Studio: international art (2.1894)

The Birmingham Municipal School of Art

T

HE BIRMINGHAM MUNICIPAL avowedly the object of the more direct technical

SCHOOL OF ART, WITH training, and therefore the more of manual skill
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ITS

STUDENTS' ^rf^^HHtofe*.

DESIGN FOR SILVER, BY
G. C. FRANCE

In the first article
on the Birmingham
School of Art, con-
siderable space was
devoted to drawing
for illustration, and
perhaps there undue
prominence was
given to what is
merely a single de-
partment of a very
crowded course of
study. Not that the
School is ever so in-
directly reproached for the multiplicity of its aims ;

. I i c 11 »L„f „11 ~n.inr.t- hp lrpnf A REPOUSSE" DISH, DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY

but as it must needs follow that all cannot De Kept

UUL as 11 lljuai ii^v* _ MARGARET HARRISON

at the same level, it thereby presents more points

for attack than one rigidly confined to the more without this the greater the waste, for while every
conventional routine. That Mr. Edward Taylor, art-worker must possess some powers of handicraft,
^^H^j^^*«^ the reverse does not hold good, and the handi-

craftsman may work before any power is developed

in him.....Art-power is difficult to teach,

although easy to learn, while the technical power

is easier to teach and more difficult to learn.....

To ensure that whatever goes by the name of art
teaching shall also be the best means for secur-
ing 'clear vision, exact measurement, and
precise statement,' should therefore be the first
work of those interested in technical education."
Elsewhere we find reiterated the very important
advice which has so largely helped the success of
these Schools—viz., to draw out and make use of
the idiosyncrasies of the students, their likes and
dislikes, their personal leanings, and thus arouse a

" BASKERVILLE EXAMINING PROOFS," A MEDALLION BY
FREDERICK MASON

the head-master, is a devoted champion for de-
sign in the applied arts needs no proving here;
yet a sentence or two from his admirable Ele-
mentary Art Teaching may be quoted as a
statement, ex cathedra, of his views. "Art-power
should be first obtained," he there writes, "by
means of the easiest method of expression, and
practice in these continued concurrently with the

attempts to express this power in more difficult faculty of much higher value in human life than

DESIGN FOR A SILVER CLASP, BY G. C. FRANCE

ilty of much high

material. The expression of this art-power is mechanical accuracy.

7 1