The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-05-17
MONUMENTAL ART SCHOOL.
Advocated by Monumental News as a
Feasible Plan.

There has just recently been estab'
lished in the University of Illinois. in
the department of landscape gardening,
leading Chicago cemetery superintend-
ent as one OF the chief lecturers. When
cemetery designing has taken its place
in the curriculum of a great university,
it is high time that the art OF monu-
ment designing have a place in our
schools of art and architecture, says
the Monumental News. The time is
ripe for definite. specialized course
in monumental art in one or more of
our great schools of are or architecture.
and il is the duty of the leaders in
the monument craft as represented by
the National Retail Monument Deal
ers' association to bring this about.
This is no dream, It's entirely feast
Bile for the association TO secure the
establishment of n course in nonu-
mental design in at least one OF the
great art schools.
The association might even endow
such course if it's progress in the
next few years under the advanced
scale of dues and the national organ
izers work is as rapid as II should be.
The one thing that distinguishes the
monument business from other bust.
nesses is art, and the chief service of
the craft to the public is in produc-
ing more artistic monuments. The
greatest need of the trade to-day is
for better designs and for better
trained designers. There are scarcely
C ~ fs4t "
training in the monument field to-day,
and it is the duty of the men in the
business now through their associa
tions to educate the sons and dauph-
tors who will build the monuments
of tomorrow in the art side of mon
ument making. The associations have
made rapid progress in cost accounting
and in education along the business
side Of our calling, and il the craft Is
to come into its legacy, as the most
ancient of the fine arts, a like prog
ress must be made in artistic design.
The annual design. competition and
exhibition ought to be revived and en-
'larged by more generous allowance
for prizes at the st. Louis convention
and ways and means should be devised
in the near future for definite course
of art training for the monument de-
signers of tomorrow.
The recent very successful memorial
art exhibition conducted by the New
York City association is the first eff
fort yet made TO present the art side
OF our craft to the general public. i
should not be the last
The exhibits at the National Retail
Monument Dealers association conyen
tions have grown with such rapidity
that il is now scarcely possible TO find
building that will house them all,
and it seems almost physical neces-
sity TO limit them in the future, by
some process of selection. This selec- |
ton should be made solely on an art
basis. Designs OF all works TO be ex-
hibited at the national convention !
should be submitted in advance TO a
jury properly qualified to judge their
artistic qualities and those not having
certain standards of art and original |
ity should not be admitted.
The national exhibit should be an ed |
ucation in the art of memorial crafts.
manship, not display room of the,or-
binary commercial types of stock mon
uments.
The associations should bend their |
efforts toward every avenue of art edu-
cation that is tributary TO the craft. |
The principal need is for better
trained designers. This need is being
felt in other fields OF manufacture. and
courses of industrial art and design |
are being conducted. The monument !
industry needs one and needs il now. |
Richard F. Bach, associate in Indus !
trial Arts of the Metropolitan Museum
of New York, writes forcibly on this
subject in recent issue OF the Edu.
cational Review, from which we quote
as follows:
Then there is the designer, a trained 4
individual who should have sound
OF craftsman execution |
gained by actual contact, but whose J
real work is in the broader field of pro- |
due ion in which great machines ac- ,
complsh rapid turn over of raw ma I
terials. 1t is for this type OF artist /
that we especially need schools, for /
his mistakes are Immediately mani 4
folded and sent TO the corners of the I
earth! Ii is in teaching these men es-
peciallv that the industrial art schools (
have had the wrong focus. They have 1
not inexorably carried the job To the /
end in the actual materials. and. when
ever thew have. they seem 100 readily /
TO have lost the finer element of the
u,trs DESIGN itself