Punch (9.1845)

70

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE SCHOOL OF BAD DESIGNS.

or some time has it lain uneasily upon
our conscience that we have neglected
this government academy, established in
Somerset House. In this matter, we
feel that we owe a l_~^vy debt; and
shall therefore set about discharging it
with all the accumulated interest. This
we propose to do by weekly instalments.

The School, it seems, is governed by
a Council. Now Councils are almost
invariably made according to one simple
recipe : we can put it down as easily as
Mrs. Rundell would write off "How
to make a hasty-pudding." For instance,
we want a council of twenty-four. " Take
twelve or eighteen members of Parlia-
ment ; it is not necessary that they
should know common principles ; indeed,
the ignorant sort are much the better
for mixing. Throw in two or three
lords ; a squeeze of nobility giving the thing a soft flavour. Then
add three or four, as the case may be, plodding, intriguing, bullying
adventurers—hungry fellows, lusting after small authority — and
you have your council. Stir well together, and serve up at a table
with green cloth."

In a very short time the Council of Twenty-four is really a por> at Somerset House, it appears, he has sown little but the
Council of Two or Three; the remainder holding on to office as a whirlwind; and however lulled the atmosphere may seem for a
sort of genteel thing ; or, in other words, like pikes in a pond, the time, as sure as there are thistles in Caledonia and asses to browse
smallest are swallowed by the most voracious. At this moment it ! 0n them, 60 surely will he reap the storm. In a very short time,

smiths, glass-painters, brass-workers, carvers, tic. produced. It is in fact a mere
drawing-school, and does not improve the taste or knowledge of the operative in the

least."

At the present time Mr. Pugin has the direction of the greatest
amount of decorative work that, in all probability, may be required
by Government for half-a-century. And who executes this work ?
Alas! Mr. Pugin when he sought for artists could not pause at
Somerset-house. No : he was compelled to take steamer, and to
cross the seas. And now he returns with workmen from Louvain,
from Bruges, from Ghent; and it is to the labour of alien hands
that the English Senate House will owe its decorative beauty !

Let us, however, return to our brief history of the School of
Design. "Some time after the establishment of the school," says
Mr, Williams, in the Commons, "Mr. Dtce was engaged as
conductor." Mr. Dyce, of course, did not succeed. That is, he
failed with the council. As the council is composed and guided—
let not the reader forget the above-named anthropophagi—it was to
be expected. Mr. Dyce is a man of great ability : the very man
who ought to be in office in such an institution ; and, of course, after
a time, he was the last man to be tolerated there. Whereupon he
was removed.

And now, enter Mr. Wilson vice Mr. Dyce. It is said that Mr.
Wjlson is a decorative gardener. Truly, it is a pity for the success
of the School of Design, that he was ever transplanted from Edin-
burgh. Pity is it, that he was not suffered to continue, north of

Tweed, his useful labours on—

1 Sweet-william and sweet-marjoram, and all
The tribes of single and of double pinks."

would shock the thoughtless world could it really know the Two or
Three Anthropophagi that compose Councils and Boards, of which
the legendary number still remains two dozen or upwards. Tv

Mr. Wilson was found out. As they say in the melo-drama, " His
Highness was discovered " The students—students have a strange
quick way of jumping at the ignorance of an empirical master—saw
dozen ! Why, two-and-twenty of them—quiet, unoffending souls, through Wilson as plainly as through a cabbage-net. They

whose wives ought never to have trusted them from their firesides

denounced him, and the Council, or rather the Anthropophagi

have been devoured, swallowed alive, by a couple of full-blooded,! cashiered the fault-finders. They in turn petition, and a Committee,

is moved for in the Commons "to inquire into the general manage-
ment and present state" of the School of Design. Tne Committee
is, of course, denied ; two or three of the Council defending the-
Council. Whereupon Wilson and the Anthropophagi embrace,,
and sing—"Now is there peace in Heaven."

And here, until next week, we leave them. Until next week, for
we are vowed to the work ; and ere we have done, will turn the
School of Bad Designs (with all its collateral puffing) inside out,,
like one of Mr. Wilson's gloves.

LITTLE ALTERED.

brass-browed man-eaters, who, by virtue of having reduced their
fellows to nothing, appear before the world as Tlie Council—The
Board ! "I am de company," said Handel, when he sat down to a
dinner—and ate it, too—provided for six. " I am the Council," says
the unabashed Smellfungus, having resolved his companions mto
nincompoops. And the School of Design, at Somerset House, is
governed by a Council; nominal number twenty-four.

It was thought a hopeful day for England, when the Minister
announced the resolution to found a British School of Design. The
blithe news struck upon the nerves of the whole empire. Manchester
rejoiced ; and with prophetic eye gazed upon her thousand thousand
looms, glowing with ten thousand thousand fancies—bright and rich
as Dutchmen's tulips—the work of her own children ; her well-
taught sons and daughters, their genius fostered and directed by the
state. Swart Birmingham rested upon his hammer, and smiles of
sunshine brightened his smutched brows, and in his own hearty wny
he thanked the patriot statesman for the school proposed : for
thence would Birmingham gain new devices ; thence would he fix
the beautiful with iron hold—Venus lying in Vulcanic arms !

And Sheffield, too, was glad. And quiet Norwich, thinking of her
crapes and stuffs, smiled like a !«:appy Quakeress ; for the School of
Design would abound with beauty, even to her. And Coventry,
flaunting in her rainbow ribbons, would have such rare conceits
fluttering in silken sheen. Even Spitalfields lifted up her wan face
—and forgetful of her typhus allies, her "gilded puddles"—thought
with gratitude of this New School ; thought how henceforth she
would meet and beat the patterns of the French. Yes ; under the
paternal care of Government, it would be shown to the world that
albeit the English made steam-engines, they had minds quick in the
perception of all the qualities of the Beautiful.

And with these hopes beating at the hearts of thousands, the
School of Design was seen to throw open its doors, and a voice from
the Temple of the Arts, cried to the meanest of the land, "Enter
and learn," And now, what says Mr. Pugin of this School ? What
says the artist—delegated to decorate the new Houses of Parliament
—of this Academy of Bad, and Mean, and Selfish, and Tyrannical
Designs ? He says :—

" I do not use too strong language when I say that the School on its present system
ia worse than useless, for it diffuses bad and paltry taste. 1 have not seen a single piece • ™

of ornament that had anything original or national about it; nor do 1 see any practical "He Livbd not W isfi/v, but too Well.