The record-union., 1891-04-10
BRUSH And CRAYON.
Preparations for the School of De-
signs Exhibition.
The Public VIII Be Given a Chance to
See Some Clever Pieces of
Work-The Details.

All is hustle and confusion Just now at
the Art Gallery, where the art stu
dents are hanging their examples of a
years work for public inspection next
week, and in competition for medals.
This work consists of crayon and char
coal sketching. pencil drawing, varied
work in light and shade from casts, from
flats and from nature, and from life
study, landscape, still life, portraiture in
oil, in water colors and pastel, and
finally decorative work in porcelain
painting.
THE SCHOoL-RooM
Is probably the handsomest and the best
in its environment in the country, and
the art gallery and portfolio collections,
the casts, models, fiat studies and out
door excursions, studies from life, etc.,
would seem to equip the school with a
system that is especially happy, and gives
it advantages enjoyed only by the few.
The school method. as a RECORD
UNION reporter yesterday learned from
inquiry at the gallery, is very practical.
The object, he was told, was to teach vital
principles, absolute laws. and to demon
strate them in work. Dimensions, rela-
ton, contrast, reflection, balance, the
law - VI 1iIOt1OIl anu ulEScIlO1,
radiation, elements of form and compO-
sitiOn are all dwelt upon and illustrated,
and several ingenious instruments are
used to demonstrate the application of
these laws.
Visual methods in projection, perspect-
i've, light and shade, relief, textures,
colors and their values, are dwelt upon.
as also the principles underlying orna-
ment in architecture, in treatment of
drapery, the study Of the human form, Of
pOrtraiture, of animals at rest anu in ac-
ton, etc. Throughout the claim is made
that mind and hand are trained together
and explanation and reason at all times
accompany any assistance given. The
COMPREHENSION OF THESE THINGS
By the pupils, the teachers say, will be
found proved by the works now being
put up for public inspection. In fact, Of
1cers and teachers, as well as pupils, all
appear to be nervously anxious that the
people shall come to study the work of
the scholars, and discover the progressive
steps by which they have advanced. All
the pictures and studies are hung with
view to showing all the details of instruc-
ton through which the school has passed
in the studio, at the drawing table, in the
gallery, in the life room, III the field and
in lectures.
From the reporters inspection yester-
day, even an unframed mind was able to
understand that the illustration is not diff
hcult Of comprehension.
ART EDUCATION IN SACRAMENTO.
Five years ago, when the California
Museum Association founded the Sacra-
mento School of Design in the e. B.
Crocker Art Gallery, it adopted as a rule
that it would insist upon thoroughness.
I.That is, that pupils should not be gradu-
ated without passing through the draw
ing courses. This resolution was made
because there was and is so much of dab
bling in painting; because so many for
gains sake, have been teaching painting
without giving fundamental instruction
in drawing. Many have been and are
teaching" all over the country who have
no idea of the fundamentals of true in
structiOn, and it is these who do. most to
degrade taste, to impoverish true teach
ers, and to lead the people to think that
there is no high value in an education in
designing.
1t is a principle that cannot be denied
that it is as essential to learn to draw, in
order to achieve excellence in designing
as it is to learn the form of the characters
of the alphabet in order to read.
One OF the older mem berS of the aSSOcia-
ton related to the reporter that the late
Virgil Williams, of the San Francisco
School Of Design, said to the first Board
of Directors that the Sacramento school
IINi c'tlOftCu al IllIG III pOSSlDiG 10 Enforce,
that the need of revenue would compel it
to admit those who wanted to learn TO
paint, regardless of instruction in free
hand drawing. His prediction, it was
added, has not been verified. The school
has adhered to its rule. This has limited
pupils in number, and kept out scores
who would have attended to acquire a
smattering of painting, and as a result it
has not been self-supporting,
MORE Is THE PITY.
For, where there should have been
hundred pupils at a session we ascer-
tanned that there have been less than half
that number, while many parents have
spent their money in having their chill
dren taught to paint by patent methods
and without fundamental knowledge,
who, ii called upon to design, could not
draw a walking-stic But on the other
hand, the Directors of the school say that
they have the consolation of knowing
that the pupils they have sent out know
| thoroughly all they have been taught
Not one Of the 240 pupils of the past five
years has been sent from the school with
out capacity to express thought, and re-
produce form in black and white. to
express by light and shade, and to re-
produce without aid of color. Whoever
visits
THE ANNUAL EXHIBITION
To open Monday evening, will be able to
see the proof of this, we think, in the
work of the pupils now in the school
All the people ought to visit the exhibit
ton. 1t is to open at o'clock Monday
evening and remain open all day Tues
day, and the rooms the whole of that
time ought to be crowded.
The exhibition will enable some idea to
be gained of the rapid change go
ing on in public taste as reflected
IN the stores, homes, magazines, schools
and mechanic arts Of the day. The peo-
pie of this country are awakening to the
fact that the principle of beauty, is mot
only joy" as Superintendent Stimson,
OF the New York Institute, puts it, ''but a
power and value forever"
The apprehension of form, SAYS Colonel
Clark, in his report to the Federal Gov
ernment, opens new earth to men, and
admits them to new and boundleSs do
main. Art knowledge, not the technique
merely, but the fundamentals of inter
probation through form and light and
shade, enters now into nearly all voca-
tons. No matter what one is to follow
be is better fitted for it if he is possessed
of the key to the third means of express
sion. Besides this study-such as those
pursue whose works will be on view
Monday night-cultivates the tastes,
adorns the judgment and fits one to
ENJOY MORE
because ne can appreciate more. Art
study, therefore, as Emerson puts it,
gives strong evidence of something other
than animal in man, because true art,
says Morris, is divine and human, and
art is quality even in simplicity. Art
knowledge is an agency wholly elevating
and therefore its universal language is a
force for the betterment of all conditions.
Our people cannot be degraded by culti-
vation OF the love for the graceful har-
monious, beautiful and orderly; and that
refining love, art study in any true form
intensities and makes intelligent. So