DOI issue:
The Lay Figure: On practical art teaching
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0100
The Lay Figure
THE LAY FIGURE: ON PRAC-
TICAL ART TEACHING.
“ I wonder whether we shall ever succeed
in organising a really practical system of art educa-
tion in this country,” said the Art Critic. “ I cannot
see that our present methods have any right to be
considered efficient or that they give anything like
adequate results.”
“ I do not at all agree with you,” protested the
Art Master. “ Our modern methods seem to me
to be worthy of all respect. They represent the
conclusions arrived at by the men who are acknow-
ledged to have most experience in educational
questions, and they are well adapted to the needs
of students of art.”
“Still, if the results are inadequate the methods
are not what they ought to be,” broke in the Man
with the Red Tie. “The educator may be ex-
perienced and yet not infallible.”
“ But I deny that the results are inadequate,”
cried the Art Master. “ Look at the enormous
number of students who are now working in our
art schools and see how the standard of technical
practice has risen in recent years. You cannot
point to any previous period in our art history when
so many brilliant young artists were available or
when the general standard of artistic accomplish-
ment stood so high.”
“ Oh, I am quite ready to grant that the general
practice of the painter’s craft has considerably
improved, and that there are quite a lot of modern
painters who are admirably trained in all the tricks
of their trade,” replied the Critic. “ But it is just
for that reason that I say that our system of art
education is unpractical. We are wasting all our
energies in teaching—very efficiently, I admit—a
vast number of men to paint pictures that nobody
appears to want, and we are neglecting applications
of art which are really of much more importance.”
“ No, that is not a fair statement of the position,”
objected the Art Master. “ We do not confine
ourselves to training painters; we are training an
even greater number of students to become de-
signers. There is a vast amount of attention being
given at the present time to the development of
the applied arts and to the encouragement of the
artistic crafts.”
“ What, then, becomes of all the designers you
turn out ? ” inquired the Man with the Red Tie.
“ We have not made any startling progress of late
years in design; indeed, we have in that branch of
art fallen behind other nations. How do you
account for it ? ”
86
“ I do not think we have fallen behind,” returned
the Art Master. “ We are holding our own quite
reasonably well. There are plenty of able designers
in this country.”
“Yes, but how many of them can you claim as
products of your system of education ? ” interrupted
the Critic. “ If your teaching were so efficient
there would be, not a few men prominent in design,
but a mass of skilful designers who would raise
perceptibly the whole standard of what one may
call commercial art. Now, I complain that the
bulk of commercial art is tawdry and pretentious,
wanting in taste and lacking in aesthetic quality.
Why should that be ? ”
“ We train the designers, but if the manufacturers
will not employ them that is not our fault,” pro-
tested the Art Master.
“ I am not so sure about that,” replied the Critic.
“ I think it is your fault, because, as I have already
said, your system is not practical. You teach the
theory of design, but you pay no attention to its
practice. You train students to design things about
the making of which they are ignorant, and this
ignorance you do nothing to enlighten. When
your students leave school and seek for employment
they cannot get it because they do not know how
to apply the theories they have learned to actual
production; because, in fact, you have not made
craftsmen of them. The manufacturers want men
who can work, not theorists whose abstract imagin-
ings have to be made workable by some one
else.”
“ But the art school is not meant to be a work-
shop,” objected the Art Master.
“ Is it not ? ” commented the Critic. “ I think
it ought to be. Look at the Austrian schools of
Applied Art and see what results they are achieving
by making their students test theoretical knowledge
by practical work. Look at the German schools and
see how they are being remodelled on the same
lines. Look at the few great craftsmen-designers
we have, who know by practical experience just
how a design should be made to suit perfectly the
materials in which it is to be carried out. Why
should not our art teachers learn a lesson them-
selves and realise that our art schools—I mean
especially those established and maintained by the
public authorities—must become workshops if the
training of the student is ever to be reorganised on
practical lines ? When are we going to have the
sense to admit our inefficiency ? ”
“Ah, I wonder!” laughed the Man with the
Red Tie.
