DOI Heft:
No. 42 (September, 1896)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: The national competition, South Kensington 1896
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17297#0243
The National Competition: South Kensington
space, but an attempt on the part of the designer
to fill their space with beautiful forms and colours
—forms he feels beautiful, colour that he has found
admirable in Nature. Who shall say that Art
TITLE PAGE BY ALFRED JONES
South Kensington
stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress
Josephine, or at any period you like to name ? In
the first place, each of your pedants takes a
different point; and secondly, by doing so he
only proves that he stopped short there, and lacked
the ability to see beyond. Had the idea of perfect
art stopped with Greece, where had the beauties of
the Gothic arisen ? Had men felt that with the
Perpendicular style the last word was uttered, how
should the Italian Renaissance have been developed?
It would be easy to talk oneself into a temper
over this fallacy.
Dry rot, whether in lectures or woodwork, is
fatal. That some of the South Kensington pro-
fessors, in its head school and the branches, are as
fully wide-awake to this evil as the present writer,
and that others limited to the scientific aspect of
art are removed from the condemnation implied,
does not alter the fact that there are others who
fail to see that it is the letter only which is teach-
able, and that too great insistence upon the letter
kills the spirit.
With some such feeling as that expressed above
a regular visitor has learned to approach the gal-
leries ; but this year, after studying the objects and
quietly reading the report of the examiners, the old
depression vanishes. It is hard to say wherein
the difference lies ; for two years past signs of
new vitality have been not wanting. Now, the
tedious mechanical stuff is in so small a minority
that it ceases to be apparent. Yet there are no
sensational items this year, nor great advance shown
in any section, except perhaps in modelling from
life, which has carried off more than half of the
fON CqjlXOTE,
MIGUEL pE CERVANTES
TITLE PAGE BY ALFRED JONES
South Kensington
gold medals. That this sanguine impression is
not due to the cheerful light and bright atmosphere
of the day on which the press view was held is
easily disproved ; for in an adjoining gallery is a
selection of best work of a score of years—a
retrospective glance at the past. Yet as you leave
225
space, but an attempt on the part of the designer
to fill their space with beautiful forms and colours
—forms he feels beautiful, colour that he has found
admirable in Nature. Who shall say that Art
TITLE PAGE BY ALFRED JONES
South Kensington
stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress
Josephine, or at any period you like to name ? In
the first place, each of your pedants takes a
different point; and secondly, by doing so he
only proves that he stopped short there, and lacked
the ability to see beyond. Had the idea of perfect
art stopped with Greece, where had the beauties of
the Gothic arisen ? Had men felt that with the
Perpendicular style the last word was uttered, how
should the Italian Renaissance have been developed?
It would be easy to talk oneself into a temper
over this fallacy.
Dry rot, whether in lectures or woodwork, is
fatal. That some of the South Kensington pro-
fessors, in its head school and the branches, are as
fully wide-awake to this evil as the present writer,
and that others limited to the scientific aspect of
art are removed from the condemnation implied,
does not alter the fact that there are others who
fail to see that it is the letter only which is teach-
able, and that too great insistence upon the letter
kills the spirit.
With some such feeling as that expressed above
a regular visitor has learned to approach the gal-
leries ; but this year, after studying the objects and
quietly reading the report of the examiners, the old
depression vanishes. It is hard to say wherein
the difference lies ; for two years past signs of
new vitality have been not wanting. Now, the
tedious mechanical stuff is in so small a minority
that it ceases to be apparent. Yet there are no
sensational items this year, nor great advance shown
in any section, except perhaps in modelling from
life, which has carried off more than half of the
fON CqjlXOTE,
MIGUEL pE CERVANTES
TITLE PAGE BY ALFRED JONES
South Kensington
gold medals. That this sanguine impression is
not due to the cheerful light and bright atmosphere
of the day on which the press view was held is
easily disproved ; for in an adjoining gallery is a
selection of best work of a score of years—a
retrospective glance at the past. Yet as you leave
225