ART.
ACADEMY REFORM.
Ix my last week's article upon this subject, I pointed out very briefly some of the chief reasons for believing that the administration of the Academy had been, and is, radically defective; that the body in question did not discharge the office for which it was supposed to exist ; and that, in the interests of the public no less than the artist, reform was absolutely neces- sary. In the present number I seek to show what should be the nature of the attempted reform, and point out the chief objects at which such reform should aim. What we have to seek is a system which gives us reasonable hopes of obtaining as Academicians the best men, which provides for the adequate teaching and encouragement of students, which exercises some general care for, and shows some cultivated interest in, the general body of the fine arts, which seeks to maintain a standard in the kinds of art which it publicly recognises,—this is all that we can reasonably hope for from an Academy of Fine Arts; and even an approximation to this, will probably be all we can expect to attain. But what we can do, if we can institute reform at all, is to take care that our alterations tend in the above direction, that it will be the abuse, and not the use, of the new regulations which prevents the end we seek from being obtained. I will therefore take each of these points separately, and endeavour to suggest some way of attaining or approximating to the attainment of each.
As the teaching and encouragement of students comes first in point of time, and is perhaps the most vital and necessary of all the Academic functions, let me speak of this point before all others. The present system is defective in three chief respects : —1. It provides instruction by a continually changing number of masters. 2. It includes comparatively few branches of Art. 3. It leaves the student at the close of his course without help or guidance for the future. The result of the first is that students generally have to supplement their Academy training by a foreign one; the -result of the second, that there is no systematic course of instruction obtainable in many branches of fine art ; the result of the third is that the young artist is left at the most important period of his life without assistance or guidance, left to forget or remember his training as he likes, tempted to think he has learnt his business, because he has learnt all that the schools of the Academy teach him. What remedies are possible for these defects ? Evidently, the first is that a permanent and not a fluctuating staff of teachers (at present they change every month or two) should be provided ; that the present system of Academicians, who take it in tarn to " visit " the schools for so long at a time, should be done away with, and two or three appointed to supervise the regular teaching staff. Of these, one should be a figure, one a landscape painter, and one a sculptor. These three Academicians should be chosen by the votes of the whole body, and should represent in their practice the methods of painting and sculpture which the Royal Academy approve ; and to the attainment of these standards the efforts of the students and the instruction of the masters should be directed.
Then, with regard to what may be called the minor fine arts, i.e., those of reproduction of various kinds, engraving, etching, the arts of decorative design, stained glass, tapestry and paper patterning, decorative pottery, &c., schools, not necessarily in the Academy, but affiliated to it, and with instructors chosen by the Academy, should be instituted, and the pupils in such schools should be encouraged to compete for the Academy prizes, and should be allowed opportunities of showing their work, if successful, in the Academy exItibitions.
The great point aimed at in this is a most important one, not only with regard to the student, but with regard to the progress of good art in England. It is this, to show the student and the public that good art is a matter of very wide scope, that all its varieties are intimately, and, indeed, indissolubly, connected. A nation cannot care for good pictures, nor possess them, without caring also for and possessing good arts of de- sign. And the more beauty is brought into the workmanship of the things we use every day, and sought for and enjoyed in these, so in direct proportion will the finer qualities of good pictures be present in our artists' work, and appreciated by our people at large. Folks cannot jump from ugliness to beauty ; they must climb from one to the other, up the ladder of daily life. Good painting is but one of a large family of meritorious children, to whom the Academy should be the Alma Mater ; indeed, it is but the youngest child, and needs the protection and companionship of all its brothers and sisters.
Next with regard to the third defect of Academy instruction which has been mentioned, i.e., the leaving the student unhelped and unguided at the close of his course. Now, there are two chief ways in which this can be remedied, and both are so simple and easy of accomplishment, that our only wonder is that they have not been already adopted,—the more especially as both of them are at work in France at the present minute, and are found to answer well. The first is to form studios where, after the student has gone through his Academy course, he can study painting in a more advanced manner, and in the style of the artist he most admires. This may seem a difficult matter; it is really the simplest thing possible. The artist who gives the name to the studio visits it once a fortnight for an hour or two. This is found in practice to be quite sufficient ; for the rest of the time the students work by themselves under the general direction of one of the elder pupils. The call upon the time of the artist whose studio it is, is almost nominal ; the immense help of practical supervision combined with personal enthusiasm is at once gained; the young students thus working together, aid each other in an almost incredible way; and perhaps even more bene- ficial than all other results is this, that this practice binds together the young and the old men, the master and the student, in a way which no other could possibly do. " Bless the boy I I taught him !" is a very human sentiment, and one which is almost inconsistent with future jealousy.
