History of English art since 1851 page 3

The price of a work of art, or the sum for which a piece of furniture can be ornamented, must always be a primary question in trade; and in a competition unregulated by price there was much to hinder the real interests of industrial art. The same cause led to the production of monstrosities and unnatural developments of skill, such as carving in pith, writing in a microscopic hand, and other innumerable unhealthy efforts to effect impossibilities, in defiance of, instead of in obedience to, material.

The English exhibitions suggested to a thoughtful writer at the time the idea, that " all our inventive power was gone into machinery." This last branch of trade would seem to have developed enormously, and the power of the nation seemed concentrated in it; America being her only great rival. But there was something radically wrong in all our art produce. An enormous supply of cheap ornament, vulgar in design and bad in execution, imitative of every school which the world has ever seen, yet learning nothing from that which it basely copied, filled the market. Wonderful ingenuity was required, and labour used, in producing the mere materials for modern English ornament; and whereas all other ages have taken such material as the country and period produced, and simply worked on it, subordinating their work to its properties, modern English skill has been wasted in the multiplication of processes, such as cements and compositions, for the purpose of imitating the productions of the genuine art of different nations. Processes were made the end, instead of the means, of art production - thus reversing the true rule of the fitness of things; and mechanical skill had petrified the intelligent artisans of the country into living machines, uneducated to perceive, and undisciplined to obey, the eternal laws of beauty.

This, and much more to the same purpose, the Exhibition of 1851 taught us; rebuking our insular pride by forcing us to feel and acknowledge our inferiority to other nations in various branches of industrial art. To know one's own failures is always the first step towards recovering from them. Where shall our industrial classes look for guidance and education? became the question of the leaders of public opinion; acknowledging that the great lesson which the Exhibition had conveyed to us was our utter ignorance of the principles of design and colour.

It would be wearisome to go through the different courts of the Exhibition containing specimens of English art workmanship, feeling as we do how unsatisfactory they were, and how little we could say in their praise.

Sculpture was perhaps the most universally acknowledged to be a failure, though it is doubtful whether English art in this respect was any worse than continental. Without any exception we can call to mind, it set at defiance all the laws of noble art: devoted chiefly to representations of undisciplined passion, or trivial incident, it descended into vulgarity the moment it ceased to be exciting. A statue of Dr. Jenner, seated in a gigantic easy chair, earned the criticism, that the chief thing which it suggested was the " great law of nature, that a body at rest will continue at rest." It was indeed said that the committee, with an instinctive presentiment of what was coming, had purposely placed the sculpture- room out of the way, behind the mediaeval court. Goldsmiths' art had sunk equally low. It was deplorable to see that this, so deservedly ranking among the noblest branches of art throughout the Middle Ages, and training, as it did, some of the greatest artists of Italy, should have sunk to a mere manufacture, in a great measure machine-made, and in all respects employing only mechanical labour. It was a relief to turn from these exhibitions to the mediaeval court, where, if there was the crudeness and pedantry which often accompany a reactionary revival of true principles, there was yet genuine effort after a higher standard of taste, and a better knowledge of the laws of construction and ornament. This was referred to in warm terms by the Jury appointed to report on the Exhibition. It was chiefly the result of the ecclesiological movement before noticed; and Mr. Pugin, with Mr. Hardman, of Birmingham, had the superintendence of it, and were the principal exhibitors.

