ART TRAINING IN ENGLAND.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1794, 20 November 1879, Page 4

ART TRAINING IN ENGLAND.

The annual exhibition of the works of students of the Schools of Art throughout the United Kingdom to whom medals and prizes have been awarded by the Department ofjScience and Art, has been opened in South Kensington. Compared with former similar exhibitions, the present exhibition is marked by a considerable progress. Many o£ the oil and water color paintings of still-life groups are of good artistic quality, and in the stages of design there are drawings and paintings meriting the careful attention of producers of works to which fin» art is applied. It would probably be an advantage if succeeding exhibitions of these Schools of Art works were opened earlier than at the close of the London season, when everybody is fagged and fatigued and only too eager to escape from fine art exhibitions and the like. Another year a more accessible place could perhaps be found than that to which the collection has this year beenjrelegated. The drawings and paintings are arranged upon a series of screens in a lofty room overlooking the Boyal Horticultural Society's gardens—a room which in 1862 served "m a dining-hall for visitorsito the International Exhibition, held to the south of the garden. In the infancy of the present State system of art instruction twenty-five years ago, some two or three hundred students' works were forwarded to London by provincial schools for examination and exhibition, During the lapse of a quarter of a century the two or three hundred has grown into two or three hundred thousand, of whioh half at least is now contributed by local classes—institutions more numerous but of less importance than Schools of Art. Of the 140,000 works sent by Schools of Art, not a hundredth come forward for exhibition. And of the 900 or 1000 works exhibited, only some 270 receive the distinction of national medals and book prizes. The 270 national awards are divided into gold medals, of which there are ten; (ilver medals, about 40 5 bronze medals, about 70; and book prizes, about' 150. It will therefore be seen that the works rewarded with gold medals, merely on the ground of the labor whioh their selection entails, are entitled to consideration. But this labor is all the more valuable when it is undertaken, as it is, by a Board of painters, sculptors, architects, and designers such as E. J. Foynter, 8.A., L. Alma-Tadema, R.A., J. E. Hodgson, A.R.A., Q. Leslie, A.R.A., Val Prinsep, A.8.A., J. E. Boehm, A.R.A., Or. Aitchison, J. J. Stevenson, and William Morris. Twenty-five years ago the Board of Examiners consisted of the late Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., the late Daniel Maclise, R.A., and Richard Redgrave, BA. At that time a broadly stated aim of the science and art department was to promote " instruction in form and color," and to encourage the teaching of design with the view to the improvement of those branches of manufacture which are susceptible of ornament,"