Studio: international art (6.1896)

National Competition, South Kensington

routine should be obeyed at all cost, and that indi-
vidual feeling or unhackneyed treatment should be
repressed. There is much to be said for this—even
genius must learn to obey rules before it can in-
telligently discard them. But, especially in design, JPl^SfifiS^^V
ideas are by far the most important, and no amount
of faultless execution will ennoble a poor idea.
Given the happy audacity combined with a perfect
sense of beauty that a designer needs to raise his
work above the average level, and you have the
making of an artist. It all depends if your aim is to
train a designer or to turn out a good draughtsman.
In the first place, his ideality and invention, even

DESIGN FOR A LOCK IN CAST BRONZE BY LEON V. SOLON

ances. To insist on accuracy of drawing, know-
ledge of structure and certain principles capable of
being taught is right enough, but to do so without
robbing the student of himself, and reducing him
to be a mere item in a system, is not an easy task,
and one that South Kensington has bungled at
before often enough, and may do so again. In so
large an enterprise it is not easy to spot the weak
if it be crudely expressed and faultily set down, point. Here, we see that Birmingham, where in-

DESIGN FOR METAL BOOK-COVER BY ISABELLA L. TEED

should be encouraged at all cost; in the second- dependent action is fostered, scored many successes;

you may ultimately produce a fairly good imitation but Manchester, where Mr. Walter Crane may be

of a machine, but one to be beaten at equal odds trusted to be working on equally intelligent prin-

by the camera and other purely mechanical appli- ciples, failed to make any distinctive mark this year.

SILVER TEA SET DESIGNED BY JULIA C. MIDDLETON

43