Antecedentes Generales

The continued and almost determined focus of the RA on the high art and the Academic Idea was in contrast to many of the European academies of art at the time, which had begun to recognise that art could be used for the benefit of industry and commerce and had been reorganised to focus more on benefitting manufactures. Nikolaus Pevsner cites the example of several European academies including that of Dresden, which was reorganised in 1762, six years before the RA was founded.⁷² Setting out his plans for the reorganised Dresden Academy, the director of the academy Hagedorn wrote that

‘Art can be looked at from a commercial point of view’ and went on to note that ‘it is no less useful to raise the demands abroad for one’s industrial products’.⁷³ In a similar manner, those involved with the Academy in Vienna wrote in 1770, two years after the founding of the RA, that reorganisation of their institution would be useful as ‘a

70Report from the Select Committee on Arts and their Connexion with Manufactures; with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index, House of Commons (1836) HC 568, II - 1953.

71Ibid., II – 1954.

72The Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden came into being in 1764 and was the successor institution of the Zeichen– und Malerschule (School for Drawing and Painters) which had been founded in 1680.

73Cited in N. Pevsner, Academies of Art Past and Present (Cambridge, 1940) p. 153. Christian Hagedorn (1712 – 1780) was a German Art historian and collector and was director of the Dresden Academy from 1763.

particular recognition of the arts and no less a promotion of commerce’, while the rules of the Berlin Academy, reorganised in 1790, state that institution’s task to be to

‘contribute to the well-being of the arts in general as well as to instigate and foster home industries, and by influencing manufacture and commerce, to improve them to such an extent that the taste of Prussian artists will no longer be inferior to that of foreigners’.⁷⁴ In Nuremburg, Augsburg, Stuttgart and Munich similar comments were made, whilst in Stockholm, The Hague, Copenhagen and Paris, academies were reorganised and

remodelled to promote art for the benefit of the manufacturing industries.⁷⁵ While the older academies were being reorganised and re-modelled to be of more benefit to manufacturing, academies in places such as Barcelona, Naples, Frankfurt, Geneva and Carrara (Italy) had been founded during the second half of the eighteenth century with the sole intention of aiding trades and manufacturing.⁷⁶ There is evidence, then, that across Europe during the eighteenth century there was an acknowledgement that art could aid and improve manufactures and also, potentially, commerce.

In England, in 1762, a school had been set up by William Shipley, founder of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), in order to train students ‘in such manufactures as require fancy and ornament, and for which the knowledge of drawing is absolutely necessary’, but as Bell succinctly comments, ‘The venture came to nothing’.⁷⁷ One possible reason for the lack of an academy or school to train students for the benefit of manufacturing could have been the influence of

Reynolds. Joshua Reynolds was president of the RA from 1768 until 1792, and according to Bell did not consider a school of art for the benefit of manufactures necessary. Reynolds was of the opinion that if the higher ‘Arts of Design’ were

encouraged (at the RA) then ‘these inferior ends’- by which he meant the improvement of manufactures - would be dealt with.⁷⁸ Reynolds’ view, then, was of a ‘top down’

system of art; if the higher branches of art (painting, sculpture, architecture) were

74Cited in N. Pevsner Academies of Art Past and Present (Cambridge, 1940) p. 152 & Monatsschrift der Akademie der Künste und Mechanischen Wissenschaften zu Berlin vol. 1, p 149 cited in N. Pevsner Academies of Art Past and Present (Cambridge, 1940) p. 154.

75N. Pevsner Academies of Art Past and Present (Cambridge, 1940) p 154-5.

76Ibid., p. 156-7. Also see appendix 2 for dates that academies were reorganised.

77Q. Bell The Schools of Design (London, 1963) p. 26.

78J. Reynolds Discourse I line 10 cited in Q. Bell The Schools of Design (London, 1963) p. 26.

encouraged, then almost by default, the lower branches of art (art for manufactures) would also improve. If those working in manufacturing saw the taste and style present in the higher branches of art, they would surely be inspired to emulate that in their own work, and standards generally would rise. This view of art resulted in art teaching at the RA being steered down a particular route not suited for manufactures or industry; it was high art which was to be encouraged and standards raised, and by default other branches of art, including those related to manufactures, would inevitably follow. Reynolds does not appear to have been alone in his view; Cunningham suggests that some of those who were keen to encourage art actually only wanted to raise the standard of high art so that it would almost by default affect (and raise) the standard of ornamental art.⁷⁹ In a similar manner to Reynolds, the Irish painter James Barry thought that if historical painting – Istoria – were revived, then the qualities inherent in these paintings would be carried through to all other branches of art, including ornamental art.⁸⁰ Martin Archer Shee wrote in his 1805 Rhymes on Art that good taste affected everything, from the painter to the ‘mechanic at the anvil and the loom’, while Prince Hoare, Secretary for Foreign Correspondence at the RA, cited examples from France and the Berlin

Academy between 1802 and 1805 where the quality of the manufactures had apparently come about through the encouragement of painting in the respective countries.⁸¹

Bell also suggests that to start and expand art training as applied to manufactures in England would have necessitated the training of teachers, and possibly the

establishment of regional art schools, which would have required direct financial aid from Parliament. Prior to 1837 the expansion of art training seems to have not been desired, and financial aid from Parliament was not offered.⁸² After 1837 and the founding of the School of Design in London, those in charge were to discover that expanding art training in England did indeed require the establishment of regional art schools and the training of art teachers, as well as financial assistance from Parliament;

79PJ. Cunningham The formation of the Schools of Design 1830-1850, with special reference to Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds (unpublished PhD thesis: University of Leeds, 1979) p. 22.

80MA. Shee Rhymes on Art (2^nd Ed) 1805, p. xxxv, cited inIbid., p. 24.

81MA. Shee Rhymes on Art (2^nd Ed) 1805, p. xxxv, cited in Ibid., p. 24, & p 20.

82Q. Bell The Schools of Design (London, 1963) p 27.

this was an issue which Henry Cole was more than willing to tackle, as demonstrated in chapter three.

In the late eighteenth century the provision for art education per se in England was therefore minimal, and art education for manufactures non-existent. When seen against the situation in France it becomes apparent just how scant was art education in England.

In 1777 the painter Barry reported that in Paris alone, in that one year, 5500 students were being educated in art, with 1500 of these being trained specifically to aid

manufactures.⁸³ Compare that to President of the RA Martin Archer Shee’s comment during the Select Committee that just 1800 students had attended the academy schools since their foundation (in 1768), and it is clear that provision for art education in England was severely limited.⁸⁴ By 1836, art education was also being delivered in around eighty provincial schools of art in France and taking these numbers into account, it can be seen that art education in that country was far more widespread than was the case in England at the time of the 1835 Select Committee. In England the RA evidently wanted to hark back to a former ideal and concentrate on fine art and architecture, while other academies on mainland Europe were looking forward and realising the potential benefits of applying art to manufacture and trades. As Bell notes, ‘foreign countries were devoting a great deal of time and money to the education of artists and artisans while we did nothing’.⁸⁵