International studio (15.1901/1902(1902))

Studio- Talk

GLASGOW.—The annual exhibition of
the School of Art has just been held
in the Galleries of the Royal Glasgow
Institute of the Fine Arts. This show
consists of pictures, applied art, needlework, &c.
executed by members of the School of Art Club ;
and the authorities rely chiefly for the material for
their annual exhibition upon the work executed
during the summer vacation.

Worked by students for students, the exhibition
has for many years past been of interest to those who
study the trained efforts of students who may be
expected in due time to become the painters
and art workers of the coming generation. It is
intended to illustrate the result of the education
afforded by the school during the months of the
academic year. The verdict that must be passed
upon the exhibition is that
its standard of excellence
was lower than that exacted
by the School, and that
the show, while exhibit-
ing the average, distinctly
fell below the possible.

The introduction of pro-
fessors from the Con-
tinent to take charge of the
higher work of the School
has made possible a tech-
nique of work hitherto not
obtainable.

In the best of the ex-
hibits there was noticeable
an individuality of feeling
and treatment, giving evi-
dence of a certain indepen-
dence of thought and action
which would not be possible
under a system of formal
routine, where the blind
authority of the teaching
body limits the student to
the narrow convention of a
barren tradition. At the
same time it must be ad-
mitted that we could have
wished to see space better
occupied than by “ pretty
articles ” of the bazaar type,
in which fancy of a weak
and vagrant sort had been
permitted to indulge itself,

without the wholesome discipline of reticence and
due recognition of the limits and possibilities
of the materials employed.

To expect original forms or new decorative
treatment from students is to expect fruit when
the flower is not yet in bud. That new idea
which should be the starting-point of every creation
is often the last thing attained even by the skilled
and intelligent craftsman ; but in either case the
lack of ideas is not concealed by sacrificing quality
to variety, and beginners should not be permitted
too much licence either in the choice or treatment
of a subject. There is probably a growing recogni-
tion of the importance of good models, placed in
municipal collections or supplied by competent
and experienced modern designers, and were these
more studied much of the present-day work would

BOOKBINDING DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY ALICE GAIRDNER