The Present And Future Of British Art.

reasons . _ Except m cases ivherc the first artists were employed , none existed AVIIO could supply the manufacturers with ' original patterns . Such as ivere produced Avcrc generally those of inen employed on the premises , or half raw boys , the sons of sonic foreman engaged , unacquainted with all but the merest elements of drawing , devoid of all educated taste , nninstructed by any examples but those common in the trade : ignorant of proportion ,

perspective , form , aud continuity of outline , beauty of colour , ancl unblessed with any , even the slightest knoivledge of it as a question of science . At the best , the designer Avas left to grope on unassisted , and his work was the mere result of talent unguided hy knoivledge . With respect to the state of trade , nothing could be u-orse . One artist of great eminence shoAA-ed that chasing was at quite as low

an ebb as it ivas some forty years ago ; another stated upon complaining that a design by Stothard was spoiled by the artisan , he ivas answered , " Sir , in this country AVC can never get beyond a teapot 1 " Avhile in the case of drawings from such ivorks ' as the Elgin marbles , to be afterwards executed as a frieze upon paper , Mr . Crabb , a decorator , excellently explained the difficulties in his lyay , and proved the great superiority of tlie French iu all details of this

business , and his requisite reliance upon them . It signified very little who was examined , the evidence ivas throughout the same . We could manufacture , but ive coulcl not design . The east and west of London , Spitalfiekls , Coventry , Manchester , Birmingham , all ivere represented , and this truth ivas manifest , that although Ave might compote , and did , ivith the French in material , in particular colours , and other details , yet that our goods , particularly silk , and fancy articles of commerce , were either universally copied from the French , or were otherwise n-voivedby inferior .

Thus the spectacle ivas exhibited of a nation enabled to produce a better article as regards material , yet unable to compete , ancl even excluded from competition , with the foreign artist , and that upon their OAVII hmd , by a want of knowledge in design ! Nay , more ; it was the patron of that artist , to the acknowledged detriment of its OAVII trade . Indeed , the whole affair was a scramble ; patterns imported from France ivere manufactured off-hand ; the sole desire to of the

was get possession market , even for one clay , and to sell at the cheapest rate , at the loivest' expenditure . Everyone admitted the evil ; all , even to the humblest workman , felt its deplorable effects . Noiv , what was the cause ? The want of a school of design . We ivere as men endowed with every attribute of physical power , yet unendowed with reason to give that power effect : like the barbaric chiefs of oldin whose domains the

, precious metals abounded , but AVIIO suffered them to pass into the possession of every trader , from inability to use them properly ' themselves . This ' evil was so clearly established , not only by the report of the Committee of Arts and Manufactures , by one subsequently made to the Board of Trade by Mr . Dyce , and the concurrent testimony of the host informed men , that the government resolved upon the foundation of a permanent school for the education of

men , principally for the application of art to manufactures and the higher branches of trade and professions . The importance of the connection betAveen manufactures and arts has always been admitted . In Greece great artists arose from the manufacturing districts ; it is apparent from till their works that those artists who had failed in the higher branches applied themselves to the lower ; and , AVO IWA ' C admirable works of a minute and minor

kind , Avhich were executed by men ivho had been employed upon a much larger scale , and attempted hi gher things . Schools of design were first introduced into France b y Colbert , under the auspices of Louis XIV ., and from that period have been widely diffused . In Germany and Bir / aria similar establishments have been formed , the efficacy of ivhieh has been greatlincreased btheir several " Industrial Associations" Yet

y y . for us—a peculiarly manufacturing nation , to whom the connexion hetiveen art and manufactures is most important , and whom it bcboA'cs , were it only from motii'cs of mercantile interest , to encourage art for the protection and the promotion of commercial industry—no such institution had existed .

ihe School of Design at Somerset House was consequentl y opened ; and , considering its great importance , we shall noiv detail the objects it had in view . First , it proceeded upon a principle well established in relation to every direction of the mindthat to elicit genius , or make ifc the poiver it may become . i'ou must educate it . The rule applicable to hiiv , to medical science , from the commonest to the lowest pursuitsis still

