The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-25
THE MAY MAGAZINES.
IpI1TNANI,a.v

Olark Seelye; Inc Aale ol Oolhe', III C"o
parts-I, Edward Spencer; ''Notus Ignoto,'
Bayard Taylor; 'Pictures in the Private Gal
leries of New York;. Galleries of Belmont
and Blodgett, Eugene Benson; "Perniclfitty
People, +. Barrow; Madame Roland, N. S,
Dodge; "a Musical Mystery" G. p. Cranch;
''The Approach of Age" John H. Bryant; ga
Womans Right"--V, Mrs. M. @. Ames; "The
Organ" j. P. Jardine; ''Polyglots, p. G.
Hamerton; "Tho Academy of Design and Art
Education" "The Great Gold Furry" j. A.
Peters; "Our Political Degeneracy and its
Remedy" ga French Chateau;" Editorial
Notes." Literature at Home, r. II. Stod-
dard; Literature and Art Abroad" Bayard
Taylor.
From the thoughtful paper on ''The Aca-
DENY of Design and Art Education" we take
the following
In the academy, naturally, the practice of
art is more than the philosophy or theory of
art: and yet lectures on the history and philo-
sophy of art do more to furnish the minds of
students than anything short of the long ex-
perience of well-nourished life. 1t is there
fore of no little Importance that the academy,
in maintaining the ascendancy of art as q
practice to the professional student, above art
as an aethetic influence in society, should not
neglect to instruct students in the history and
theory of art in society. The object is to
invest the student-mind with art in all its
relations, and this can be done only by inter
pretIng whatever is representative in the art
of the past. But mere lectures on the art of
different epochs and schools are not likely to
be of more value, nor of higher merit, than
the average of lectures on literature; aud the
student of art will probably rarely hear the
most capable man of his time on art, as the
loIJa L., l,,k
word about literature from his professor. In
France the students of the Ec0te deS BeGu1
Arts were exceptionally favored and perhaps
stimulated by the lectures of Henri Taine on
the history and philosophy of art; in England,
at this late day, Ruskin is called to the chair
of professor of art at Oxford.
Now, in proportion to their personal
ascendancy or magnetism, Ruskin and Taine
will give direction to the powerless and sub
missive minds of students, who, instead of
stumbling forward in their own more or less
weak and cropping way, will advance like
trained mediocrities, potent because of unity
of aim, which they have derived from clever
and harmonious statement of art. On the
other hand, these must obstruct the develop
ment of more individual and unsubmissive
minds, and, by the prestige which they derive
from following official instruction, easily
maintain themselves in the ascendant, while
Rousseau outside of the academy, and De-
camps in revolt against official systems, can
exist only by virtue of an indomitable con-
stitution and pronounced genius for art.
generation under the teaching of lite
rary critic like Mathew Arnold, for instance,
would disdain any such expression of graphic
and vital power, any such conception of his
tory as Carlyles ''French Revolution. A
generation under the teaching of the Ruskin
of the first two volumes of Modern Painters" p"
would be sincerely unjust and narrowly true
in its understanding of some great historic
examples of painting. This being so, tho
difficulty of official instruction reaching posi-
tive force without being narrow or intolerant,
or the difficulty of official instruction being
anything but negative, and therefore unsatis-
factory, seems insurmountable. The func-
ton of an organization for practice and
instruction in the fine arts is to provide
guidance and illumination for the feeblest
and most docile minds. How shall the
Academy of Design fill the chair of history
and philosophy of art =? And, justly appreci-
ating the place of art in education, really
wishing to occupy the whole mind of the
student with art, ought it not to provide lee
lures on architecture, sculpture, historical,
genre and landscape painting, as well as the
obviously practical instruction in anatomy,
perspective painting, and modelling? What
student, and even what artist, but would
like to hear H. X. Brown, or j. Quincy
Ward, give his understanding of an
cient and modern sculpture; Page or
Gray on the italian masters of painting;
Clifford, or Kensett, or any of our chief
landscapists on landscape-art? A dozen
artists of course are ready TO stop us and say:
Ward, Brown, Page, Clifford, Kensett, and
La Fargo have something more important to
do than talk to artists and students about
their predictions in art; that they paint or
model as they do, precisely because they are
exclusively devoted to painting or modelling.
The reply is more plausible than satisfactory;
for it cannot be supposed that these artists,
who have devoted a good part of
their maturest study to the practice of a
special department of art, are not able
to make statement in the course of one
or two hours talk, before persons really inte-
rested in art, without draining or unduly
taxing their strength; and we maintain that d
large and generous sympathy for art in a SO
ciety and among young men so much in nee6
of it as our own, would speedily place the ex
perience and understanding of individuals, o
men of real ability, before students an(
fellow artists. We do not ask from our mos
honored painters, sculptors, and architects
the pretension to or solicitude about literary
graces, or the skill of the rhetorican we asl
from them an hours talk which shall impair
to students the personal experience and un
derstanding of what landscape art or sculp
ture or architecture may be to the particula
landscapist, sculptor, or architect or portrait
painter, who may be called to give others tn
benefit of his experience simply as he woul
to a student in his studio.
Wequote thissuggestive paragraph from tn
n