12 NOVEMBER 1842, Page 19

DEFECTIVE EDUCATION OF BRITISH ARTISTS: GERMAN CRITICISM.

TEE British Institution was opened on Wednesday for the annual pri- vate view of the "copies," by courtesy so called, made by students, from such pictures of the old masters as are liberally allowed to remain for this purpose after the close of the exhibition. As usual, it was a deplorable spectacle : not only did the copyists show themselves incom- petent to profit by the opportunity thus afforded of studying the works before them, but they manifested a ludicrous degree of incapacity in the technical part of the art ; being, for the most part, lamentably ignorant of the rudiments of drawing and painting. Year after year has it been our disagreeable duty to record similar results of this well-meant, but mistaken practice of permitting learners to paint who cannot draw, and to copy fine pictures before they can make a right use of colours. This is only one of the evidences among many to be found in the schools of the Royal Academy, and in every exhibit on throughout the kingdom, of the want of proper instruction for students of art in this country. It is not "patronage," but education, that our artists stand in need of. Considering the deficiency of skill and of originality shown by the mass of artists in the present day, there is but too much encouragement for mindless mediocrity and industrious incompetency : the germ of promise that unfolds its first leaves is in less danger of be- ing. " nipped in the bud" by coldness and neglect, than of being forced to premature development by that hot-house system of patronage which rears up sickly parasities that can live only in the heated atmosphere of drawing-room conservatories. A young painter of hopeful talent is petted and flattered into the belief that he is a born genius, above the vulgar necessity of learning his art : he gets so many commissions that he has no time to study, even if he were desirous to become proficient; and, what is worse, there is as little opportunity for as inducement to study.

The drawing-classes at Exeter Hall, and the practice of teaching to draw from models in schools, will be the means of instructing the public to delineate form more correctly than many of our artists do ; and there are schools of design for training workmen ia pattern-drawing ; but where are the painter and sculptor to acquire that intimate knowledge of the human figure which is essential to excellence ? " Why, at the Royal Academy, to be sure," is the ready answer ; "and at other aca- demies where artists meet to draw from the living model." True, if familiarity with the nude would make good artists, the students of the present day ought to be first-rate draughtsmen ; but their studies from the " life ' and the " antique " are alike profitless, for this simple reason, that they are ignorant of the anatomical construc- tion of the human figure. Not only is a thorough knowledge of anatomy considered unnecessary at the Academy, but there is no place in this country where the student of art can study the human structure, as it only can be thoroughly studied, on the dissecting:table. The Academy students in the "life school" can have admission to King's College Hospital, if they apply for it ; but dissection for medical purposes is of a very different kind from what is requisite for the purpose of drawing : a course of anatomical demonstration should be expressly arranged for the students of art to be serviceable. But so little is the necessity for this knowledge regarded, that a few months ago, when an emiuent anatomist advertised a class for artists solely, not one entered. Nor perhaps is it to be expected that the mass of students will put them- selves to the expense and unpleasantness of attending a course of dis- section, when it is not required of them by authority : the Academy has the power to enforce it, but it does not ; for if it did the pupils would know more than their teachers, which might be awkward. The in- struction given at the Academy is superficial and imperfect, and of a conventional kind ; the students are made smatterers, not thoroughly educated. Every candidate for admission into the Academy is re- gaired to draw the skeleton and an antique statue as evidence of his ability ; when admitted, he draws other antique statues, and learns the names and positions of the bones and muscles ; after which he is admitted to the " life school," where he draws from the living model. But he knows little of the structure of the figure: a glance at the hands and feet of his drawing will suffice to show that.

In the trunk and larger limbs, where the markings are fewer and the masses larger, his deficiencies are not so glaring; but when he comes to the extremities, then we see to what extremity he is reduced; puffy lamps of dislocation commonly represent the feet foreshortened. Prac- tice may make him more expert in glossing over defects, but his know- ledge is very little increased: how should it be otherwise, seeing that he

does not penetrate below the surface? There are instances, familiar to most artists, of venerable " students" who have drawn from the life for

twenty, thirty, and even forty years, who make worse and worse de- formities every year : not that they are more blind and stupid than others perhaps ; it is the result of merely imita ive practice on the part of persons who have neither genius nor scientific knowledge. If an artist wants to study the figure thoroughly, he must go to Paris ; there every facility is afforded at a cheap rate : a student may enter the atelier of DELAROCHE, or any other eminent artist, by paying one pound a month ; and there is a course of anatomy open to him at L'Ecole de Medicin. In Paris, an artist who cannot draw the figure is an exception ; one who can is a wonder here. We do not believe that there is one artist in fifty, of those educated in this country only, who could draw a human figure correctly from his own knowledge, in any given attitude. If the Academy students were placed before a black board and required to draw an anatomical figure without a model, they would stand aghast : yet what is the value of their teaching if they can- not stand this test ? Any one who has attended a "life academy" will have been amused at the perplexity of the students when the model, having rested, resumes his attitude : " that's not right!" exclaims a chorus of voices—" the elbow's too low," says one—" the leg's too

