International studio (45.1912)

The Prague Arts and Crafts School


“la procession”

BY CHARLES COTTET

and the coming on of death. Apart, however, from
these spiritual aspects, there are admirable qualities
of execution in these nudes of Cottet’s, even though
they lack charm and seductiveness. The solidity,
the impression of volume and weight, of resistance
and elasticity in the flesh—how rare have such
qualities become ; and it is all the more strange to
find that these are the attributes of Cottet’s work in
this genre when it is remembered that all his art
is devoted to the expression of two ideas which lie
deep in his soul and in the very fibres of his being,
the thoughts of Sorrow and Death.
Cottet’s work must be judged from a double
standpoint. He must be considered not only as a
magnificent painter but also as a moralist and a
philosopher. Among contemporary painting his
work falls into a special category of its own and is
imbued with qualites of emotion, of thoughtful-
ness and able execution which make it worthy to
take a place beside the productions of the Great
Masters. A. S.

At a meeting of the Royal Academy held at the
beginning of last month, Mr. Andrew C. Gow,
R.A., was elected to the office of Keeper in place
of Mr. Crofts, deceased. Mr. Gow was born in
1848 and has been R.A. since 1891.

rpHE TEACHING OF DESIGN
AT THE PRAGUE ARTS AND
1 CRAFTS SCHOOL. BY
HEDWIG SCHANZER.
A generation ago the methods of teaching in
vogue at the principal art schools, almost every-
where, differed fundamentally from those now
pursued in most of these institutions. Under the
old system the student’s training had the effect of
making him a mere copyist, and no attempt was
made to stimulate his inventive talent if he had
any. The effect of such a system could only be
to promote a certain kind of mechanical dexterity
devoid of that vitality which constitutes the very
essence of artistic expression.
The rejuvenation of traditional ornamentation
had become an all-important question, and an effort
had already been made to replace the fruitless
copying of historical forms by the study of nature
as the real source of all form and colour when at
last this idea was taken up by the schools. The
old system of drawing from the flat and the cast
was abandoned, and modern methods of drawing
from life were introduced.
The fundamental factors in this new mode of
instruction are both the early and intimate study of
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