that disciplined by study and confirmed by philosophy Art is based on the exact science of mathematics. The eye may be pleased by beauties of form and colour that the mind cannot analyze, as the uncultivated ear is delighted by the concord of sweet sounds; but it is the privilege of the educated to perceive and enjoy these beauties in a higher degree, proportioned to the acuteness and intelli- gence of their perceptions, resulting from knowledge, reflection, and training.
The conclusions that we arrive at are these—that the elementary principles and practice of the arts of design should form a part of national education ; that a systematic course of instruction, with direc- tions for the guidance of teachers, should be prepared, as a manual for use in all schools ; and that (as has been done by Mr. HULLAD in music) the work of education should be begun by training teachers.
The question then follows, who is there to digest and arrange a com- plete system of teaching ? and it is one which we are not able to an- swer. The analogous instance alluded to in the sister art, is the result of many years' study and experiment on the part of M. WILHELM, who matured it; and a course of instruction in the arts of design is not likely to be completed in a hurry. Indeed, the method we have suggested involves many leading principles and a variety of details that yet remain to be determined ; while the amount of knowledge requisite for the task would tax the resources of our most learned artists. Mean- while, a beginning mast be made ; and the first step is to lay down cer- tain fixed principles upon which to found a basis of elementary know- ledge. This we propose to do at the first convenient opportunity ; when we shall propound a plan of teaching the first rudiments of the-study of form, by means of drawing, applicable to general use in any school.
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