DOI Heft:
No. 186 (September 1912)
DOI Artikel:The lay figure: on the solitary student
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20778#0343
The Lay Figure
T
HE LAY FIGURE: ON
SOLITARY STUDENT.
THE
“ I wonder whether we really get the
best results from our modern system of art educa-
tion,” said the Man with the Red Tie. “ Does it
not strike you that there are many objections to the
herding together of a host of students in a large
school, where they have to follow a regular routine
and to conform to a necessarily formal and
mechanical course of training ? ”
“ How are you going to improve upon this
system?” asked the Art Master. “It works well
enough; why should you want to upset it ? ”
“Because I am not so well satisfied with the
results of it as you seem to be,” replied the Man
with the Red Tie. “ I am not at all sure that it
does work so admirably. I am even inclined to
think that it does more harm than good.”
“Your views are opposed to those of all the best
authorities on art education,” sneered the Art
Master. “ You are never satisfied to leave things
as they are; you are always wanting to try wild
experiments, and if an institution is solidly estab-
lished you become at once doubly anxious to
upset it.”
“ There is no harm in that,” broke in the Art
Critic, “if the established institution is not pro-
perly fulfilling its mission. Experiments are
always worth trying when they are intelligent, and
when there is a reasonable probability of their
leading to something tangible.”
“But I say that the mission of modern art
education is admirably fulfilled,” cried the Art
Master. “ Look at the number of thoroughly trained
art students the schools are turning out. Is not
that proof enough of the efficiency of the system ?”
“ If quantity is the only thing that matters, and
quality does not count, I am quite ready to admit
everything you claim,” laughed the Man with the
Red Tie. “ But I do not agree that there is any
startling merit in a sort of process which manu-
factures a particular brand of artists by the gross.
You put them upon the market all neatly finished
off, according to sample, and every single one of
the batch is warranted to be in perfect going order.
You would no doubt guarantee them for so many
years, and you would recommend them con-
scientiously as the very best articles that your factory
can produce. Yet, as I hold, you would be doing
hardly anything to advance the true interests of
art.”
“ I am afraid I cannot follow you,” sighed the
Art Master; “ you are quite incomprehensible.
320
There may be some subtle meaning in what you
are saying, but I am not equal to the effort ot
discovering what it is.”
“Yet it is not so very difficult,” interrupted the
Critic. “ The whole point of our friend’s argument
is that the school system, rigid and exactly defined,
kills individuality and reduces all the students who
come under it to the same level of uninspired
accomplishment. This contention is logical enough,
and, personally, I feel that it is to a great extent
justified by facts. We are, under the modern
method of art education, turning out a vast number
of thoroughly trained men and women, but we are
not producing artists of the best type.”
“ We cannot produce artists,” objected the Art
Master; “ all we can do is to give the students
the training they require. They must make their
own way to the higher ranks of the profession;
but the thorough and systematic education they
receive in the schools assists them enormously in
their progress.”
“ I am not so sure about that,” replied the Critic.
“ It is possible by excess of system to destroy
spontaneity and to crush all power of initiative.
The student is an imitative being, and if you
prescribe too definitely the models on which he is
to base himself you confirm him in imitation for
the remainder of his days.”
“ There you have hit it exactly ! ” cried the Man
with the Red Tie. “ You have summed up what I
wanted to say. I believe the man who is one of
a crowd in his student days is apt to remain one of
a crowd for the rest of his life, and to be an undis-
tinguished and indistinguishable item in a horde of
beings like himself. Many of the greatest artists
whom the world has known have been either rebels
against school restrictions or solitary workers who
have fought the battle of their training alone and
unassisted. Their way has not been made smooth
for them by the rules and regulations of an elabo-
rate system ; they have had to struggle through a
host of difficulties to their final success. These
very difficulties have strengthened their mental
faculties and have given them that sturdy inde-
pendence of character which counts for much in
the development of the higher artistic capacities.
Isolation has been to them both a safeguard and
an encouragement; it has saved them from falling
under the domination of a clique or a fashion, and
it has spurred them to attack the problems of art in
their own way. One man of this type is worth all the
rest of the machine-made art workers put together,
because he has a personal conviction and asserts it
in a personal manner.” The Lay Figure.
