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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[June, 



however, finally prevailed, and the result is that in the general system 

 of elementary instruction in drawing, propounded by Professor Butler 

 Williams on" the part of the government, the error of copying from 

 drawings is stronglv reprobated, and is excluded from the plan. The 

 Professor says : 



Drawing from Copies. 



In the first place we observe, that the pupil is almost universally made 

 to draw from copies. 



This fails to exercise the judgment. The drawings which serve as copies, 

 exhibit a symmetrical disposition of lines in true perspective, as also varieties 

 of tint and shadow duly laid and harmonized : they are imitated mechanically 

 by the pupil without his understanding or reflecting upon the means whereby 

 certain effects are produced. His hand alone is exercised ; he fails to acquire 

 a habit of observing and seeing correctly, and is unable, after years of labour 

 spent in these purely mechanical exercises, to represent correctly the simplest 

 natural objects. The Chinese cultivate the art of drawing according to this 

 plan ; they copy from copies, and produce fac-similies of any work of art; 

 but this is performed solely as a piece of laborious imitation ; and their sig- 

 nal failure, when they undertake to design original compositions, is the eon- 

 sequence of the faulty system which aims at training the hand alone to 

 works of the highest skill. High finish in the drawing cannot compensate 

 for glaring inaccuracies of perspective, and even the individual forms, al- 

 though elaborately brought out, are devoid of expression, exhibiting labour 

 and pains without intelligence, the consequence of following out details with- 

 out comprehending the scope of the whole design, and of exercising the hand 

 without the guidance of science and understanding. 



Drawing from Copies a delusire Had of industry. 



Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his Second Discourse, says, " I consider general 

 copying as a delusive kind of industry ; the student satisfies himself with the 

 appearance of doing something ; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitat- 

 ing without selecting, and labouring without a determinate object : as it re- 

 quires no effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work ; and those powers of 

 invention and disposition, which ought particularly to be called out and put 

 into action, lie torpid and lose their energy for want of exercise. How in- 

 capable of producing anything of their own those are who have spent most 

 of their time in making finished copies, is an observation well known to all 

 those who are conversant with our art.'' 



Moreover, the drawings presented to the pupil as models, are not always 

 perfect, having themselves probably been copied from other copies, which 

 may also have been made without direct reference to nature. The drawings 

 of all are more or less characterised by mannerism, and thus, a defect in the 

 original imitation is imitated with care by the pupil. 



Exclusive, therefore, of a certain mechanical facility of touch, the pupil 

 acquires little real knowledge by drawing from copies. After years of study, 

 he will be capable of making highly-finished fac-similies of engravings or 

 drawings; and, if he be endowed with a retentive memory, he will have 

 learned a set of unvarying conventional signs for the representation of natu- 

 ral objects in their numberless variations. 



The reprobated, the discarded system of drawing from copies, well 

 represented as "a delusive kind of industry," was that adopted in the 

 school at Somerset House, and tenaciously clung to by the Council. 

 It was by the practice of this mischievous svstem that our artizans 

 were to be hrought up to compete with the better instructed work- 

 men of the Continent, and our proficiency in those arts and manufac- 

 tures where design is used, was to be ensured. It has been our good 

 fortune, alone among the press, to have assisted in exploding it, and it is, 

 therefore, with the greater feeling of confidence we approach the 

 subject of model drawing, which is, in our opinion, no less erroneous 

 and mischievous, and in which we shall, perhaps, find equal difficulty 

 at first in producing conviction on the part of its advocates, though 

 we doubt not of success in the end. 



The common practice of commencing the svstem of instruction 

 by copying from drawings, received its first grand assault from the 

 eloquent pen of Rousseau, in his Emile, who proposed, as a substi- 

 tute, that the child should commence by drawing the human figure 

 from the life. This was considered too bold, anil the well-known 

 educationist, M. Jacotot, modified it, by suggesting the study of 

 figures from the antique. Neither of these systems, however, had 

 justice done to it, and M. La Croix, among others, suggested drawiug 

 from models of the simple forms. Tins has been carried out by M. 

 Dupuis of Paris, under whose auspices it has sprung up into a re- 

 cognized mode of instruction, and has served as an example for the 

 Committee on Education here. This system proposes for models, the 

 delineatiou of the square, the triangle, the circle, the simple geome- 

 tric figures, and solids and assumes the merit of greater success, of 

 greater accuracy and greater simplicity. Now such a system is likely 

 to gain many converts among those who have prepossessions on the 

 subject, or who have not had practical opportunities of appreciating 

 its relative advantages and defects. It is very well to declaim on this 

 subject, to talk about analysis and synthesis, but the question is of a 



mental operation and effect, and there, we opine, individual ex- 

 perience and individual imagination can be but of little value. How 

 little by the examination of our own minds have we been able to learn 

 of the mental organization of mankind ; how little has the ability and 

 acumen even of a Dngald Stewart been able to effect; and in what a 

 state of uncertainty are the ontological sciences — indeed, what ought 

 to be the highest science is the most unsettled and obscure. This 

 then should teach us the danger of trusting to individual impressions, 

 and induce us to apply to experience, the only proper and trustworthy 

 guide. 