, as stringently applicable to Art . Every great artist of the past went through a rigid course of study : every book upon the subject proi-es this : every aberration from the system attests its ' necessity . Who designed m the middle ages ? Raphael . From whom sprung even

the debased system called the style of Louis XIV ., more correctly that of his successor ? From the examples of ornamental art , executed by the Greeks , Romans , and Italians , long accredited as the offspring of high and cultivated taste , as practised by Michael Angelo and . Benvenuto Cellini , as designed by Le Pautre , and given in valuable documents by Piranesi . The style of Louis XIV . was the Roman style , with a more sumptuous expression . ornaments of

It was by such men , then , that of old the palaces , the works to be produced in the loom , in silver , bronze , iron , and wood , ivere designed . It is to raise up men—if possible such men—at all events men trained in the discipline of such examples —that the directors of these schools labour . A rigid course of instruction is adopted ; the pupils arc taught to draw ornament and the figure ; the best works and the purest models are

supplied ; the classic style is adopted as the best ; only the most beautiful forms arc placed before them ; the poiver of light and shade , the use of chalk , the laivs of chiar ' oscuro , and of colour in all its details , are made a daily study , and the most assiduous practice . The education of all is essentially the same , but as they acquire a knowledge of drawing the ) ' have copies placed before them , aud their attention , is directed to the class of ornament aud

its application most likely to be conducive to their several future occupations . What that occupation may be , is not , however , incumbent on the School to decide . Their mission is the cultivation of taste , tbe communication of knoivledge , the training of the mind by the discipline of great examples . It is the genius ofthe pupil , and tlie wants of the manufacturer , that must determine the employment of the knoivledge here obtained . This is well known ; ancl not to derive the advantages this School affords to the capitalist , because ifc does not supply the practised workman , is not only in the way of all improvement , but of all sane

reasoning . In France , ivherc many artists are employed , it happens , particularly with reference to the loom , that they also are generally the melteurs en carle , but this has never been the case here ; and whatever advantage may be derived from this practice , time doubtless will secure . Still less can it be expected that artists can at once be reared ; but this School can , nay , does , rear \ excellent workmen as ornamentists , and numbers of practical designers

have derived great advantage from their study of art within its walls . The Queen ' s summer-house has been painted by one pupil in a style far exceeding the work of any foreign artist employed in this country ; others are engaged as ornamentists , or as teachers iu local schools , where the head masters are ahvays , where it is possible , artists of the higher class . Of the silent , gradual , influence of this system upon the formation of public taste there

can be no doubt . Fashion may counteract its efficacy , and will ; but " a breath can make this , as a breath has made . " The generation for whose dresses Kent designed the fiA'e orders of architecture , has been succeeded by another whose silks and cottons arc made far more attractive by designs from these schools , of a more becoming— -more artistic , and less ambitious character . Let not , therefore , those who make , or those who sell , lay the flattering ancl that there

unction to their souls , that the public has no taste , is no wisdom iu the manufacture of any article of design , and that the old pattern , the time-worn system—is the best . Such opinions may suit the warehouse or the counter—are in accordance ivith the limited capacity of those to whom the present gain is the be-all and the end-all here ; but , eppure si muore , opinion advances ; and such men will be found , in the dim and dusty waste of their own silent , desolate premises , the becoming memorials of a sj'stem they had not the genius to break through , and hardly the cunning to make profitable to their OAVII ends .

Turn we now to the future of British art . Like every human prospect , it is one of mingled hopes and fears . Yet assuredly it has more of hope . The gloom that has hung over and accompanied the course of British art , like mists AA'hich gather round the sun . and which seldom fails as it adA'ances to make more palpable the beauty of that luminary Avhose glory they cannot wholly hide , is IIOAV far spent . Religion has become more ' tolerant of her prothem

ductions , the state more anxious to promote and protect , the people more impressed by their humanising influence , more anxious to extend it , to make art a companion of their pleasure , the enlivener of their homes , and an additional power for the furtherance of honourable ambition . Our artists have proved they are equal to national undertakings , and anxious to redeem the past . The schools of France and England seem to evince

more orig inal talent than other countries , more novelty in style ancl conception , although not ahvays ecpial in execution . The schools in the other parts of Europe fluctuate betAveen Albert Durcr ancl Raphael , Avithout the originality ofthe one , or the beauty and completeness ofthe other . The evil consequent upon the present state of opinion , the future of British art will assuredly correct ,