Preface

Die Kunst, O Mensch, hast du allein

T HERE are many signs that Art is to be made in future a part of general education; and, as is often the case with a movement which is widespread, the root of it is not simple, but divided into several ramifications. Many educational principles which are accepted independently of each other in the first instance, when carried out in practice are found to lead to the introduction of artistic training in ordinary school-work.

Of primary importance is Froebel's principle, that the constructive power of children, which was long trained only by chance, must in future be systematically attended to, so that they may be accustomed not only to hear and receive information, but in some definite way to exercise their faculties for shaping and making. In other words, the child must learn to express himself with his hands by making objects out of varied material.

Then, again, as a basis for Technical Education, the importance of using and improving the sense of touch, and the kindred sense of sight, is daily more and more insisted upon by those who have to deal with the rudiments of this kind of instruction.

No one can study the principles of the right bringing-up of children without becoming aware of the necessity for Manual Training on moral and hygienic grounds. It is important, however, to remember that educational Handwork is not a mere question of muscular development. The aim of all work at school should be moral and intellectual improvement, and Handwork should form no exception to this rule. In this kind of instruction, if it is appropriate to child-life, and not a premature industrial training, the brain is reached through the muscle, and muscular activity is employed to expand the intellect.

No sooner are we led on varied grounds to see the need of teaching children to use their hands in construction, than we feel the advantage of teaching them to make things as beautiful as possible; and as soon as the desire to make passes into the desire to make beautifully, we pass from mere industry to at least a rudimentary love of Art. That 'industry without Art is brutality,' is a fact which has never been better illustrated than by Lord Beaconsfield in his description of the Black-country locksmith, whose workshop, with its apprentices, is powerfully depicted in 'Sybil.'

The truth is that to-day statesmen, poets, preachers, philosophers, economists, and friends of education, are all at one in emphasising the need of a widespread training in Art.

If, then, Art is to be taught in elementary schools, what form of it is most suitable for the purpose? I believe none is of more universal application or more fundamental than Clay-Modelling. As a foundation for artistic training, Modelling is superior to Drawing; for objects which are drawn must be represented as they appear, whereas objects that are modelled must be treated as a whole, just as they are in Nature. The expression of an Object with pencil or brush is a reduction of what is handled in space of three dimensions to the picture-plane, which is space of two dimensions. In Modelling, the student deals with the round, with mass, and with bodies as they are fully known to us. Modelling is an older art than Painting, and the best authorities insist upon it that the studio of the sculptor is the best preparation for the painter and the draughtsman.

The first rudiments of the Artist's skill are Perception and Manual Dexterity. These can be divided in thought, but not in practice. In trying to express what we see we learn to perceive more accurately.

The child-artist in his first school must learn to produce in clay the perceptions which he has acquired of natural objects. There is a true analogy between language regarded as the raw material of orators, poets and writers, and clay, which is the raw material of the artist. As artists in words must acquire command over language, so the modeller must learn to express in clay the ideas which he has derived from an accurate study of some natural object. He must learn, if I may venture on the phrase, 'to talk in clay.' This he can only do when his power of perception of natural objects is equalled by his manual dexterity. He must, in addition, learn the rules of his art, which have been evolved in the course of many generations, without appearing to be fettered and trammelled by their limitations. For school purposes, Modelling has the advantage over Carving. The plastic clay offers but little resistance to the hand of the modeller, and readily takes any form which it may be his will to produce. Wood and stone offer a stubborn resistance to the expression of the mental conception in these materials.

The sculptor has to accomplish the presentation of his ideal by hewing away that part of the material which surrounds his design while yet in the solid block. The modeller can build up his conception by a process of addition, and he can improve his mental conception as he works on the clay. It is easier for the modeller to correct his mental image, when the model of it is seen to be false, than for the carver, whose mistake remains unalterable.

The first training of the young artist is perception of Nature. In imitating an object he learns its nature. By words his teacher will explain to him the structure of the object and the meaning of characteristic points in it. By words the teacher may explain to him the beauty of form which may be observed in the natural object. By words, also, the child may be helped to see this beauty. For the perception of beauty in an object is an act of reason, in so far as it involves perception of unity in diversity, and tracing continuity where it is not apparent to a mere animal gaze. The child, however, can only really seize and fully apprehend the form and beauty of the object by an effort of thought and constructive imagination, such as is needed to make a model.

The commencement of the study of an object must needs be a process of analysis and dissection. How can unity be better restored to the fragments thus produced than by modelling the object as a whole?

Language, it has been well said, is a liberation of the understanding; and so, also, the modelling of a beautiful form is a liberation, or setting free, of the imagination.

It is of great consequence that the teacher should resort in the beginning to Nature itself, and not set the young child to copy beautiful forms which have been abstracted by artists from natural objects in past time. It is not ready-made Art which the child needs, but Art in the making. The child must learn to see with his own eyes at once the riches and the simplicity of Nature. He must perceive the beauty of an object, and in modelling it build up the beauty which he has comprehended.

Of course I am not advocating a crude naturalism. A work of Art is the work of a true artist, so far as it presents Nature; but yet the spectator must always be conscious that it is a work of art, and not Nature. An attempt to present an object by mere accumulation of details, slavishly imitated, and added together piecemeal, does not produce a work of art, even in a rudimentary way. Although the details must be exactly studied, and the meaning of each understood separately, the object must be rendered as a whole, and some details must be merged in the general mass for the sake of due effect in light and shade.

It will be the teachers' pleasure to show their pupils how beauty in natural objects is, so to say, scattered throughout them, and that it is the eye of the artist which condenses or concentrates it, and his hand which presents the beauty of Nature in a readily visible form.

All the magic of beauty which may bewitch the mind of man, and raise it far above the monotonous round of life's daily drudgery, may be drawn out of a few objects such as have been selected by the author of this little book.

I have observed that children take the greatest interest in the occupation, both while modelling these objects, and afterwards, when the models are completed.

It is fortunate for human progress that much that is most beautiful is most common and most cheap, demanding for its appropriation only some effort of attention and will. In Art, at any rate, there needs no costly apparatus to elevate the mind. Although few can become artists, all can become lovers of art, and learn to look on the artist's productions with sympathetic acknowledgment of his power. Many must apply themselves to art before one man of real genius can arise to adorn it. Apart, however, from all high success, the mere conscientious pursuit of an art enables the student to appreciate, as he could not otherwise do, the highest kind of work in the art which he studies, and—what is of great consequence—to know good work from bad. 'In the temple of Art, many who can never stand on the pinnacle may find a safe corner near the ground,' and education of which art forms a part will make the lives of all better and happier; for through a right study of Art the child may find a new joy in his home and usual surroundings. After a very little study of Art, things which seemed common and uninteresting become invested with rare charms and delights, which transcend all previous knowledge and belief, and raise the student to a new and purer atmosphere of life and thought.

While dwelling on the formative value of Clay-Modelling in education, I must not omit briefly to call attention to its utilitarian advantages. Clay-Modelling may be employed to illustrate and support many branches of study. It may help to make more intelligible a geographical knowledge of the surface of the earth, and render many events in history, such as battle-fields and sieges, more interesting to the children. In Science and Natural History its applications are endless; as an example, I would mention the modelling of a bean during germination at short, successive intervals, with the object of impressing on the mind the process of development. In the study of Horticulture, a series of models of a particular variety of the carrot or potato, when the plant has been subjected to varying treatment, would be of considerable practical value. Numerous instances will occur to every teacher, and therefore it is unnecessary to dwell at greater length on the utility of Clay-Modelling.