25 FEBRUARY 1837, Page 12

SCHOOL OF DESIGN FOR MECHANICS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

Durwood Place, London, Mb January 1837.

St—The great consolation to the country, and especially to the artists, ought to be that the Academy has been tried at last by a Jury; that it has been turned iuside out before the world, found guilty on all points but the manage- ment of their funds, (which I never accused them of mismanaging,) and that no sophistry will again induce the people to mistake their selfishness for patriotism, their monopoly for discriniinating selection, or their despotic injustice for im. partial right : do what they will, act as artfully as they please, they never can again impose on Europe, however they may on those of the nobility who are their immediate connexions, and upon the straightforward simplicity of the King. Ten years ago, had I said, the moment a School of Design was formed that the Academy would interfere and ruin it, how many pens would have wagged their "indignant plumes," how many tongues would have expressed their horror at the suspiciou ! hut now, such has been the revolution, that, before my lips were open, the moment the Academy was known to have any thing to do with it, all pens, all tongues, were let louse in anticipated disgust. . This is a gl„rious and mighty change ; and this we owe to the press,—first in order of time to the Examiner, then to the Times, and lastly to the Spec- tates.. Though we must be very much annoyed that Lord IHELeovasie should have sanctioned such a folly as the exclusive admission of Academicians to th Council—thereby losing a fair moment of breaking down the offensive battieee between the Academician and the artist—yet let us never forget that to his Ministry we owe the Committee, the source of our victory, and the Academical

pang. A mere tub to the whale " said — to me. " No, my boy," said I, " a large pill the monster can't swallow."

Though this is a dereliction of public principle, yet, even in the formation of the Council, I can trace an advance,—viz. in the admission of gentlemen to check professional envies—men of honour, spirit, and intelligence. Now if these gentlemen do but take up the question as they take up public questions in the House, there is yet fair ground to hope the vote of public money will not be lost to the country ; and the School of Design, in spite of Sir FRANCIS CHANTREY, be rendered effective in the improvement of our taste in manufacture, and benefitting the docile eager, industrious and ardent mechanic. In the first place, I have been told, it was suggested that the study of the human figure was not necessary to design in manufacture. In the second, that all mechanics admitted ought to sign a declaration that they would never practice history, portrait, or landscape. A very pretty specimen of Academical interest for the knowledge of the people and the supremacy of Old England in art !

Who founded the School of Design at Lyons?—Navor.r.osr. What would he have said to such a proposition from DENON?—" Bah !" and have turned his back. If this proposition was endured for a single moment in the Council, it only shows the lamentable, the awful condition of the minds of the gentlemen who form its component parts. What can ever be said now in defence of the neglect of art at college ? Here is

.the result—palpable, irrefutable, not to be conceived without intense sorrow : in France it will be shouted at.

In answer to the first absurdity, it is hardly worth while to reply, that as the greater involves the less, the power of drawing the figure involves the power of drawing every thing else ; and that if this be not the base of the instruction in design for the English mechanic, his inferiority to the French mechanic will continue to be the same.

In answer to the second, I reply, I cannot bring my understandiag to compre- hend the state of any human mind which could concei over propose such a despotic grossness. What ! when a mechanic is gifted with geruns, is the will of God to be impeded by Sir FRANCIS CHANTREY? Is Sir FRANCIS, the architect of his own fortune, risen from the drudgery of mechanical labour, now the favoured of kings, to forget the struggles of his early poverty, and instead of clearing the road for his successors, heap obstructions in their path? Did RAFPAELLE act thus when Por.inalio, his mortar-mixer, showed genius? did he tnake his mechanics sign bonds not to invent or draw the figure?... Illustrious spirit, pardon me for polluting thy glory by such a conception! No. This was not RAFFAELLE'S conduct : he took PoLincoto directly into his care, taught him the figure, and advanced him ; and the mechanic mason became one of the great names of his Roman school. In art there are two species of eminent genius,—the genius for imitation, and the genius of invention : the genius for imitation must form a component part of the genius of invention, but it does not follow that the genius of men- non is a necessary part of the genius for imitation. LAWRENCE, ROMNEY, and CiraNTREY, are distinguished examples of the genius for imitation ; but, at the same time, eminent proofs of deficiency in the genius for invention. Sir FRANCIS CHANTREY IS the greatest bust-maker since the Greeks; and I do not think they exceeded the exquisite felicity with which he chisels the dew. lap of the double chin of old age, or the pulpy innocence of smiling childhood. Gifted, like LAWRENCE, with the most wonderful power of seeing, swain, and transferring the most agreeable characteristic of an Igreeable character, he vanquished at once the vanity of the human heart. But these men are never content with doing to perfection what Nature has given them the power to do. They are haunted with a consciousness of the higher rank given by the world to invention, and they are always deluding themselves and their friends with vain promises of the great things in art they mean to do at snare more auspicious moment than the present within their reach. They talk of genius as if it could be buttoned up in a waistcoat-pocket, and let out when wanted. First, they swear they wilt begin their grand conception in tire-fine mornings of the

