Studio: international art (19.1900)

Studio- Talk

be so, its influence cannot be for evil if Continental
nations desire to introduce the same into their
economy, and look with envy upon the results that
have been attained. But, happily, the system is
confined entirely to financial aid, and schools of
art are left to work out their own salvation, allied
to local needs, and are given every liberty to meet
civic or municipal requirements. Foremost among
schools whose aim is to conform to the wants of a
locality and to answer to national and civic aspira-
tions is the Glasgow School of Art. Glasgow
comes before the art world coupled with the name
of a school of painters whose works have a reputa-
tion both at home and abroad, and to the Glasgow
School of Art is due the inception and education

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of a school of native decorative artists whose work
bids fair to rival the fame of the Glasgow School of
Painters.

As a centre of art instruction, the Glasgow
School of Art occupies among the Art Schools of the
present day a place which is in some ways unique.
Judged by the results of the National Competition
that yearly takes place among the Schools of Art of
the United Kingdom it stands first, but there is also
another side. It is not only a school but also a
workshop, where the students are brought directly
under the influence of efficient craftsmen, and where
the studies of the whole school are directed by one
who is himself an artist. The originality and
strength of his personality, and the freshness and
vigour in his manner of regarding artistic questions,
become strongly conducive to originality in the
students who pass through the school. His
unwillingness to tolerate anything merely con-
ventional or common-place, and his encouragement
of original effort are most important factors in
forming the taste and settling the convictions of
his pupils.

It might prove interesting to give in a few
words the personal experience of one of the
successful students of the school. Here they
are :—" I went to the School of Art," writes the
narrator, " thinking that there, if anywhere, would
be earnest workers—workers not there merely to pass
the time, but to work in the sweat of their brow for
daily bread for body and soul. And this indeed I
found it. ' All hope abandon ye who enter here'
should have been written over the entrance. All
hope of ever escaping the toils of enthralment
and enchantment of the place, and all hope of
ever doing well enough that which was set for me
to do. Hour after hour, day after day, I stood at
my easel trying hard that my drawing should be
perfect, even as these Greek gods and goddesses
were perfect, or as those poor hard-worked sore
limbs and muscles of living men and women were
perfect. As I worked, however, I had ' flashes
struck from midnights,' and ' fire flames noon-
days kindle,' and also glimpses into the charmed
circle of architecture, and the beautiful domestic
arts that grew from and enriched it; in fact, every
day I might have said with Robert Louis
Stevenson:

" The world is so full ot a number of things
That I think we should all be as happy as kings."

" I have said nothing the while of the vital force
of the master who by wise encouragement did not

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