DOI Heft:
No. 27 (June 1895)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The Manchester School of Art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0128
Manchester School of Art
by side with the mechanical devices prescribed
under the old regime, have been established the
readier and more profitable methods in which
Mr. Crane believes. Students have now a much
wider choice of means of expression. They
may draw from life or the antique in white
chalk on brown paper, with the brush in oil or
water-colour, or with the pen ; they may sub-
stitute for the wiry outlining of antique figures,
which used to be insisted upon, broad silhou-
ettes, suggesting mass and stating proportions ;
they are encouraged to believe that mere sur-
face finish and neat execution are not the only
things at which they have to aim, but that style
and artistic capacity have an even higher value.
They are, in fact, being given an opportunity of
comparing, to its disadvantage, a method which
is incomplete because stereotyped and conven-
tional with a system which is all-embracing
because it is capable of unlimited extension and
because it has as its first aim, and last, fidelity
to Nature, who is herself without bounds or
limits. What will be the outcome of it all, it
design for printed cotton by j. e. birks . , .
is, as yet, too soon to say ; but we may at least
it is only by close study and intelligent adaptation hope that Manchester, having an opportunity, will
of her principles that he can ever hope for ultimate turn it to good account, and, rising superior to the
success in his profession. commercial considerations which have so much to
It may be imagined that Mr. Crane hardly found
the governing committee of the Manchester School
prepared to revolutionise the entire working of the
establishment by the substitution of his programme
in its entirety for the existing system. There was
the central authority at South Kensington, with its
power of control, to consider ; there was the serious
reflection that anything like open rebellion against
the official curriculum meant the stoppage of the
money grant with which the Science and Art De-
partment rewards the obedience of subordinate
institutions ; there were local prejudices and con-
ventions that could not be lightly disregarded. So
the committee temporised and made with their new
director a species of compromise. The " Sugges-
tions " were adopted, not, indeed, as the dominant
principles of the school system, but as materials
for an alternative and complementary course worked
in with the older arrangements, and fitted on to
them as much as possible. An already existing
class for training designers of printed textiles has
been enlarged by the addition of a special section
in which rapid studies can be made of momentary
poses—poses suited to particular designs—and in
which art-workers in search of wider and more
comprehensive practice can gain profitable ex-
perience. And even in the main school, side design for printed cotton by r. pollock
109
by side with the mechanical devices prescribed
under the old regime, have been established the
readier and more profitable methods in which
Mr. Crane believes. Students have now a much
wider choice of means of expression. They
may draw from life or the antique in white
chalk on brown paper, with the brush in oil or
water-colour, or with the pen ; they may sub-
stitute for the wiry outlining of antique figures,
which used to be insisted upon, broad silhou-
ettes, suggesting mass and stating proportions ;
they are encouraged to believe that mere sur-
face finish and neat execution are not the only
things at which they have to aim, but that style
and artistic capacity have an even higher value.
They are, in fact, being given an opportunity of
comparing, to its disadvantage, a method which
is incomplete because stereotyped and conven-
tional with a system which is all-embracing
because it is capable of unlimited extension and
because it has as its first aim, and last, fidelity
to Nature, who is herself without bounds or
limits. What will be the outcome of it all, it
design for printed cotton by j. e. birks . , .
is, as yet, too soon to say ; but we may at least
it is only by close study and intelligent adaptation hope that Manchester, having an opportunity, will
of her principles that he can ever hope for ultimate turn it to good account, and, rising superior to the
success in his profession. commercial considerations which have so much to
It may be imagined that Mr. Crane hardly found
the governing committee of the Manchester School
prepared to revolutionise the entire working of the
establishment by the substitution of his programme
in its entirety for the existing system. There was
the central authority at South Kensington, with its
power of control, to consider ; there was the serious
reflection that anything like open rebellion against
the official curriculum meant the stoppage of the
money grant with which the Science and Art De-
partment rewards the obedience of subordinate
institutions ; there were local prejudices and con-
ventions that could not be lightly disregarded. So
the committee temporised and made with their new
director a species of compromise. The " Sugges-
tions " were adopted, not, indeed, as the dominant
principles of the school system, but as materials
for an alternative and complementary course worked
in with the older arrangements, and fitted on to
them as much as possible. An already existing
class for training designers of printed textiles has
been enlarged by the addition of a special section
in which rapid studies can be made of momentary
poses—poses suited to particular designs—and in
which art-workers in search of wider and more
comprehensive practice can gain profitable ex-
perience. And even in the main school, side design for printed cotton by r. pollock
109