Part 8

Among the many exquisite books, manuscripts, and paintings--the latter being oftenest upon the covers of the finest books--there is one of surpassing beauty. It is a copy of the works of Sâdi, a modern manuscript with six illuminated pages forming the head-pieces of the six books, all the pages being bordered in gold and colors. The covers have been painted by the artist Nadjaf, who lived about fifty years ago, on the outside with certain battles between some shahs, sultans, and their like; but on the inside of one cover is a picture of the poet Hafiz surrounded by his friends; on the inside of the other cover is a picture of Sâdi conversing with his pupils. What grace, what honor, was in the heart of him who drew these pictures! Amidst such tints Sâdi might be saying to his pupils one of the passages that are here written: “I saw a peacock’s feather in the leaves of the Koran. I said, ‘I consider this an honor much greater than your quality deserves.’ He replied, ‘Be silent; for whosoever has beauty, wherever he puts his foot doth not every one receive him with respect?’ A little beauty is preferable to great wealth.”

I hear of some prosaic young Englishmen who are wandering about the banks of the Euphrates to try and find the locality of Eden. I venture to affirm that with the Kaliān, plenty of Tombaku, Sâdi’s Gulistan, and this rose-garden manuscript, I can get nearer Eden reclining on yon English grass than those young gentlemen seeking it so far away. Yet it is pleasant, in a melancholy way, to see the never-failing fascination which the Oriental world has for these Northern races. The hardest, least imaginative Englishman will feel some sweeter pulsation about his heart when he sees one of Holman Hunt’s pictures of Palestine, or hears the solemn roll of Oriental poetry.

“A pine-tree’s standing lonely In the North, on a mountain’s brow, Nodding with whitest cover, Wrapped up by the ice and snow.

“He’s dreaming of a palm-tree, Which, far in the Morning Land, Lonely and silent sorrows ‘Mid burning rocks and sand.”[D]

But here my rambles through these unlimited fields must draw to a close. One must, amidst such numberless treasures gathered from the great streams of Time, more especially remember Sydney Smith’s advice, based on the post-diluvial brevity of human life, that writers should “think of Noah, and be brief.” It is with a certain distress that I feel compelled to pass by the great galleries of pictures, including some of the finest Turners, Wilkies, and Gainsboroughs, and a large number of historic paintings. The Forster bequest, with its charming souvenirs of famous actors, actresses, and authors, in the shape of portraits, character-sketches, and autographs--among the latter the MSS. of most of the works of Dickens--were of itself the sufficient theme for a treatise.

No collection in the museum is more deserving of attention than that of the musical instruments, which show the entire evolution of the art, from the first savage bark drum and the pipe that Pan might have played to his flocks, up to the last grand piano; but for twelve shillings the reader may procure Mr. Carl Engel’s admirable _résumé_ of this department. Since it was written an interesting series of instruments has been added (Indian section), and it is to be hoped that these will be included in a new edition of Herr Engel’s work. The Indian instruments have not changed in many centuries, some not for two thousand years; their harp (chang) is identical with one represented in the Nineveh sculptures. Unfortunately there is no catalogue to the museum; but there may be had full works on the ancient ivories (one guinea), textile fabrics (one and a half guineas), majolica (two guineas), furniture and woodwork (one guinea). There are small shilling “Handbooks,” giving succinct histories of the arts of working in gold and silver, bronze, pottery, etc., with general reference to objects in the museum, which are useful and interesting. There also exists a full catalogue of books on art (two guineas); and I may mention that at the present moment it is possible to collect in London an admirable art library for a moderate sum--an advantage that will soon disappear. The present art library in the museum is the only one possessing anything like completeness in Europe; it contains 45,000 volumes. This is quite distinct from the educational library, which has an equal number of volumes.

