DOI Heft:
No. 31 (October, 1896)
DOI Artikel:W., G.: The national competition South Kensington, 1895
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17295#0057
National Competition, South Kensington
DESIGN FOR EMBROIDERY BY MARY J. NEWILL
The judges, taken as a whole, formed almost an
ideal selection, yet, as those who are in a position
to know could prove by actual instances, work of
a very high order failed to gain their approval.
One feels inclined to ask if there was a rough
selection before the works were submitted to their
approval ? For certainly in the recent exhibition
the specimens shown did not include all the best
work of the leading students in the schools during
the previous year.
South Kensington is awaking ; but we must not
therefore conclude that a body so long bound by
red-tape has freed itself, and those who appreciate
its advance, and are most willing to recognise its
new efforts, are most keenly anxious that it shall
44
purge itself fully of past offences and fulfil
thoroughly, if tardily, the purposes it was created
to carry out.
Speaking generally of the whole show, the applied
arts came off best. Pure design for surface decora-
tion is still much as it was. Modelling, especially
in the higher branches of sculpture in the round,
and bas-relief, is evidently in a most healthy con-
dition. Metal-work showed signs of improvement,
notably in the finer sorts. Pottery and furniture
were distinguished by a dull satisfaction in repeating
worn-out themes. Black and white illustration was
not by any means up to level of outside work; de-
spite a few good things, the majority were imitative
DESIGN FOR EMBROIDERY BY MARY J. NEWILL
DESIGN FOR EMBROIDERY BY MARY J. NEWILL
The judges, taken as a whole, formed almost an
ideal selection, yet, as those who are in a position
to know could prove by actual instances, work of
a very high order failed to gain their approval.
One feels inclined to ask if there was a rough
selection before the works were submitted to their
approval ? For certainly in the recent exhibition
the specimens shown did not include all the best
work of the leading students in the schools during
the previous year.
South Kensington is awaking ; but we must not
therefore conclude that a body so long bound by
red-tape has freed itself, and those who appreciate
its advance, and are most willing to recognise its
new efforts, are most keenly anxious that it shall
44
purge itself fully of past offences and fulfil
thoroughly, if tardily, the purposes it was created
to carry out.
Speaking generally of the whole show, the applied
arts came off best. Pure design for surface decora-
tion is still much as it was. Modelling, especially
in the higher branches of sculpture in the round,
and bas-relief, is evidently in a most healthy con-
dition. Metal-work showed signs of improvement,
notably in the finer sorts. Pottery and furniture
were distinguished by a dull satisfaction in repeating
worn-out themes. Black and white illustration was
not by any means up to level of outside work; de-
spite a few good things, the majority were imitative
DESIGN FOR EMBROIDERY BY MARY J. NEWILL