DOI Heft:
No. 31 (October, 1896)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The Herkomer School
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17295#0028
The Herkomer School
komer holds that " work done during the process
of development is quite unfit to show to the public,
however full of meaning it may be to the student's
career," no visitors to the school are allowed to
see him at work. In fact, no artificial aids are
permitted to him, and what he does during his
school hours must be inspired with the same
ambition that has to guide him in his after-life—
the desire to progress and excel. He is taught, in
a word, to be an artist, not a mere competing
machine.
One effect of the unwillingness of Professor
Herkomer to allow the public to see the work
done in the class-rooms is that the results of the
school have to be judged—as, indeed, they should
be—by the productions of the students after school
hours are over. At Bushey happily these produc-
tions are as characteristic of the school course as
the actual life drawings in the class-rooms. The
Professor boasts that he never loses a good student,
and this is true, for as the pupils are perfected in
the classes they settle down in one or other of the
many studios which have grown up in the neigh-
bourhood and continue their studies. They are
just as much under the willing superintendence of
their teacher, and his advice is just as freely at
their disposal as when he corrected their work in
the life-room. So the pictures they paint at home
and the studies from Nature with which they
occupy themselves are as much illustrations of the
work of the school as would be rows of prize medal
drawings or competitive reproductions of some
unmeaning still-life group ; and they are infinitely
more instructive to the public than the vain repeti-
tions which are produced by other art-teaching
places as proofs of progress and samples of
success. For these reasons the paintings and
drawings used to illustrate this article are not
ch osen from the tentative efforts of the class-rooms.
The scope and variety of the Bushey training are
made much more evident by the juxtaposition of
efforts so diverse as Mr. E. Borough Johnson's
dramatic Salvation Army groups, Mr. D. A.
Wehrschmidt's direct and expressive studies, Mr.
George Harcourt's exquisite painting of the nude
figure, Mr. C. L. Burns's and Miss Sawyer's decora-
tive designs, and Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch's ad-
mirably observed sketches of animals; at least
there is no trace of school mannerism in these very
dissimilar products ot one school and one teacher.
What is in store for the Herkomer School in the
future it is scarcely practicable to say now. It is
extending in so many directions and developing
along so many different lines that almost anything
is possible to it. Already it is much more than a
simple painting school; it is a place where deco-
rative art is taught with some consideration of its
claims to pre-eminence, and where the artistic
craftsman is honoured as an artist rather than a
machine. It is the scene of endless experiments
ILLUSTRATION FOR " LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCT
16
BY C. L.
BURNS
komer holds that " work done during the process
of development is quite unfit to show to the public,
however full of meaning it may be to the student's
career," no visitors to the school are allowed to
see him at work. In fact, no artificial aids are
permitted to him, and what he does during his
school hours must be inspired with the same
ambition that has to guide him in his after-life—
the desire to progress and excel. He is taught, in
a word, to be an artist, not a mere competing
machine.
One effect of the unwillingness of Professor
Herkomer to allow the public to see the work
done in the class-rooms is that the results of the
school have to be judged—as, indeed, they should
be—by the productions of the students after school
hours are over. At Bushey happily these produc-
tions are as characteristic of the school course as
the actual life drawings in the class-rooms. The
Professor boasts that he never loses a good student,
and this is true, for as the pupils are perfected in
the classes they settle down in one or other of the
many studios which have grown up in the neigh-
bourhood and continue their studies. They are
just as much under the willing superintendence of
their teacher, and his advice is just as freely at
their disposal as when he corrected their work in
the life-room. So the pictures they paint at home
and the studies from Nature with which they
occupy themselves are as much illustrations of the
work of the school as would be rows of prize medal
drawings or competitive reproductions of some
unmeaning still-life group ; and they are infinitely
more instructive to the public than the vain repeti-
tions which are produced by other art-teaching
places as proofs of progress and samples of
success. For these reasons the paintings and
drawings used to illustrate this article are not
ch osen from the tentative efforts of the class-rooms.
The scope and variety of the Bushey training are
made much more evident by the juxtaposition of
efforts so diverse as Mr. E. Borough Johnson's
dramatic Salvation Army groups, Mr. D. A.
Wehrschmidt's direct and expressive studies, Mr.
George Harcourt's exquisite painting of the nude
figure, Mr. C. L. Burns's and Miss Sawyer's decora-
tive designs, and Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch's ad-
mirably observed sketches of animals; at least
there is no trace of school mannerism in these very
dissimilar products ot one school and one teacher.
What is in store for the Herkomer School in the
future it is scarcely practicable to say now. It is
extending in so many directions and developing
along so many different lines that almost anything
is possible to it. Already it is much more than a
simple painting school; it is a place where deco-
rative art is taught with some consideration of its
claims to pre-eminence, and where the artistic
craftsman is honoured as an artist rather than a
machine. It is the scene of endless experiments
ILLUSTRATION FOR " LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCT
16
BY C. L.
BURNS