The Lay Figure.
THE LAY FIGURE: ON PRAC-
TICAL ART TEACHING.
“ I wonder whether we shall ever succeed
in organising a really practical system of art educa-
tion in this country,” said the Art Critic. “ I cannot
see that our present methods have any right to be
considered efficient or that they give anything like
adequate results.”
“ I do not at all agree with you,” protested the
Art Master. “ Our modern methods seem to me
to be worthy of all respect. They represent the
conclusions arrived at by the men who are acknow-
ledged to have most experience in educational
questions, and they are well adapted to the needs
of students of art.”
“Still, if the results are inadequate the methods
are not what they ought to be,” broke in the Man
with the Red Tie. “The educator may be ex-
perienced and yet not infallible.”
“ But I deny that the results are inadequate,”
cried the Art Master. “ Look at the enormous
number of students who are now working in our
art schools and see how the standard of technical
practice has risen in recent years. You cannot
point to any previous period in our art history when
so many brilliant young artists were available or
when the general standard of artistic accomplish-
ment stood so high.”
“ Oh, I am quite ready to grant that the general
practice of the painter’s craft has considerably
improved, and that there are quite a lot of modern
painters who are admirably trained in all the tricks
of their trade,” replied the Critic. “ But it is just
for that reason that I say that our system of art
education is unpractical. We are wasting all our
energies in teaching—very efficiently, I admit—a
vast number of men to paint pictures that nobody
appears to want, and we are neglecting applications
of art which are really of much more importance.”
“ No, that is not a fair statement of the position,”
objected the Art Master. “ We do not confine
ourselves to training painters; we are training an
even greater number of students to become de-
signers. There is a vast amount of attention being
given at the present time to the development of
the applied arts and to the encouragement of the
artistic crafts.”
“ What, then, becomes of all the designers you
turn out ? ” inquired the Man with the Red Tie.
“ We have not made any startling progress of late
years in design; indeed, we have in that branch of
art fallen behind other nations. How do you
account for it ? ”
86
“ I do not think we have fallen behind,” returned
the Art Master. “ We are holding our own quite
reasonably well. There are plenty of able designers
in this country.”
“Yes, but how many of them can you claim as
products of your system of education ? ” interrupted
the Critic. “ If your teaching were so efficient
there would be, not a few men prominent in design,
but a mass of skilful designers who would raise
perceptibly the whole standard of what one may
call commercial art. Now, I complain that the
bulk of commercial art is tawdry and pretentious,
wanting in taste and lacking in aesthetic quality.
Why should that be ? ”
“ We train the designers, but if the manufacturers
will not employ them that is not our fault,” pro-
tested the Art Master.
“ I am not so sure about that,” replied the Critic.
“ I think it is your fault, because, as I have already
said, your system is not practical. You teach the
theory of design, but you pay no attention to its
practice. You train students to design things about
the making of which they are ignorant, and this
ignorance you do nothing to enlighten. When
your students leave school and seek for employment
they cannot get it because they do not know how
to apply the theories they have learned to actual
production; because, in fact, you have not made
craftsmen of them. The manufacturers want men
who can work, not theorists whose abstract imagin-
ings have to be made workable by some one
else.”
“ But the art school is not meant to be a work-
shop,” objected the Art Master.
“ Is it not ? ” commented the Critic. “ I think
it ought to be. Look at the Austrian schools of
Applied Art and see what results they are achieving
by making their students test theoretical knowledge
by practical work. Look at the German schools and
see how they are being remodelled on the same
lines. Look at the few great craftsmen-designers
we have, who know by practical experience just
how a design should be made to suit perfectly the
materials in which it is to be carried out. Why
should not our art teachers learn a lesson them-
selves and realise that our art schools—I mean
especially those established and maintained by the
public authorities—must become workshops if the
training of the student is ever to be reorganised on
practical lines ? When are we going to have the
sense to admit our inefficiency ? ”
“Ah, I wonder!” laughed the Man with the
Red Tie.
The Lay Figure.