But we must not part from South Kensington without considering how fares therein the aim and purpose out of which it grew, namely, culture and training in every variety of art. It will at once be recognized that the art schools, enjoying such an unparalleled environment as to examples, carried on also in rooms of vast extent, perfectly lighted, heated, ventilated, and furnished, must be judged by a higher standard than other institutions of the kind in Europe or in America. And, retrospectively, the schools must be conceded to have done wonders. For one thing, it may be claimed that it found the art education of the nation at zero and raised it enormously. By wisely using its power to send floating through the provincial cities a loan exhibition, and by a judicious distribution of the annual fund (now about £2500) granted it by Parliament to aid institutions of a like character, which are willing also to aid themselves, the Commission has been the means of establishing throughout the kingdom schools devoted to art, and in forming classes in colleges to teach art, to an extent which has increased by 150 per cent. the number of those who study art to prosecute it for itself, or to apply it to make their work more artistic. Between the years 1855-‘77, 27,000 objects of art and 24,000 paintings were circulated by the museum through the United Kingdom. In the various provincial towns and cities where they have been left for several months at a time, these works have been visited by over 6,000,000 of persons and copied by many students, the cost to the Science and Art Department being over £100,000. In order to tempt Schools of Art to acquire permanent objects for museums of their own, the Department offers a grant in aid of fifty per cent. on the cost of such objects. Parliament is continually inquiring into the means of increasing the utility of the collections in this direction. South Kensington has already awakened a higher taste throughout the nation, and especially in London. The number of visitors has increasingly exceeded a million each year; and should the museum be opened on Sunday afternoons--a step which can hardly fail to be taken ere long--this number must be vastly increased. These crowds, however, never make the rooms seem crowded; their decorum is equal to that which is preserved in the best drawing-rooms; there have been only two cases in the history of the museum where persons have been ejected (the fault being tipsiness); and no article of value has ever been missed. In strolling through the building with George Boughton we concluded to follow some very rough-looking youths and observe what objects attracted their attention. We were surprised to find them passing by King Koffee’s umbrella and trinkets to devote all their time to the statues of Michael Angelo. I have repeatedly observed similar phenomena in the picture-galleries--the roughest people crowding around the best works of art.

The way in which all this has told upon the work of the country has been jealously watched, and also fairly recognized by foreign critics. The first gold medal awarded on the Continent for art education, awarded to South Kensington, was not given by any favor, and it was won by a great deal of hard work. In the introduction to the seven-volume report presented to the French Government in 1862, M. Chevallier says: “Rivals are springing up, and the pre-eminence of France may receive a shock if we do not take care. The upward movement is visible, above all, among the English. The whole world has been struck with the progress they have made since the last Exhibition in designs for stuffs, in the distribution of colors, also in carving and sculpture, and generally in articles of furniture.” M. Rupet urged the establishment of a museum in Paris similar to that at South Kensington, saying: “It is impossible to ignore the fact that a serious struggle awaits France from this quarter.” The report from Lyons--whose School of Design was, to a large extent, the model copied by England--says: “With Great Britain we shall have some day to settle accounts, for she has made great progress in art since the Exhibition of 1851.” These statements are much more true now than when they were written. In the direction to which they refer--that of decorative art--South Kensington has certainly taken a leading position in Europe. The evidences of this are appearing daily. For example, the firm of Messrs. Corbière & Sons, which was established in London about twenty-eight years ago as an importing house for French patterns and goods, has now been almost changed into an exporting house, sending to France patterns and designs for goods which it obtains from South Kensington. Even this is hardly so grateful to the English as a report lately made by a large Glasgow firm, that it has for some years been obtaining from this museum, at the annual cost of a few hundred pounds, designs such as it had been for many years previously securing from Paris and Lyons at a cost of £2000 per annum.

Lyons, indeed, after teaching England its art of war, has itself lost it. Neither Paris or London will use their newest patterns, one of which, I understand, represents huntsmen and hounds in full chase after a stag, careering all over a drawing-room carpet! In Paris, and even more in England, taste has for some years been tending to demand richness in substance, vagueness in pattern, quietness in color, for all stuffs used in rooms. It is greatly to be regretted that the great manufacturers of textile fabrics declined to participate in the Centennial Exhibition, having concluded that their goods would have too much protection in one sense, and not enough in others. It would have excited astonishment in America to see what transformation has been wrought in carpets and curtains, and it would be at once recognized that the old fabrics, with their fixed scrolls, their glare and glitter, have become barbarous. Messrs. Ward, of Halifax, recently rolled out for me on a floor side by side the old patterns and the new, and it was to the eye like passing from poppies to passion-flowers. “Those blazing ones,” said Mr. Ward, “have gone out of fashion in this country since the new schools of design began, and we never sell a yard of them here; we made them for America until the last tariff, and now the manufacture has ceased altogether.” The new curtain stuffs have always an unobtrusive, almost a dead, ground of saffron, or olive, or green, and on it flowing conventional leaves with some heraldic form--as daisy, pomegranate, etc.--to supply spots of color; and the carpets are of much the same character, with somewhat larger forms.