approaching Bummer; the i

n, it s to be in the long winter evenings ; at last, they acknowledge they had better wait till they are independent, till they can retire to a more secluded spot, where their imaginations will not be disturbed by the postman's rap or the dustman's bell—where frost will not chill, or snow dazzle—where pain and sorrow, gout and fever, are rooted out--where babies cease to give symptoms of abdominal twangs, and Daffv's Elixir is no longer wanted : then, what immortal works they will execute!. then, how fertile will be their inventions ! then will come forth from their chisels their long- expected Satan ! But, in the midst of these delicious anticipations upstarts a great genius from obscurity, who, haunted by genius like a nightmare, paints a great picture or models a grand statue, in spite of postman's raps and baby's squallings, in sorrow and m want, in persecution and in sickness; proving the folly of those who defer invention, supposing they possess it, and the iinpossi- bility of resisting its impulses, under any circumstances, in those that do. If ever there was a case which ought to have excited even the sympathy of a Northern bear, it was the case of LOUGH : he, like CHANTREY, worked in the fields. His father'a landlord, returning from hunting, saw in the garden a quan- tity of clay models ; he alighted, and found the house full. Locnir was brought forth as the culprit, from thrashing corn. The landlord was so interested, he invited him to his house, brought him to town, and allowed him an income. LOUGH, ill a miserable back-room, modelled the "Milo,"—as flue as any thing since the Greeks,—spending his allowance in clay and tools, and living three months without meat ; lying down, as the time for dinner came on, till the faintness went off. In this state he finished the statue. The nobility rushed in crowds ; called on CHANTREY, and begged him to go. Ile ridiculed the whole tiling; abused LorGil, denied his genius; in fact, obstructed him in every way, because he was annoyed at this irrefutable evidence of innate genius. The monopolizing despotism of Sir FRANCIS in the art is not to be believed : he bestrides It liken Colossus, thinking it. honour enough if BAYLEY or WEST.. MACOTT, CAMPBELL or CAREW, can peep about and find dishonourable graves. As a designer he is utterly. deficient. He has no invention, and cannot compose. And this is the man in whom the Government place all their confidence to ad- vance the interests of a School of Design ! Being deservedly rich and grossly blunt, he terrifies well-bull people, who, in the Council, rather than incur his sneers, will give up their own judgment for the sake of peace.

I was prepared for Sir FRANCIS'S ridicule, but I was not prepared for his

selection ; and unless the other artists—the mechanics, with Dr. BIRKBECK at their head, and the gentlemen in the Council who are not professional—do take it up as an important question, and firmly baffle Sir FRANCIS'S artful bluntness and GA mmorr's amiable plausibility, the sound views of EASTLAKE and COCKERELL will have no effect, and the School of Design will be a total failure. The gentlemen will leave it in disgust, (the very thing the Academy is aiming at,) and then we shall have another canting, puling whine for fifty years, of " It will never do in this country."

Yeur obedient servant, B. R. HAYDON.

P.S. The art apparently is fading, but in reality it is taking root. For the next ten years the sufferings of anode will be great; but it will be the suf- fering of the chrysalis before the butterfly spreads its wings and mounts in the sun-beams. The people have gut hold of the truth, and nothing can stop thous