Books on

Art:Rep. p.

vi.

Mechanics'

only, but the more direct application of the Arts
manufactures ought to be deemed an essential element
In this respect local schools, where the Arts reside as
it were with the manufacture to which they are devoted,
appear to possess many practical advantages. In such
situations it is probable the Arts will eventually strike
root and vegetate with vigour. But if a mere central
system be adopted, the inventive power of the artist
ought equally to be brought to bear on the special
manufacture, which he is destined thereafter to pursue.
Unless the Arts and Manufactures be prac-
tically combined, the unsuccessful aspirants after the
higher branches of the Arts will be infinitely multiplied,
and the deficiency of manufacturing artists will not be
supplied.

"Perhaps the Government would most judiciously interpose, not only by creating a Normal School, but by applying to local institutions the species of assistance now extended to the building of School-houses.

"In our own country, manufacturing artists have been greatly indebted to such institutions as the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh and the Royal Society in Dublin. In England, the more matured MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS have disseminated much valuable instruction in the Arts. The Reports of the Mechanics' Institutes of Glasgow, Manchester, and Coventry indicate, in the present year, the awakened attention of the inhabitants of those great towns to the importance of education in design.

"Among the advantages possessed by the manufactions, &c. turing artists of foreign countries, the attention of your

Institu

"This principle is judiciously adopted in the Gewerb Institute at Berlin; in which, after one year of general instruction in Art, the pupil selects a branch of manufacture as his trade, and passes two years in the practical application of art thereto."-Dr. Waagen's Evidence, Sess. 1835, pp. 4 & 55,

Immittee has been directed to the BOOKS ON ART, blished by the Governments for the instruction of eir workmen. Among these, the works issued by M. BEUTH, Director of the Gewerb Institut at Berlin, particularly deserve to be mentioned.

The chief excellence of these works seems to consist in their general correctness and classical purity of taste.

land.

Ib.

"It is gratifying to observe, that British capital and in Engintelligence, unaided by the Government, have been turned in the same direction. Cheap publications upon Art are studied with interest by our workmen.

"But though cheap publications are thus circulated by individual enterprise, there are works, such as those issued by the Government of Prussia, which probably require too great labour of design, and are too expensive of execution to be profitably undertaken by individuals."

We come now to our second division of the subjectmatter of the Report—the means of extending the love of art, and of cultivating and refining the public

taste.

any

As evidence that, even in superior education, the Fine Arts do not as yet receive their fair share of attention, the Committee "notice, with regret, the neglect of general instruction, even in the history of Art, at our UNIVERSITIES and public schools; an omission noticed long ago by Mr. Burke, and obvious to every reflecting mind.

2. Means of extending the love of cultivating

Art, and of

and refining
the public
taste:
First, in

connexion
with higher
education.

leries and

"In nothing have foreign countries possessed a Public Galgreater advantage over Great Britain than in their Museums numerous PUBLIC GALLERIES devoted to the Arts, of Art. and open gratuitously to the people. The larger towns of France are generally adorned by such institutions. In this country we can scarcely boast of any. Our

Art-Unions

or volun

ciations for

exhibitions (where they exist) are usually periodic
A fee is demanded for admission, and only mod.
works are exhibited. From such exhibitions the poc
are necessarily excluded. Even those who can afford
to pay seldom enjoy the advantage of contemplating
perfect specimens of beauty or of imbibing the pur
principles of Art.

"It appears, that among our workmen, a great desir exists for such public exhibitions. Wherever it be possible, they should be accessible after working-hours and admission should be gratuitous and general. A small obstruction is frequently a virtual prohibition The vexatious fees exacted at Westminster Abbey St. Paul's, and other public buildings, are discreditable to the nation.

"Among exhibitions connected with the encouragetary Asso- ment of Art, the attention of your Committee has been the Encou- called to the institutions established in Germany, under ragement of the name of Kunstvereine, (Art-Unions,) and now be

the Arts.