I have omitted necessarily, for sake of brevity, all reference to the way in which painting is taught in England, for this is a matter to some extent of controversy, and, at all events, could not be dismissed briefly. But it is worth while to remark that there must be something very defective in the technical in- struction given, judging by the fact that so large a proportion of students voluntarily go abroad to enter upon a fresh novitiate. We do not find that a first-class in the Tripos at Trinity or a scholar of Balliol needs to go to Heidelberg to learn his grammar. Why should this be the case in Art ?
I will now pass to the second result,—namely, the encourage. ment and advancement of the young artists. Though there are certain objections frequently urged against it, on the whole this is effected well and easily by the bestowal at the yearly exhibitions of medals upon the most successful works of the younger men. Such medals should be of different classes and for different schools of painting, and it might well be enacted that no admission to Associate rank should be possible without the artist having previously received one of these. From bronze to gold, such medals would then denote various excellences—in the opinion of the Academy—would call the public attention to all specially meritorious work, would probably insure it a purchaser, and would at least, even if it failed in the last point, prevent the young artist from feeling that terrible sickness of heart, that sense of abandonment which is perhaps the most fatal danger, as it is the the greatest sorrow, of early artist life. It is impossible, no doubt, even if these improvements in the instruction and recogni- tion of students were made, to believe that they would be en- tirely satisfactory in their results, or entirely wise in their system. But at least, as Matthew Arnold says, they "would make for righteousness." Our students would no longer go abroad to be taught in foreign studios ; our minor arts would no longer be divorced from painting, and left to the conduct of private enterprise ; our young artists would be brought clearly before the notice of the public, and intimately associated with the men who had -already secured their fame. Ties of mutual kindliness, respect, help, and enthusiasm would spring up between the elder and younger men ; and at least a groundwork would be laid, upon which a future standard of fine art might eventually be founded.
I have left myself but little space in which to speak of the part of this question which has been most frequently brought before the public,—the method of getting the best men elected, of affording due recognition to the most deserving members of the profession. And I will here mention but one point in connection with this matter which has not received due atten- tion, for it lies at the very root of the subject, and that is that the great difficulty here in the way of justice, is the difficulty of number. Let this but once be clearly recognised, and then the method of reform will be clearly indicated. The facts are very simple. There are in England (or elsewhere, for the matter of that) at one time but very few artists—they may be counted on the fingers of both hands—of first-rate rank ; these are perfectly well known, and about them there is practically no dispute. But in the second rank there are a very large number, too large a number to be at one time members of the Academy. The result is that either injustice must be done by electing a comparatively small proportion of these, and thereby exalting them unduly and permanently above their fellows, or some system must be instituted by which the men of this rank (who fall naturally into the class of Associates) should hold their office for a certain period only, and pass into a retired class at its expiration. If this were combined with a considerable extension of the number of Associates, the following important results would be obtained. Every artist would know he had a frequently repeated chance of election, growing in likelihood with each successive rejection ; he would recognise that as the elective body were always changing, any exclusion of himself could not be due to the influence of a special clique ; and he would know also that since his election only lasted for a definitely limited time, he must rely upon the merit of his work rather than his position in the Academy ; a position, remember, which at the present time, once secured, is held for life, entirely in- dependent of merit. The number of years for which such appointment should be held ; the number of Associates to which the present list should be extended ; the various privileges, elective, &c., which should be possessed by them and the Royal Academicians ; the admission of water-colour painters and other artists to a share in the government of the institution,— these and a great many other cognate questions require careful investigation at the hands of the Royal Commission which it is proposed to hold on this subject ; but the points I have in- dicated in the training of students, and the extension of number and limitation of time of office in the Associate class, are, I believe, alterations which are imperative in any scheme of Academy reform.
Previous page
