Walter Crane

“ Then, again, we may regard art more from its social aspect as an essential accompaniment of human life, not only for its illustrative and depicting powers, but also and no less for its pleasure-giving properties, its power of awakening and stimulating the observation and sympathy with the moods of nature, its power of touching the emotions, and above all of appealing to our sense of beauty. ”

“ The training for the pictorial artist and for the craftsman would, therefore, naturally be different.
The character of the art-teaching adopted in any country must of course depend upon the dominant conception of art and its function and purpose. If we regard it as an idle accomplishment for the leisured few, its methods will be amateurish and superficial. If we regard art as an important factor in education, as a language of the intelligence, as an indispensable companion to literature, we shall favour systematic study and a training in the power of direct expression by means of line. ”

“ Now that the Education Act 1902 has given the county councils control of elementary and secondary education and charged them with the task of promoting the co-ordination of all forms of education in consultation with the Board of Education, it is probable that an elementary scholar who shows artistic ability will be enabled to pass on from the elementary classes in one school to the higher art and technical schools, secondary and advanced, without retracing his steps, thus escaping the depression of going over old ground. ”

“ It does not concern itself with the amateur or with theoretic drawing. The main difference in principle adopted in this school in the teaching of design is the absence of teaching design apart from handicraft. It is considered that a craftsman thoroughly acquainted with the natural capacities of his material and strictly understanding the conditions of his work, would be able, if he had any feeling or invention, to design appropriately in that material, and no designing can be good apart from a knowledge of the material in which it is intended to be carried out. ”

“ Practice may vary, but principles remain, and there is a certain logic in art, as well as in reasoning. All art is conditioned in the mode of its expression by its material, and even the most individual kind of art has a convention of its own by the very necessities and means of its existence. ”

“ Drawing will be the most direct means at the command of the teacher to explain, to expound, to demonstrate where mere words are not sufficiently definite or explicit. Drawing in this sense is taking a more important place in education, especially in primary education, though there is no need for it to stop there, and one feels it may be destined to take a more important position both as a training for the eye and hand and an aid to the teacher. ”

“ Methods of expression, conventions alter as each artist, each age seeks some new interpretation of nature and the imagination—the well-springs of artistic life, and from these reviving streams continually flow new harmonies, new inventions and recombinations, taking form and colour according to the temperaments which give them birth. ”

“ It should be remembered, too, that graphic skill in representing the appearances of natural objects is one sort of skill, and the executive skill of the craftsman in working out his design, say in wood or metal, is quite another. It follows that the works of drawing or design made by the craftsman would be of quite a different character from a pictorial drawing, and might be quite simple and abstract, while clear and accurate. ”

“ A general survey, therefore, of the various institutions which are established for the teaching of art in Great Britain gives the impression that the study of art is not neglected, although, perhaps, further inquiry might show that, compared with the great educational establishments, the proportion is not excessive. ”

“ The general movement of revival of interest in the arts of decorative design and the allied handicrafts, with the desire to re-establish their influence in art-teaching, has been due to many causes, among which the work of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society may count as important. ”

“ Remarkable results have been obtained by the Alma Road Council schools in the teaching of boys from eight to twelve by giving them spaces to fill with given forms—leaf shapes—from which patterns are constructed to fill the spaces, brush and water-colour being the means employed. At the Royal Female School of Art in Queen Square, London, classes in drawing and painting from life are held, and decorative design is also studied. There are also the Royal School of Art Needlework and the School of Art Wood-carving, all aided by the London County Council. ”

“ We shall value the symbolic drawing of early civilizations like the Egyptian, and symbolic art generally, and in the history of decorative art we shall find the true accompaniment and illustration of human history itself. ”

“ The important change involved in the incorporation of the Science and Art Department with the Board of Education also led to a reorganization of the Royal College of Art. A special council of advice on art matters was appointed, consisting of representatives of painting, sculpture, architecture and design, who deal with the Royal College of Art, and appoint the professors who control the teaching in the classes for architecture, design and handicraft, decorative painting and sculpture, modelling and carving. ”

“ Traditions in art, however, may sometimes prove helpful and beneficial, and preservative of beauty and character, as in the case of certain decorative and constructive arts and handicrafts in common use, such as those of the rural waggon-maker and wheelwright, and horse-harness maker. ”

“ ART TEACHING. It is the tendency of all departments of the human mind to outgrow their original limits. Traditions of teaching are long-lived, especially in art, and new ideas only slowly displace the old, so that art teaching as a whole is seldom abreast of the ideas and practice of the more advanced artists. ”

“ Birmingham is singularly well organized in this respect, and its art school has long held a leading position. The school is well housed in a new building with class-rooms with every appliance, not only for the drawing, designing and modelling side, but also for the practice of artistic handicrafts such as metal repoussé, enamelling, wood-carving, embroidery, &c. The municipality have also established a jewelry school, so as to associate the practical study of art with local industry. Manchester and other cities are also equipped with well-organized art schools. ”

“ With the awakening of interest in industrial art—sharply separated by pedantic classification from fine art—which began in England about the middle of the 19th century, schools of design were established which included more varied studies. Even as early as 1836 a government grant was made towards the opening of public galleries and the establishment of a normal school of design with a museum and lectures, and in 1837 the first school of design was opened at Somerset House. ”

“ As British ideas of art were principally derived from Italy, British academics endeavoured to follow the methods of teaching in vogue there in later times, and so the art student in Great Britain has had his intention and efforts directed almost exclusively to the representations of the abstract human form in abstract relief. ”

“ There is the demand on the part of the manufacturer and salesman for such art as will help him to dispose of his goods. In the present commercial rivalry between nations this latter demand is brought into prominent relief, and art is apt to be made a minister, or perhaps a slave to the market. These are but accidental relationships with art. ”

“ The schools, however, became largely filled by students of another type—leisured amateurs who sought to acquire some artistic accomplishment, and even in the case of genuine designers and craftsmen who developed pictorial skill in their studies, the attraction and superior social distinction and possibility of superior commercial value accruing to the career of a painter of easel pictures diverted the schools from their original purpose. ”

“ Success has attended their schools, especially the Central School of Arts and Crafts at Morley Hall, Regent Street. The object of the school is to provide the craftsman in the various branches of decorative design with such means of improving his taste and skill as the workshop does not afford. ”

“ This theoretic kind of training, though still in force, and though it enabled the department to turn out certificated teachers for the schools of the country of a certain standard, and to give to students a general theoretic idea of art, has been found wanting, since, in practice, when the student in design leaves his school and desires to take up practical work as a designer or craftsman, he requires special knowledge, and specialized skill in design for his work to be of use ”

“ The art schools formerly managed by private committees and supported by private donors, assisted by the government grants, are now, in the principal industrial towns of Great Britain, taken over by the municipality. ”