Royal College of Art: Modelling School under Prof. Lanteri.
Frieze by J. A. Stevenson
Works of sculpture (or modelling as she is generally practised) may not fare any better (privately) in the end, when one remembers the busts placed back to the windows, or the marble statue forced to an unnatural whiteness by purple velvet hangings—but, certainly, the methods of teaching seem more in relation to the results.
To begin with, a sculptor’s or modeller’s figure (unless a decorative group or an architectural ornament) is isolated and has no background; and it is undoubtedly a severe test of skill and knowledge to model a figure in clay in the round from the life. Some are of the opinion that it is more difficult to model perfectly a basso-relievo, but there is no end to the work in the round.
I am really inclined to think that ever since the Italian Renascence the sculptor’s and modeller’s art and aims have dominated methods of art teaching generally, and have been chiefly responsible for what I have termed the Academic method, which seems mainly addressed to the imitation of solid bodies in full relief, or projection in light and shade on a plane surface, which method indeed in painting, at least, is quite opposed to the whole feeling and aim of Decorative art.
Royal College of Art: Design School, Instructor in Lettering
Mr. Johnson
Page of Text, written by J. P. Bland
In architecture, on the classical and Academic method, the young student is put through the five orders, and is expected to master their subtle proportions before he can appreciate their artistic value, and with but a remote chance of making such knowledge of practical value, in a country and climate to which such architectural features are generally unsuitable.