These exquisite designs are universally recognized as results of South Kensington. But there is one point where the results are less satisfactory. The best designs, which include the human figure, have still to be obtained from the Continent; and these being of especial importance in pottery, the great porcelain factories say that their needs cannot yet be met by English art schools. The truth is, there was long an opposition in controlling quarters to permitting studies of the female nude at South Kensington at all, though now the female students have that privilege. In the male school the male nude is studied; but still the students--those who mean to devote themselves to fine, as distinguished from decorative, art--have to unite and employ female models in rooms outside the school. It is as difficult to see what benefit is secured by modesty, in thus placing a necessary study beyond the regulation of the masters, who might preserve decorum, as it is to find any advantage to religion gained by shutting the door to the pictorial gospels of Raphael on Sunday and keeping open the door of the gin-shop. Both the piety and the prudery are anomalous. The Zoological and the Botanical Gardens, in London, the Dublin Museum, Hampton Court, and Kew Gardens are all open on Sunday, while the museums and galleries of the metropolis are closed: the Royal Academy has nude models of both sexes, under the same Government which prohibits the like at South Kensington. The queerest anomaly, however, existed until lately in the Slade School of Art, at University College, where the vexed question was settled by permitting the male pupils to have female models, and the female pupils to have male models! This restriction of the ladies to (nearly) nude models of the other sex was made in the interest of propriety, as the masters felt disinclined to enter and instruct them in the presence of a female model.

The former restrictions at South Kensington as to models fell heavily upon the female pupils. The young female artists were not permitted to see so much of their model as they would be required to reveal of their own persons at one of her Majesty’s drawing-rooms. The late head-master, Mr. Burchett, himself an able figure painter, knew well, as all experienced figure painters in Europe know, that female models are far oftener secured from vice by their occupation than exposed to it, and that life schools are not inconsistent with decorum, under proper management; and he (Mr. Burchett) made efforts, one of which was to have the model encased in flesh tights, to secure for his pupils the advantages so freely offered in Continental schools. But his contrivances were stopped by threats of Parliamentary questions. His successor has, however, secured to the female pupils the advantage of the nude model of their own sex and male model with caleçon; and, if he can now secure like privileges for the males, South Kensington may some day be able to point to as high results in the direction of the fine as in the ornamental arts. Until then young men of genius will continue to prefer schools which are without such restrictions. It can only be ascribed to the consummate care with which studies of the antique are conducted, and to the full supply of the finest casts offered by the museum, that decorative art itself at South Kensington has suffered so little from the limitations referred to; for it is certain that the human figure is the key to all other forms in nature. It is certain, also, that the female form is the very flower of all natural beauty--“the sum of every creature’s best,” as Shakspeare says of Perdita--and no arrangements for art training can be considered complete which do not include accessibility to such studies of the same as are required, by those who have given evidence of their fitness to interpret the sacred secrets of nature.

Beyond this there is no special deduction to be made from the method of training at South Kensington, which as a school is steadily improving. The following official memorandum of its regulations (with which is given the names of its faculty) will show the large scope of instruction included:

DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR ART, AND PRINCIPAL, THOMAS ARMSTRONG.

_Head-Master_, J. SPARKES.

_Mechanical and Architectural Drawing_, H. B. HAGREEN.

_Geometry and Perspective_, E. S. BURCHETT.

_Painting, Free-hand Drawing of Ornament, etc., the Figure and Anatomy, and Ornamental Design_, J. SPARKES, C. P. SLOCOMBE, T. CLACK, F. M. MILLER.

_Modelling_, M. LANTERI.

_Etching_, A. LEGROS.

FEMALE CLASSES.

_Lady Superintendent_, MISS TRULOCK.

_Female Teachers_, MRS. S. E. CASABIANCA and MISS CHANNON.

_Occasional Lecturers_: DR. ZERFFI, Historic Ornament; E. BELLAMY, Anatomy; F. W. MOODY, the Figure, as applied to Decoration.

1. The courses of instruction pursued in the School have for their object the systematic training of teachers, male and female, in the practice of Art and in the knowledge of its scientific principles, with the view of qualifying them to impart to others a careful Art education, and to develop its application to the common uses of life, and to the requirements of Trade and Manufactures. Special courses are arranged in order to qualify School-masters of Elementary and other Schools to teach Elementary Drawing as a part of general education concurrently with writing.

2. The instruction comprehends the following subjects: Free-hand, Architectural, and Mechanical Drawing; Practical Geometry and Perspective; Painting in Oil, Tempera, and Water-colors; Modelling, Moulding, and Casting. The Classes for Drawing, Painting, and Modelling include Architectural and other Ornament, Flowers, Objects of still-life, etc., the Figure from the Antique and the Life, and the study of Anatomy as applicable to Art.