The revival of glass-painting has been accompanied with many and great difficulties, arising chiefly from the ignorance or misapprehension of the limits and capacities of the material, and from the tendency to rank it too much as a separate art. Stained glass windows pre-suppose surroundings of glowing colour, of which the windows are an accidental continuation, and to which they must be toned and harmonised. These conditions being, in the character of modern architecture, wholly changed, stained windows have become simply patches of colour on dead walls; and thus the principle of harmony which called forth the art and regulated its limits can no longer be appealed to. The inevitable result of the losing sight of this leading principle was, that windows, being the only portion of a building available for internal decoration, came to be regarded as occasions for pictorial effort, so that even so great a man as Sir Joshua Reynolds could be surprised and disappointed at the failure of painting in light and shade on glass, as exemplified in his celebrated window at New College, Oxford; and in our own century the most miserable imitations of oil-paintings were attempted, in defiance of all artistic possibilities. Such was the condition of the art of glass-painting when Mr. Pugin, allying himself with Mr. Hardman, first essayed to reform it; and that I the indefatigable efforts of the two combined effected much, especially in regard to design, there is no doubt. "We must pay a short tribute here to the memory of the man to whom, more than to any other, is owing the revival of glass-painting, and who left an influence behind him which was felt in many other branches of art - M. Henri Gérente. English on his mother's side, he always preserved his sympathies with our country; and, as a member of the Ecclesiological Society, did some very successful work for Ely and Canterbury Cathedrals. His learning and talents placed him far above any other artist of the day in his profession, and his passionate devotion to, and thorough comprehension of, his subject carried him successfully through his many difficulties. His life, so full of singular promise, was suddenly cut short in its prime, and, in 1849, he died at the age of thirty-five. It was perhaps partly owing to his influence that the French stained glass of the Exhibition was so much superior to the English; and although none of his glass was exhibited, his brother, who carried on the works, sent specimens, which more or less represented his work, and which were unquestionably the best in the Exhibition. We should, however, except Hard- man's glass in asserting the general inferiority of the English specimens. Before quitting this branch of art - which, it is satisfactory to record, has been gradually but steadily improving since the time which we have been noticing - we must not pass over without mention the works of Mr. Morris. His admirable efforts towards attaining that richness of tone and tint which characterised mediaeval glass, and his enforcement of the principle that colour, not design, is the primary consideration in arranging transparent glass, deserve the highest commendation. We may add, that it is not only in glass - painting that Mr. Morris and his coadjutors are endeavouring to educate English taste. There are few branches of industrial art for domestic purposes to which they have not turned their attention; and although the faults incidental on a single- handed effort, such as sameness and stiffness of design, may be visible, yet the spirited effort is bearing fruit in the improving taste of the furniture of our houses; and the successes which have already been achieved in woollen stuffs, embroidery, and tile-painting, point to fresh hopes for the future domestic art of England.

One more name demands our attention among the exhibitors of 1851 - Mr. Skidmore, of Coventry, of whom it is not too much to say, that he has been the reformer of modern metal-work, both secular and ecclesiastical. His specimens of church-plate in the Exhibition were so exceptionally good and original, that we think they deserved more than the passing commendation bestowed by the Jury. For years past we believe he had carefully studied the processes of mediaeval metal-work, though his name was but little known in the year to which we are referring. His work stood out in striking contrast to that of any other worker in precious metal among the exhibitors, except, perhaps, that of Mr. Keith, who had worked under Mr. Butterfield's directions for some years, in the revival begun by the Ecclesiological Society. Mr. Skidmore's work was the production of an original mind, though educated too thoroughly in the traditions of medievalism to command at that time the attention he deserved, and has since gained. He first introduced the beautiful niello-work, the process of which had been, we believe, entirely lost in modern Europe, and his work in the Exhibition was characterised by this, and his enamelling. Ten years later his talents were more appreciated, and he gained the prize at the Exhibition of 1861 for his beautiful screen, now in Hereford Cathedral.

The report of the Juries on the art produce of the Exhibition, and the tendencies which it showed, probably gave a strong impulse to the growing desire for a higher standard of design in England. They deprecated the lack of disciplined thought, and that total disregard of all the laws of ornament which characterised the English manufactures, and of which instances abounded in every branch. Carpets, in which the very suggestion of un- evenness is discomfort, had water-lilies floating all over them; fruits of monstrous size, in high relief, scattered about; lions and leopards on the hearths. Glass was tortured into useless, and almost impossible, shapes; furniture loaded with mindless and ill-modelled carving. The "manufacture of ornament," they emphatically said, was the vice of the age; the functions of material were ignored; the principles and meaning of ornament forgotten in putty, papier-mache, and gutta-percha.

