For Beginners in Art.
I wish to become an artist, and would like to enter the Metropolitan Art School. Can I learn to draw and paint well enough to be able to open a studio of my own after graduating? When does the school open, and when must one apply for admission? How many classes are there, and about how long must one stay in each class? What is the age of the average pupil?
M. M., R.T.L.
There are at least two institutions in New York city to which you may apply for circulars. One is the Metropolitan School of Fine Arts, Carnegie Hall, Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, and the other the Art Students' League, 215 West Fifty-seventh Street. The former was organized by pupils of the Metropolitan Museum when the schools of the Museum were closed, and is maintained by them. It is in no way connected with the museum. It is open September 30 to May 30. The latter is maintained by the art students of New York. Tuitions are from $2 to $12 per month, according to class. There is no graduation. Pupils stay as long or short a time as they please. Whether you could successfully maintain a studio at the end of one year's instruction, or five years' instruction, or at any other period, depends wholly upon yourself, as you can readily see.
To Twickenham and Beyond.
Last summer we—there were seven of us—went one day up the Thames River to Hammersmith Bridge. Then we walked to Richmond, to pretty Teddington, and finally to beautiful old Hampton Court, with its long rows of trees, its big grape-vine, and its canals. Of course we saw much to interest us, from the odd Thames boats, which land and start so quickly, and which have on board small boys who repeat the captain's orders in a language which we vainly tried to understand, to the river-course over which the Oxford and Cambridge boat-races are annually rowed, and the breweries whose success has brought knighthood to their owners.
But that which most interested us was old Twickenham Church, which we saw by a side excursion. It is surrounded by old trees, and a yard in which are those curious tombstones that lie flat on the ground, and do not stand up as our American tombstones do. The church has a square Norman tower, and an interior that carries you back hundreds of years—almost, indeed, to the Reformation. Here is buried the remains of Alexander Pope, brought thither from Twickenham Villa not far away. We returned by train to London, so tired were we of limb, and so filled were our heads with history, reminiscence, and pretty pictures of rural life.
Anna Burton.
New York.