3. The Annual Sessions, each lasting five mouths, commence on the 1st of March and the 1st of October, and end on the last day of July and the last day of February, respectively. Students can join the School at any time, the tickets running from date to date. The months of August and September, one week at Christmas, and one week at Easter or Whitsuntide, are Vacations. The classes meet every day _except Saturday_. Hours of Study: Day, 10 to 3; Evening, 7 to 9.

4. In connection with the Training School, and open to the public, separate classes are established for male and female students; the studies comprising Drawing, Painting, and Modelling, as applied to Ornament, the Figure, Landscape, and still-life.

FEES.

For classes studying for five whole days, including evenings: £5 for five months.

For three whole days, including evenings: £4 for five months.

For the half-day--morning, 10 to 1; or afternoon, 1 to 3: £4 for five months.

To all these classes there is an entrance fee of 10_s._

_Evening Classes_: Male School: £2 per session.

Artisan Class: 10_s._ per session; 3_s._ per month.

Female School: £1 per session, three evenings a week.

No students can be admitted to these classes until they have passed an examination in Free-hand Drawing of the 2d Grade. Examinations of candidates will be held weekly, at the commencement of each session, and at frequent intervals throughout the year.

5. Students cannot join the School for a shorter term than _five_ months, but the students who have already paid fees for five months may remain until the end of the scholastic year on payment of a proportional fee for each month unexpired up to the 31st of July in each year.

6. Classes for School-masters, School-mistresses, and Pupil-teachers of Elementary Schools meet on two evenings in each week. Fee 5_s_. for the session. Teachers in private schools or families may attend the day classes on payment of a fee of £1 per month.

7. The morning classes for Practical Geometry and Perspective are open to all students, but they may be attended independently of the general course on payment of a fee of £2 per session for those classes.

8. Students properly qualified have full access to the collections of the Museum and Library, either for consultation or copying, as well as to all the School Lectures of the Department.

9. A register of the students’ attendance is kept, and may be consulted by parents and guardians.

Nothing can exceed the care and devotion with which the great work of South Kensington is carried on by both teachers and pupils. In walking through the rooms with the head-master I could only marvel at the indications unintentionally furnished by the pupils, from moment to moment, of his intimate knowledge of their work and their progress, however remote from such details he might be officially. In his room he keeps all the works sent in by the pupils in competition for the many valuable prizes offered by the school at each stage of progress, and these are preserved in large albums, each marked with the young artist’s name, so that by looking through it we trace the unfolding in this or that direction of a human mind, from the first crude geometrical drawing to mastery of the finer strokes of form and color. The pupil applying for admission is not simply put in at one end of a machine-like system to be turned out at the other, but a specimen of his or her work is demanded, and a place assigned in accordance with it.

It was morally impressive to witness the large numbers of women who have here found a field for the cultivation of their powers. In one room--that of geometrical proportions--the students of both sexes are taught together, and no doubt the co-educational system will gradually creep from this to other classes, as it has to some extent done in University College and other institutions. But the museum is able to supply both schools with any quantity of models and aids. The young female artists have excited the admiration of their teachers and examiners by the remarkable perfection to which they carry ornamental designs, especially such as may be derived from flowers, fruits, and leaves. In one part of the museum there is a series of grottoes, filled with all manner of ferns and other plants, which serve the double purpose of adorning the room, from which they are seen through large glass doors, and of supplying subjects for the study of decorative foliation. They who see the beautiful combinations of these plants made in the training schools will discover that their previous acquaintance with some very common things has been very limited. In this study of the geometrical capacities of plants for decorative purposes the female pupils seem to excel. The exquisite art of one of them, Miss Louisa Poole, enables me to present an example of this kind of work, for which she recently received a gold medal. The subject of this very clever piece of combination is the common nettle; and, even without the beautiful colors with which Miss Poole’s original work was rendered, these outlines she has drawn for me will perhaps enable the reader to understand the kind of work by which this school has relieved England of its former dependence on Paris and Lyons. It is but just, however, to state that Miss Poole’s work, when exhibited, on occasion of a distribution of prizes by the Duke of Richmond, was surrounded by a score of similar sketches which had brought their designers well-merited prizes. No one could examine them without perceiving that the young artists have learned the main secret of ornamental art--that nature is but an alphabet, which it is the task of the artist to combine into words and sentences that shall convey human purpose and thought.