The National tribune., 1883-05-31
SOUTH KENSINGT0N.
Industrial Art Education in England.
The Workshop of the World.
Special correspondents National Tribune.


LONDON, May 6-Whether or not England
is to realize the dream of her economists and
become the workshop of the world, London is
certainly making strenuous efforts in that di-
rection- To this end something more than
four million people live in an atmosphere of
CRIME, which has already blaekened St. Pauls
and is now giving grotesque black streaks to
the faces OF the statues of great men at the base
of the beautiful Albert Memorial. These Lon
don millions, in their manufacturing fervOr,
live, moreover, IN an eyer-shiiting kaleidoscope
of advertisements such as bewilders unaceus-
toned minds and destroys the beauty of the
finest London thoroughfares. These London
characteristics are mere incidents, of course of
the manufacturing life of England; and two
much more salient features are the standing
army and huge navy maintained to protect
the foreign commerce that is needed to distrib-
ute surplus manufactured products. There is
reverence for manufacture and trade pervad-
ing all ranks of Society, as was amusingly
shown last week when semi-Otficial card in
the Times explained that when Her Majesty
forbade the use of lamb in the royal household,
1T was without any intention of setting an
example injurious to the ordinary course of
trade"
This devotion to industrial interest is an old
story, of course, worn threadbare in campaign
discussions of the relative merits of protection
and free trade; but one comparatively new
feature of the English civilization has developed
from the national conservation to manufacture,
and this new impulse is of strong interest to us
in America. Free trade throws open the Eng
lish home market to the competition of French
producers, while in foreign commerce Eng
fish goods necessarily come into competition
with the products of all countries. English
goods must, therefore, be artistic products,
since the taste of the French competitors be-
sides being naturally good has been cultivated
through generations by means of museums and
technical instruction. The workshops of the
world" must therefore, be filed with skilled
artisans, possessed of more or less artistic edu-
cation; and that the government should sup
ply this education is only the logical compile
ment of the naval and military aid which it
supplies for the distribution Of finished wares.
THE KENsINGToN MUSEUM.
The governmental preparations for indus
trial art education are substantial and efficient,
and the South kensingt0n Museum, around
which the work centers, is unrivaled by any
thing attempted in America. This institution
was tttingly founded with part of the sur
plus receipts OF the International Exhibition of
1851, but its collections and maintenance have
been at governmental charges supplemented
by certain private requests. It's objects are
The promotion of art and science by means
OF the systematic training of competent teach
ers; the foundation of schools of art; the con-
duct of public examinations and distributions
of prizes; the purchase and exhibition of OBJ
Jects of art, and the establishment of art libra
RES. Accordingly, there are now, at South
kensingtOn, schools in which painting and
modelling are taught; an art library of nearly
fifty thousand volumes, to which the public has
access on payment Of trifing fees, and a mu-
scum OF ornamental or applied art, containing
more than twenty thousand modern and me-
deFal works of art, of which part are the
property of the museum and part are lent
That section of the work which is best known
in America is probably theschool of art needle
work, which is an extremely subordinate branch
of the whole.
The museum building is admirably adapted
to Its purpose, and the interior, which embOdies
as far as possible the principles of art taught in
the schools, is charming. The plan of the
building admits of broad wall spaces of which
two have received freSeoes representing indus
try as applied to the arts of war and of peace,
by Sir Frederick Leighton, and other similar
spaces have admirable full length portraits, in
mosaic of artists and men of science and of
letters. There are galleries, too, requiring sup
port, and giving opportunity for experiments
In the use of terra Gotta; and, in one of the
long halls, pillars of WedgeWOOd are used in
this way. Long corridors are lighted by win
dows of English stained glass, the coloring in
them and throughout the building being
plants for the use of pupils studying design,
led to the creation of ferneries into which the
windows of certain rooms open, refreshing
vista thus repeatedly surprising eyes weary
with gazing at the multitudes of objects of
art. The needs of the building and the schools
are all ingeniously turned TO account with an
eye TO artistic effect, one of the best examples
of the application of industrial art TO the mu-
scum building being the grill-room decorations.
There is a luneh-room, where chops are griIled
or broiled to order and served fresh from the
hre. Since the walls of such rooms receive
deposits of grease besides the usual deposit of
London CRIME, the kensington grilI-room is
walled with tiles, which can be scrubbed with
out harm. This offered fine opportunity for
pupils of the school to compete in furnishing
the designs, and the room is wholly decorated
from their work. The effect is pretty, although
there is no marked fitness in twelve large
panels representing the seasons, nor in null
titude of small tiles exhibiting Venus, GnOne,
and other Grecian figures III very un- Grecian
drapery, and quite unrecognizable but for
labels ingeniously burnt into the tiles.
THE COLLECTIONS OF POTTERY.
The iron and steel and textile industries are
but slenderly represented in the museum, some
fine wrOught-irOn screens and hammered armor
suthcing for the former, and some cartoons by
Raphael for tapestries, suggesting what may
De done with the latter. Inc strong points IN the
museum is its collections of pottery, which are
large weil-selected, and extremely interesting
There are Faience, Sevres, and Limoges wares
in all varieties with admirable collections of
the Eastern potteries and specimens of English
wares at every stage of skill in the use of clay
Tableware is, most naturally, freely exhibited,
but there are also porcelain stoves of the
fifteenth century, and the Wedgewood pillars,
mentioned before, which are the product of the
present decade; there are charming plaques,
and many eases of bric-a-brae dainty in design
and successfully executed, but tiresOme by
reason of their quantity and their impersonal
position. There are even a few specimens of
the use ofterra Gotta for monumental purposes
One of these is curious-a little relief In white
glazed ware, ten inches by eight, representing
the half figure Of little girl lying asleep with
her hands crossed over her breast, and the
quaint cap of her day ON her head 1t is a por-
trait Of Lydia Dwight, who died in 1873, whose
likeness was preserved in this way by her
father, the founder of the Fulham Pottery. A
charming head of Flaxman, by himself in the
same ware, suggests that admirable work of
this sort might be done.
1t is pleasant TO see how thoroughly practical
the collections are; they have been made with
such strict reference to theneeds OF hour that
the few casts of statues and the reproductions
of medieval church decorations have a strayed
and out-of-place effect. 4 vast majority Of the
objects exhibited have reference TO common
home-hfe-to the beauty of mediocre houses
and practical outcome of the South Kensing-
ton work is manifest in the nrettv tiled win