National Academy of Design

“ THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE SOCIETY Other gifts besides those commonly acknowledged as the artist’s peculiar possession are needful if the advancement of art and the status of the artist are to be fitly assured. These other gifts belonged to the painter Morse when in defending the interests of art-study he played his important part in founding our National Academy of Design in 1825. They belonged to the artists who, in espousing the cause of the young Saint-Gaudens half a century later, broke away from the Academy to form the Society of American Artists. ”

“ To these shall be delegated the power to regulate its entire concerns, choose its members, select its students, etc.
"Thus will the germ be formed to grow up into an institution which we trust will be put on such principles as to encourage—not to depress—the arts. When this is done our body will no longer be the Drawing Association, but the National Academy of the Arts of Design, still including all the present association, but in different capacities. ”

“ Observant visitors to the National Academy of Design will allow that a tendency to greatness is beginning to develop itself in certain directions among our artists. In landscape some of them are almost immense. ”

“ He with a few others now founded the National Academy of Design. He took lodgings in the Catskills in the summer of 1826, and worked diligently. He studied nature like a lover; now he sketched a peculiar sunset, now a wild storm, now an exquisite waterfall. "Why do not the younger landscape painters walk—walk alone, and endlessly?" ”

“ He studied abroad, and in 1861 removed to New York City, where in 1862 he became a member of the National Academy of Design. He was a prolific worker and a man of much inventiveness and originality, though of modest artistic endowment. ”

“ In this volume the development of art in this country is traced from its beginning and the conditions which influence it, the social aspects of art, and the personality of the artists are discussed. Much space is given to the lives of some of the earlier painters, the rise and development of the National academy of design is described, also early institutions now dead and forgotten. There are twelve full-page photogravures and 100 text illustrations. ”

“ Over at the National Academy of Design, in an upper room, the members of one of the women's {6}portrait classes were assembled, ready to begin work. Easels had been drawn into position; a clear light from the blue sky of the last of April fell through the opened roof upon new canvases fastened to the frames. And it poured down bountifully upon intelligent young faces. The scene was a beautiful one, and it was complete except in one particular: the teacher of the class was missing—the teacher and a model. ”

“ He studied (1842–1845) at Brown University, then went to New York, and entered the art schools of the National Academy of Design, of which organization he was elected an associate in 1851, and an academician in 1854. Subsequently he studied in Paris and Rome. ”

“ We shall not venture to touch that most sensitive of all topics, native art, on which no opinion can be expressed with safety, Suffice it to say, that New-York has a National Academy of Design; the nucleus of a free gallery; an Art-Union, largely patronized; an Artists' Association, with a gallery of its own; and various exhibitions of European pictures. Lessing's Martyrdom of Huss has been for some time exhibiting in a collection of paintings of the Düsseldorf school. ”

“ With these and other additions and alterations, assuming that the national pictures are removed, I propose that the building should be devoted exclusively to the teaching of Art in all its branches, and the periodical exhibition of modern works, for which purpose it should be divided between the Royal Academy of Fine Art, and the Metropolitan School of Design for practical and decorative Art. ”

“ Institute of Technology, and at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and in 1885–1890 he was a pupil of Antonin Mercié in Paris. In 1890–1898 he was an instructor in the art school of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. In 1906 he was elected vice-president of the National Academy of Design, New York. ”

“ He had previously delivered some lectures on art at the Royal Institution, which had been well received in spite of some want of method and abruptness. He now threw his whole mind into his task, and embodied the result of years of sincere thought in four lectures on (1) design, (2) invention, (3) chiaro scuro, and (4) colouring. With the exception of those of Sir Joshua Reynolds, no series of lectures emanating from the Royal Academy are better worth reading. Their views are original and just, and they contain much excellent criticism in language which is clear and vigorous. ”

“ Already, twenty-five artists of respectability of this city await one effort of the American Academy to reëstablish its original standing and reputation, and they will join heart and hand to oppose the Academy of Design (truly so called) by every work of their hands done and to be done. ”

“ At great cost it is arranged to offer every facility for thorough, systematic and complete work in this direction. The school rooms and equipment are unequalled by the Artists' League for the Academy of Design in New York, and are not excelled by the great schools of Paris, up to the present time. ”

“ Throughout his life he was ever producing canvases, and designing, and his interest in the art activity of the country, which connects his name with the establishment of the New York Academy of Design, together with his writing on the subject, make him an important figure in that line of work. ”

“ Let the members of the Academy open their doors wide enough to admit all classes of artisans who desire to study the principles of design—the basis upon which the beauty and the saleability of their works mainly depends. There might then, in addition to the sections of Painting and Sculpture, be added those of Architecture, Ornamental Marble and Stone Workers, Carvers in Wood and Metal, Gold and Silver Smiths, Cabinet Makers, and indeed, as many other occupations as chose to unite themselves, in separate sections, for the purposes of mutual instruction in the Art of Design. ”

