The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-05-09 00:00:00

TELE INTERNATIONAL EXiIIBITION.
Au address was delivered on Thursday afternoon
laat, at the Town-hail, by J. C. 13-ickmaster,
Esq., on the Exhibition just opened, as one of
• series of animal exhibitions, intendad to promote
_ . . .

fine and industrial art and scientific inventions.' Being
held in the afternoon, artisans could not attend, but
all who were present .seemed much interested. The
Mayor (T. Bennett, Esq.), presided, end briefly intro-
duced the lecturer.
Mr. BOCKIWITIII began by remarking that sines
1851 we have had all kinds of exhibitions for all kinds
of purposes —exhibitions of dogs, babies, barmaids,
spiders,heterogenous collections which no one could see
with advantage, and from which no one could derive
any instruction--(lsughter). The exhibition opened on
the Ist of May will be chiefly confined to the complete
illustration of two industries. There will also be •
fine art exhibition. an exhibition of elucational ;
apparatus and scientific invention. Confined to these
objects, the exhibition may be made a means of
industrial education. Inventors of improved smoke'
jacks, patent coffins, bulletproof shirts and humane
mousetraps will find but poor encouragement. The
true idea of an exhibition is to show in the things
exhibited • faithful record of • country's history and
progress in mime, arts, and manufactures, not the
impulse of • momentary popularity, but a steady
persevering effort in the direction of industrial education.
Many of the useful arts of utility are as oil as
the human ram. Born into the world the most help.
less of all animals, man has to begin life under circum•
stances of great natural weakness. Left to himself be
must perish, but this natursl helpleuness necessitates
the exercise of his faculties. Nature has denied him
of a covering, which protects him from the vicissitudes
of elimete—he has no natural wasp on either for attack
or defense. He prepares a place to protect himself
from the weather, he covers himself with the skin of
some animal; end to make a pocket in the skin shows
the art of tailoring, but to make • knife for the pocket
shows an advanced civiliz 'Lion. From this rude
covering to the dress coat of • West End tailor, we
have the history of a great and important industry.
This work requires some art, which in its early stages
is perhaps little more than instructive ;:man left to
himself makes but slow progress ; in time, however, he
uses a dried gourd shell or calabash for drinking, which
he afterwards moulds in clay, and dries in the sun,
after be has quenched his thirst, he sits down end
carves with a hard stone or tooth grotesque forms on
the outside of his drinking cup. So the useful arts
lead to the fine arts: when a man bag made some-
thing useful, he frequently covers it with ornament,
tm make the useful beautiful, and it is a manifestation.
of that Divine Spirit which was breathed into man by
God, who has made all things beautiful. 1 wish we
were more alive to its elevating inllllolloO. Beautiful
things suggest • purer and a higher life. There was a
time in this country when the desire to make useful
things beautiful was more general among workmen,
and was carried out in ever, industrial art, which
admitted of its application, and even parts not much
observed were not unfrequently carved or piloted.
I can reooaect the time when an apprentice occupied
the leieure of • maven years' apprenticeship in ornament-
ing the interior of his tool chest, and will any one tell
me that this work have no influencl on the future life
of the min ? But what do I see now? Apprenticeships
disregarded, • few tools thrown together in • flag
beaks% the leisure of the long winter evenings wasted
in smoking and frivolous amusements, and • gradually
degenerating class of art workmen, because we have
done all we could to separate the useful from the
beautiful, and produce quantity rather than quality.
We hope to revive by these annual exhibitions the
spirit which once animat masters and workmen to
produce, good work, nether then cheap work—(hear,hear).
lie advocated schools of Sciences and Art and willies.
tion of a closer acquaintance with things beautiful in
Nature. One of the objects of there annual Interna-
tional Exhibitions is to stimulate and encourage the
highest talent of the artist, to give beauty and form of
colour to works of utility. Everything in which fine
art it e _feature. whether applied to textPe fabrics.
mosaics, terniture, stained shuts, ceramic ware, encray.
jogs, reproductions, electrotype', lace, muslin% shawls,
in short, every work of art of any merit, whether ap-
plied to works of utility or pleasure, will find • place
in the exhibition. If you have nothing to send this year
prepare something for next year. Any workmate may
exhibit • work of art of his own design or production.