The fatal evil of modern ornament is the continual, restless search after novelty. The object of the producer is to have, or invent, the fashion of the season; of the consumer to possess the newest and most unique thing. Where are the possibilities of noble, thoughtful work amidst such ignoble conditions? What hope is there for content among the working classes, so long as the yearning of every human soul to leave the immortal impress of its life upon the earth in its brief passage is unsatisfied among our thousands of intelligent workmen, save by such mockery of fame as a "season's run"? We see this element of changeableness more clearly perhaps, because most universally and most increasingly, in the dress of the upper classes. The detrimental effect on trade, of the " run " on one material or manufacture, to the exclusion of others equally depending on support, for a short given time, must be incalculable. We have seen some of its effects in such sad stories as that of the Coventry weavers, whose destitution was said to have been chiefly caused by the fashion of wearing velvet for trimmings having superseded that of ribbons. In like manner, the fashion which prevailed a few years later for a particular kind of lace is said to have forced numbers of skilled lace-makers to forsake their own employment, in order to learn an entirely new method, which, after they have with difficulty mastered, will probably be useless to them in the course of a year or two.

The result of the movement towards improving the state of national art was, that the surplus funds of the Exhibition were devoted to form the nucleus of a Museum of Manufacture for the use of art-students, composed of articles selected by the Juries from the productions of India and other countries, as specimens of good designs. Mr. Owen Jones dwelt at some length in his report on the value of Indian design, as the work of a people true to primary principles, without confusing, if also without developing them; and while warning students of the fatal results which would ensue from a mere reproduction of Indian design, he explained the reasons which had induced the committee to purchase so large a portion of the art produce of India.

The evidence placed before the House of Commons at this time proved that the schools of design founded by Government in 1835 had failed in their object in producing a good effect on design. The system, in fact, had been wrong. Such schools as had been founded presupposed an elementary knowledge of drawing which did not exist among the students, and they had thus degenerated into mere drawing schools, in which the students were taught nothing of the connection between design and manufacture, and to which the manufacturers were, as a class, opposed, in consequence of their unpractical results. One witness, a silk manufacturer, said that the only reason for which they failed to compete with France was the inferiority of design; and that the value of an article in the market depended far more on its beauty of design than on its material. Another said that he went to Paris three or four times a year for no other purpose than to buy French designs for copies. A paper manufacturer said that he reduced or copied nearly all his designs from France, and Mr. Minton admitted that he bought French designs for his pottery. Mr. Cole said that the evidence of all the eminent houses of industrial art combined to prove that the schools had exercised no influence on design; and that he himself, after examining 56,000 designs of the students, could not point to one of any original merit.

The committee then drew up a scheme of art education, which was accepted by Government, and embodied in a department of the Board of Trade, to be called the Department of Practical Art. The Gore House Estate at Kensington was bought, and the Museum built, and furnished with illustrations and models, both ancient and modern, of the best art of various nations. Lectures were given, and a central school formed in connection with it, ensuring thorough instruction both to the pupils and to junior masters, who could be sent certificated from thence to local schools. A large series of elementary examples of outline, colours, and light and shade (It is a matter for great regret that these series of examples, in many respects so good, should have failed in the important point of teaching the value of fine lines and curves by choosing examples from good, instead of debased, art. Mr. Ruskin has remedied this in his school at Oxford, where he has placed a series of elementary drawings leaving nothing to be desired.) were prepared and issued, at the lowest possible price, for instruction, and prizes given to all who reached a given standard in any of the different grades. The fees were made as low as possible, apprentices and pupil-teachers received at half-price, and benefits given to those masters whose schools showed satisfactory progress; by which inducements it was hoped to make the schools self- supporting. Thus were founded the Schools of Science and Art in connection with South Kensington. In the course of fifteen months, twenty schools were established on self-supporting principles, which the ten years' trial of a previous system had failed in doing. It would be easy to criticise the system of art-education as conducted in the Government schools, but it scarcely comes within our scope to do so, and the task would be a thankless one. The effort was tentative, and being so, it involved, almost inevitably, grave mistakes, which, with the ponderous machinery of our Government departments, it was less easy to remedy than to detect. The system of unlimited competition which prevails has probably been productive of great evils, and hindered the progress of pupils in the primary object of the schools - design; but this question is a wider one. That the Government schools have diffused a wider knowledge of the principles of art and a warmer interest in its progress, among all classes, there can be no question, and therefore they ought to be universally supported. There ought not to be a town in England without one such school, to which children and young people of all classes might be sent to learn the rudimentary principles of art, instead of wasting their time in the worse than useless methods of the ordinary school drawing-master or mistress.