T
HE LAY FIGURE: ON
SOLITARY STUDENT.
THE
“ I wonder whether we really get the
best results from our modern system of art educa-
tion,” said the Man with the Red Tie. “ Does it
not strike you that there are many objections to the
herding together of a host of students in a large
school, where they have to follow a regular routine
and to conform to a necessarily formal and
mechanical course of training ? ”
“ How are you going to improve upon this
system?” asked the Art Master. “It works well
enough; why should you want to upset it ? ”
“Because I am not so well satisfied with the
results of it as you seem to be,” replied the Man
with the Red Tie. “ I am not at all sure that it
does work so admirably. I am even inclined to
think that it does more harm than good.”
“Your views are opposed to those of all the best
authorities on art education,” sneered the Art
Master. “ You are never satisfied to leave things
as they are; you are always wanting to try wild
experiments, and if an institution is solidly estab-
lished you become at once doubly anxious to
upset it.”
“ There is no harm in that,” broke in the Art
Critic, “if the established institution is not pro-
perly fulfilling its mission. Experiments are
always worth trying when they are intelligent, and
when there is a reasonable probability of their
leading to something tangible.”
“But I say that the mission of modern art
education is admirably fulfilled,” cried the Art
Master. “ Look at the number of thoroughly trained
art students the schools are turning out. Is not
that proof enough of the efficiency of the system ?”
“ If quantity is the only thing that matters, and
quality does not count, I am quite ready to admit
everything you claim,” laughed the Man with the
Red Tie. “ But I do not agree that there is any
startling merit in a sort of process which manu-
factures a particular brand of artists by the gross.
You put them upon the market all neatly finished
off, according to sample, and every single one of
the batch is warranted to be in perfect going order.
You would no doubt guarantee them for so many
years, and you would recommend them con-
scientiously as the very best articles that your factory
can produce. Yet, as I hold, you would be doing
hardly anything to advance the true interests of
art.”
“ I am afraid I cannot follow you,” sighed the
Art Master; “ you are quite incomprehensible.
320
There may be some subtle meaning in what you
are saying, but I am not equal to the effort ot
discovering what it is.”
“Yet it is not so very difficult,” interrupted the
Critic. “ The whole point of our friend’s argument
is that the school system, rigid and exactly defined,
kills individuality and reduces all the students who
come under it to the same level of uninspired
accomplishment. This contention is logical enough,
and, personally, I feel that it is to a great extent
justified by facts. We are, under the modern
method of art education, turning out a vast number
of thoroughly trained men and women, but we are
not producing artists of the best type.”
“ We cannot produce artists,” objected the Art
Master; “ all we can do is to give the students
the training they require. They must make their
own way to the higher ranks of the profession;
but the thorough and systematic education they
receive in the schools assists them enormously in
their progress.”
“ I am not so sure about that,” replied the Critic.
“ It is possible by excess of system to destroy
spontaneity and to crush all power of initiative.
The student is an imitative being, and if you
prescribe too definitely the models on which he is
to base himself you confirm him in imitation for
the remainder of his days.”
“ There you have hit it exactly ! ” cried the Man
with the Red Tie. “ You have summed up what I
wanted to say. I believe the man who is one of
a crowd in his student days is apt to remain one of
a crowd for the rest of his life, and to be an undis-
tinguished and indistinguishable item in a horde of
beings like himself. Many of the greatest artists
whom the world has known have been either rebels
against school restrictions or solitary workers who
have fought the battle of their training alone and
unassisted. Their way has not been made smooth
for them by the rules and regulations of an elabo-
rate system ; they have had to struggle through a
host of difficulties to their final success. These
very difficulties have strengthened their mental
faculties and have given them that sturdy inde-
pendence of character which counts for much in
the development of the higher artistic capacities.
Isolation has been to them both a safeguard and
an encouragement; it has saved them from falling
under the domination of a clique or a fashion, and
it has spurred them to attack the problems of art in
their own way. One man of this type is worth all the
rest of the machine-made art workers put together,
because he has a personal conviction and asserts it
in a personal manner.” The Lay Figure.