I do not mean a carpet or hearth rag made of so many
thousand pieces of cloth sewn together with to many
millions of stitches, but something beautiful in form,
colour, or design. For any article to he exhibited of
itself is a better recommendation than s certificate,
for out of the thousands of things sent, only theme of
real merit are 'Melted for exhibition. Haviug spoken
of the gradual progress of inlustriial art, he said the
two industries illustrated in the Exhibition
are woollen and worsted fabrics, and pottery. I
think you will see the wisdom of confining the
Con to one or two important industries, In this way,
in a given number of years all our :niustries will be
exhibited in connection with other countries under
circumstances far more favourable than has been the
cue in former Exhibitions. Ido not supper, we have
attained perfection in soy Industrial Art, but the
nearer the perfection the slower the progress. The
buildings devoted to the exhibition have been erected
not from the taxes, but by the Revd COMMiifi niers
of the exhibition of 1851. Passing throurh the Freneh
court, which is miscellaneous in character, we 00Mb
into the gallery occupied with the pottery of all nations,
All the machinery for orushiog awl grinding clay, pipe
making, tile making, brick making, Cerra poets work,
the potter's wheel, and all the appliances as far as
possible ere shown in operation. In this gallery you
have one industry folly illustrated, from the coar,est
piece of brick or tart setts to the finest pores.
lain. Mr. Backwater dissented on Etrumen pottery,
I and lovingly spoke of the lebours of Palissy. Be VIM&
man of indomitable perseverance, and in this consisted
his 1M0043115. It is not so much genius as work. There
Is hope, even now, for the man that will work. Wedge.
wool and others ware also mentioned. Over the
pottery exhibition in the Foreign Fine Art gallery;
and from this a covered way ornamented with
statuary and flowers leads into the Albert Hall.
This building will hold 8,000 persons, and another
thousand on the orchestra, and contains the largest
organ ever built. It is proposed to invite the most
distinguished organists in Europe to give performances
during the exhibition. Wagner, Gounod, amid Sullivan
will compose pieces, ant all the best military bands in
Europe will give performances—(oheers). During the
exhibition the Society of Arta is also preparing to give
ail concerts, under Sir Michael Costa. Music it, per•
hope, one of the most humanising of the Fine Art., no
man ever thought • bad thought, or contemplated a
bad motion under the influenee of good mud°. In the
story of Orpheus taming Wild animals with music we
have shadowed forth the influence of the Fine Arts in
civilizing wile men. The more general cultivation of
Music would elevate the tastes of the people, and add
anew charm to domestic life. From the gleemeu and
harpers of the Saxon period came the minstrels of the
14th and 15th century, aud the pastoral mania of the
DM century. 'rho Abbot of Ifaliuusbury,wa are told,
need to sit daily on the bridges and high roads, at if •
'looms°. In tam way he encouraged his semi-barbarons
countrymen to hear him, and be mixed with his
minetreby more wirlous subject., Is this early period
, Art was the handmaid of religion. St. Dunstan could
I sing all the songs of his nation Ile also oomitractel
an organ with brass pipes, mid filled them with air
from • bellows. I have no doubt Si. Duustan will
be delighted to hear of the organ in the Albert Hall—
(hear, bear). There was MI olden time in Eagland
when the cultivation of music—especially part singing—
secured for us the name of " inertia Eugland." The
people used to sing at their work, and among the
middle slums to be unable to sing or to play corn)
Instrument was considered • mark of low breeding.
The 15th and 10th centuries were chersoterisel by a
general disagreement, and, where potable, a destruc-
tion of every tine art- Paintings were torn to
shreds, organs were broken to pieces, and cathedral
music put down in the time of Cromwell. We wire
without any composer of mania Toe art Was just kept
in existeura by the singing of dreary dismal hymns;
and so low had it fallen that in the middle of the last
century Lord Chesterfield advisee his son to avoid the
practice of music amid singing as unworthy the character
of • geutleman—(laughter). The love and power of
music, I believe, is as strong in the English as the
Germans or any other people. In the din soft twilight
of • summer's evening last year, I saw an old mau
rethteuvmiliing froigecmhus erhwjustit.
as
histhechwoaiy me
r home
asihnge pa
.sod
evening anthem. Unnoticed by me, he took off his
hat and said, "All glory be to God." This convinced
an odbesfze
vithig oerd
me better then all the metaphysical books that there it
arcte7strarianl art.,
in our nature which is toadied and elevated
b,
iihnsetreasmaionns of
eoccahignhona
occasionally
yhi
with whitewash and shwa,. So the art and love of
mule, deposed, perhaps, because we have never done
any think to purify, were aaaaa entirely lost or obliterated .
In some parts of Yorkshire and Northumberland, the is.
habitants have been remarkable train time immemorial
fee skill in vocal harmony and part made. Let us hope
that among other things the Albert Ball will cultivate
and promote a more general testator good music and art,
which received mach assietance from the Pringle Consort.
We now tarn our attention to the worsteds and
woollens of eli nations, shish are arranged in • part of
the ball behind the lit and 2ad tiers of boxes, in fOorns
22 feet wide. All the proem es involved in the making
of Moth will be show°, and the animals from which the
raw material is obtained will be exhibited by the Zook).
ghat Society. In the gallery at the top of the hall is
exhibited educational apparatus, engravings. and arohi.
tectural drawings. Desosnduig to the dour of the
Albert hall, the gustation will naturally menu, to what
use is this magnificent hall to be devoted? For what
purpose has it been built? The great idea is to mune.
Scats the memory of a greet and good man who ever
reprded the prefrees of solemn aid art as the marks