“ It may not be out of place here to remark, that it is firmly believed that the Academy of Design can yet rise up from its ashes, and overthrow all such schemes as Art-Unions, by placing itself upon a more liberal and popular footing; and by disclaiming all exclusive titles as utterly unworthy the ambition of every sensible and right-feeling artist. Institutions in this country, to be useful, must be placed on a popular foundation ”

“ In 1873 he abandoned reporting and became connected with the school of design, now the art academy, of the University of Cincinnati. His object was to secure the development of American decorative art and to open up a new profession for women. ”

“ But an academy founded upon such principles can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in it which can be useful even in manufactures; but if the higher arts of design flourish, these inferior ends will be answered of course.
We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of such an institution, according to its true dignity, and promotes the arts, as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation ”

“ As one of the regenerators of the old or American Academy of Fine Arts, I now make bold in saying to its directors a few things, which if duly weighed and followed must result favorably to its vitality and best interests, and be the medium of establishing the reputation of artists on firm and lasting basis, viz.: by collecting around the American Academy and with it all the genius and talent in the arts of design which our country possesses and creating a fund sufficient to all its wants and expenditures. ”

“ After this, if he is studiously inclined, he may perhaps go to the academy at Somerset House, where in the course of a year, he may hear six lectures on architecture, provided that is, that the professor is neither sick, nor idle, nor too busy to give them; or he will employ himself at home in making designs, without at all knowing what are the requisites for any mode of design whatever. ”

“ The idea of forming a society for the purpose of showing contemporary work in design and handicraft really arose out of a movement of revolt or protest against the exclusive view of art encouraged by the Royal Academy exhibitions, in which oil paintings in gilt frames claimed almost exclusive attention—sculpture, architecture and the arts of decorative design being relegated to quite subordinate positions. ”

“ Having said so much in depreciation of the Academy, we must also say that it conveys on the whole an elegant, artistic, and even cheerful impression to the mind, relieving, with its beautiful contrasts of white and gray and slate, the sombre blocks of red or brown buildings which surround it, and actually lightening up the rather prosaic quarter in which it stands. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the architect for the combinations of color which he has infused into his design ”

“ I trust a period will come, when this Academy will be able to send the young artist, not from one spot or one seminary to another, but to gather improvement from every celebrated work of art wherever situated. But the progress and all future success of the artist must depend upon himself. He must be in love with his art or he will never excel in it.
"That the arts of design were among the first suggestions vouchsafed by Heaven to mankind, is not a proposition at which any man needs to start. ”

“ A general historical study of architecture has even been introduced in universities, and 491already the erection of a national academy of art is so actively discussed that it will probably be very soon realized. ”

“ Thus, then, you will find—and the more profound and accurate your knowledge of the history of art the more assuredly you will find—that the living power in all the real schools, be they great or small, is love of nature. But do not mistake me by supposing that I mean this law to be all that is necessary to form a school. There needs to be much superadded to it, though there never must be anything superseding it. The main thing which needs to be superadded is the gift of design. ”

“ April 20, 1982 marks the 125th Anniversary of the American Institute of Architects. With a spirit of appreciation, the American people honor and congratulate the Institute for its many accomplishments.
American architects have historically expressed through their work the richness of our heritage and the vitality of our national spirit. They have combined advances in building technology with design innovation to give exciting new forms to our cities. ”

“ Just as it is necessary for the painter to keep up with the times by going to the annual exhibitions of the Academy of Design, or the Academy of Fine Arts, or by seeing a selection of the pictures shown, so the artisan should keep abreast of the work done not only in this country but abroad in the same field as his own. ”

“ Already artists of distinction have pronounced her oil paintings of sufficient merit to entitle her to enter the Academy of Design in New York, and she has been advised to adopt art as a life vocation. ”

“ If designing could be taught, all the world would learn: as all the world reads—or calculates. But designing is not to be spelled, nor summed. My men continually come to me, in my drawing class in London, thinking I am to teach them what is instantly to enable them to gain their bread. "Please, sir, show us how to design." "Make designers of us." And you, I doubt not, partly expect me to tell you to-night how to make designers of your Bradford youths. Alas! I could as soon tell you how to make or manufacture an ear of wheat, as to make a good artist of any kind. ”

“ A school of design we must have too in each city. It should be a stately and noble building, full of the best examples of the best art of the world. Furthermore, do not put your designers in a barren whitewashed room and bid them work in that depressing and colourless atmosphere as I have seen many of the American schools of design, but give them beautiful surroundings. Because you want to produce a permanent canon and standard of taste in your workman, he must have always by him and before him specimens of the best decorative art of the world, so that you can say to him: ‘This is good work. ”