Now looking at the matter in every light, we feel ourselves 

 unable to concur with the judgment of those who have adopted the 

 system of model drawing; we are not convinced it is the best, we are 

 not convinced it is the safest. If drawing were like writing, if it 

 were an assemblage of conventional signs, we should be willing to 

 recognise the necessity and utility of an artificial process for its in- 

 culcation, but drawing is an art of representation which admits of the 

 least arbitraries, which addresses itself to the representation of na- 

 ture, and the earliest efforts of which should consequently be directed 

 in the path of future exercise. We cannot understand a priori, and 

 the whole of Mr. Butler William's reasoning on this subject is a priori 

 — we cannot understand ii priori, why nature is to be abandoned in the 

 study of drawing; it will be granted that the ultimate end of drawing 

 is to copy nature, why should not its novitiate be so directed. We have 

 not heard of any valid defections to this obvious course; we have no 

 experience of its impracticability, and we think it at least deserved 

 due attention. Not only then do we believe that drawing from nature 

 is the course in which our efforts should be directed, but we have 

 strong grounds for fearing that model drawing is attende dwith serious 

 evils. It is well to say that forms in nature are modelled upon the se- 

 vere outlines of geometrical figures, but such severity is rarely to be 

 met with in the luxuriance of creation. The inculcation then of con- 

 ventional forms, must be pregnant with danger. What is the mis- 

 chief of the system of copying from drawings — that it perverts the eye, 

 and renders the pupil incapable of adequately seeing natural objects ? 

 The study, however, of natural objects, is a great means of training the 

 eye and the mind. What cm we expect must be the result of putting 

 a child through a preliminary course calculated to dull his apprecia- 

 tion and beauty, but to stunt the artistic faculty, and render him less 

 capable of estimating the beauties of nature '. That such will not 

 be the result of model drawing has not been proved; and even if the 

 danger be imaginary, care should at least be taken to ascertain that it 

 is so, and not run unprepared into a career of mischief. We, how- 

 ever, say boldly, and we speak from experience, that there is no diffi- 

 culty at all in teaching a child to draw from natural objects, and no- 

 plea satisfactorily proved to us for putting it through an artificial 

 course. We believe, moreover, that the mechanical sysrem of the 

 committee of council on education, must tend seriously to the injury 

 of the general taste of the nation, and to the consequent jeopardy of 

 the progress of the higher branches of art. At present the nation is 

 aninstructed in art — it is now going to be perverted — and what hope 

 can there be for the development of taste and genius in the mecha- 

 nical nation, which it is the effect of this system of model drawing to 

 produce? We say, therefore, that on every ground it is well worthy 

 of consideration whether we are to quit the natural method for one 

 not possessing any adequate advantages to compensate for its striking 

 defects. The training of the eye of the pupil, in the first instance, 

 is evervthing — that is well known — and all that we want is that it 

 sliail not have a false bias. To go the full length of recommending at 

 once the study of the living human figure we do not, but we must say, that 

 if an objection exists to the human figure, on the plea of complexity, 

 there are abundance of simple natural objects of still life, particularly 

 in the vegetable kingdom, affording unobjectionable examples. Why 

 the study of a leaf or of a fruit should be less capable of affording 

 correct instruction to the eye than a circle or a square we cannot 

 understand : and sure we are that more interest would attach to the 

 natural object than to the wire or cardboard model. Indeed, Mr. 

 Williams is obliged to confess to the power which natural objects 

 have on the uncultivated mind, though he qualifies his admission by- 

 deprecating the greater love of the lower classes for luxuriance than 

 for simplicity of form. We consider the system of model drawing 

 as unjustified by reason and experience ; and we think it was at least 

 the duty of the government, with the ample means at their disposal, 

 to have tried sufficient experiments on the comparative merits of the 

 several systems of instruction in design. The system, now adopted, 

 we are strongly of opinion, will turn out like that at the School of 

 Design, productive of great mischief, and characterised as a serious 

 blunder, happy if, as in the case of the School of Design, it be reme- 

 died in time. 



On Mr. William's book we could have said a good deal, but we 



