Studio: international art (6.1896)

The Herkomer School

7. .

him the best chance of showing his real capacities. manner • he is less exposed to the risks which
But at first the vastness of Nature and the multi- would beset him elsewhere while he feels about for
plicity of her suggestions are apt to bewilder him, secure footing; and he has the advantage, valuable
and there is no little danger that he may, with the to the artist of any age, of having constantly avail-
inevitable perversity of human nature, be led into able the advice of a painter of repute whose know-
wasting his energies upon material which is fas- ledge has been acquired in the hardest schools,
cinating but yet quite unsuited for artistic treat- It is, certainly, to the personal influence of Pro-
ment. It is in this perplexity that the influence fessor Herkomer that the Bushey colony owes its

value and its efficiency.
The whole concern is
. : -C^^^^-really nothing but a re
. ,,,.;' V';'r> flection of the organising

"-•■^\:V^:^S^I|^lv-^. sPirit- :t is arranged

1 "' .:'.C' % * to satisfy his special con-

victions about the man-

ffFp It' ■

ner in which art should
. . .j . be taught and studied;

it is planned with the
intention of excluding
those vicious character-
istics which do so much
to make inefficient most
w \ of the other important
systems of art educa-
tion which exist in this
country. He has im-

"ffipressed upon the school
' ■''' ' %' in all its ramifications

K'X - . il'^^' ' " •. . . ' • ,/ the stamp of his own

/',;- . restless impatience of

conventions that mean
nothing, and are not
founded upon either ex-

/ > y/ periencc or common

sense. The character

that he has been at
pains to give to all the
methods of both class-
rooms and colony has
been that which he
claims should be pos-
sessed by every teacher
of art. He has tried his

STUDY OF HEAD BY E. BOROUGH JOHNSON beSt hY moulding TUleS

and regulations, and by

of the Bushey school is of value to him. The settling the order of the various stages of work
atmosphere of the colony is exactly what he wants in the class-rooms, to ensure that the school
to keep him from degenerating in ideas and from shall aid automatically in what he declares to
sinking from the artist level to that of a copyist be the duty of the professor—to " endeavour to
without invention and without originality. Among coax out the individuality of the student." And
other workers whose training has been, like his he points with pride to the results that have
own, directed to the development of individuality, already accrued to repay him for the work which
and with the Professor himself as " guide, counsel- he has expended upon his " experiment," to the
lor, and friend," he finds his level in a legitimate array of successful painters who have acquired the

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