much bent," cries another—" the head's not inclined enough, com- plains a third—" thepose is altogether different," grumbles a fourth ; and so on. They are mere imitators of what they see, not of what they occie; heneethe slightest change of posture sets them all abroad: they have been accustomed to draw from statues, which only give them the trouble to keep to the same point of view : a figure that moves is se puzzling—" nature puts them out." But if the model were motionless for half-an-hour the difficulty would be little less; for muscles will relax, and the outline changes. If students were properly versed in anatomy, they would prefer a succession of momentary attitudes to a long con- tinuance in the same posture, where the model flags from fatigue, and the character of the forms becomes tame and spiritless.

Nor are the deficiencies of instruction for artists in this country con- fined to anatomy : there is no scientific method to guide him in the technical part of painting. How should there be, seeing that scarcely any two painters proceed alike ? Each one adopts some pecu- liar trick or conventional manner, for which he can rarely give a reason ; and this is acquired by his pupils and imitators ; who, having no rationale to direct them, can only copy nature by imitating his imitation. The English school has a reputation for " colour" and " effect," but not for that most valuable quality in painting, " tone." The crude and flashy daubs that flaunt in all the colours of the rainbow on our exhibition-walls, are for the most part destitute of those sterling qualities which we find in the great painters of the Italian and Flemish schools: opacity without solidity, monotony without breadth, finish without force, characterize the majority. In landscape, rocks of putty rise against skies of glass, palpable clouds float in vacuo, and trees of tin overhang streams of flint—except where TURNER'S scarlet-fever fantasy depicts visions of nature in a brilliant state of decomposition, dying, dolphin-like, in a chromatic agony of intense hues.

The first step to remedy deficiencies is to be convinced of their ex- istence: this knowledge the English school is beginning to arrive at. The terms of the competition for designs for fresco have contributed to enlighten them ; and the trial and its result will convince both those who do and those who do not compete, that the training of artists in the English school has been and still is extremely defective. Meanwhile., we cannot do better than quote the opinion of Dr. MERZ, the German critic whose account of the Royal Academy Exhibition we alluded to last week, on the demerits of the English school. He is hard upon us, and cannot see beauties for faults : but there are too good grounds for his sweeping censure. He says what many foreigners think : if we would find out our faults, we should hear what our enemies say of us. Dr. MERZ thus characterizes the mass of pictures- " There is no clearness nor freedom of invention, no rich exercise of creative fancy, there is nowhere one great free production ; but all are either timid, con- strained reminiscences, or else they are intoxications of imagination, compared with which the wildest productions of the French Romantic school have sense, form, and strength. To this is joined the coquettish sentimentality of the English school. It sounds strange, yet it is true, that the people from among whom a Shakspere came forth, can show no work in the pictorial art in which a free lively imagination has given clear expression to an important thought. Them is wanting to them in this art a substantial agent, a living ideality, a soul. "Even where a creative fancy in art exists, there is wanting the power of realizing it ; there is wanting just observation, true living study. The eye of the mind must see through the eye of the artist; the spiritual glance must look through the bodily eye, and go first to seek the mystery of life in the world around. To the want of ideality is joined the want of the other agents of art, reality and objectiveness. "In reproducing objects materially, the English artists show remarkable want of power, strange peculiarities, naive individuality, and vain repetition. "So wanting are all the elements of the technical parts of art, that it is difficult to imagine how, for these seventy-four years, the Royal Academy has maintained its existence and its exhibitions. If they were to choose for their motto the passage of Symmachus, Omne quod in cursu est viget,' it should be translated, Not all things that continue their course advance.' Yes, gold cannot command every thing. The Royal Academy has not yet established a school for very young pupils : they may be permitted to despair of the call of English genius to the art of painting."

These are bitter and unpalatable, but they are wholesome truths. That British art is deficient in inventive power and executive skill, there is no denying : exceptions, how brillant soever, do but prove the rule. In the following letter, Mr. HATDON demurs to the justness of the charge, but does not disprove it he do. s not meet the question fairly. To impute motives is as idle as to bandy abuse and talk of

courtesy. If the Germans are wrong, it does not follow that the Eng- lish are right : showing them to be faulty does not prove us faultless. The two schools are opposite, and have both defects, which might be reme- died by each studying the excellences of the other. But to do so, each must dwell less on the defects of the other, and more dispassionately consider the strictures of their rivals. The result of the competition will show what English artists are capable of: and we shall rejoice if the reply to the German critic's objections be triumphant : it is not by words but deeds that such opinions will be refuted.