3. Protection and

coming prevalent in this country. These associations for the purchase of pictures to be distributed by lot, form one of the many instances in the present age of the advantages of combination. The smallness of the contribution required brings together a large mass of subscribers, many of whom, without such a system of association, would never have become patrons of the Arts.

The last division in the arrangement we have adopted rewards of treats of the LEGAL PROTECTION of artistic property, and the rewards of successful labour.

Artists.

Fiscal

duties.

"The Arts," say the Committee, "both generally and in so far as they are connected with manufactures, have shared the common suffering under the baneful influence of fiscal duties. The Excise laws, in their restrictions on the manufacture and the form of bricks,

live obstructed the exercise of art in that material. e window duty acts injuriously on the proportion 3d beauty of our buildings. The paper duty has been extensively detrimental in its effects on periodical publications on the arts, on the use of drawing-paper, on the employment of cards in the Jacquard loom, and in its oppressive application to the whole trade of paper-staining. The glass duties have fettered the Arts in their endeavours to restore painting on glass,

and have restricted the adoption of engravings as ornaments in dwelling-houses. The lower cost of glass in France has encouraged a much more extended use of engravings in private residences.

and Manu

"The difficult and delicate question of COPYRIGHT Copyright. has already engaged the attention of the House; and numerous complaints of want of protection for their designs have been laid before the Committee by artists Complaints and manufacturers. Mr. Smith, an eminent manu- of Artists facturer of Sheffield, states, that the piracy of his facturers. designs will compel him altogether to abandon designing as connected with his trade. A similar or corroborative statement is made by architectural sculptors, modellers, manufacturing artists, and artists generally. Mr. Martin has been seriously injured by the piracy of his works; and Mr. Papworth attributes to the want of protection for inventions, the absence of original matter in tablets, vases, and foliages; of which, in England, we possess few specimens, and perhaps none worthy of observation.

character of present sta

tutable pro

tection.

"It is well known that a short period of copyright Insufficient is extended to printed cotton patterns. A doubtful protection has also been afforded to the Arts by the statutes 38 Geo. III., c. 71; and 54 Geo. III. c. 56. The copyright given by these statutes extends to metallic figures of men and animals, to figures combined 56.

38 Geo.III.

71.

54Geo. III.

of the two, and to what is somewhat loosely styl 'matter of invention in sculpture.' Metallic foliag arabesques, vases, candelabra, and similar works, a unprotected by them. Whatever be the legal latitud under these of these Acts, the expensiveness of a remedy throug both uncer- the courts of law or equity is a virtual bar to invention and almost affords impunity to piracy in art.

Remedy

Statutes

tain and

expensive.

Necessity

"The most obvious principle of any measure enacted of a cheap for the protection of invention, appears to be the

and access

French

Prud'hom

ible tribu- constitution of a CHEAP AND ACCESSIBLE TRIBUNAL nal. The French have long possessed a prompt and econo Conseil des mical Court of Judgment for cases of this kind; mes, how composed of master-manufacturers and of workmen constituted. empowered to decide on priority of invention or design, as well as on many other subjects connected with manufactures.

Registration.

Various du

ration of Copyright.

Academies.

"In addition to cheapness, the greatest promptitude of decision is another obvious element in the constitution of such a tribunal. For this and for other reasons a SYSTEM OF REGISTRATION appears to be indispensable.

"Another element in the consideration of this subject is the varying DURATION OF PROTECTION to different inventions in manufactures.

"The Committee consider the elaboration of any comprehensive measure for the protection of design in manufactures to be well worthy of the serious attention of the Government.

"The Committee have naturally been led to enquire into the constitution and management of those institutions, which have prevailed in Europe for the last two hundred years under the name of ACADEMIES. Academies appear to have been originally designed to prevent or to retard the supposed decline of elevated Art. Political economists have denied the advantages