THE DRAWING-ROOM.
Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. -- Analysis and
Synthesis in Drawing. -- Geometric Drawing. -- Pictorial Drawing. --
The Principles of Design. -- The Æsthetic in Art. -- The Fundamentals.
-- Object and Constructive Drawing. -- Drawing for the Exercises in
the Laboratories. -- The Educational Value of Drawing. -- The Language
of Drawing. -- Every Student an expert Draughtsman at the end of the
Course.
Passing from the engine-room we enter the room assigned to drawing,--the
first step in art education--where twenty-four boys are bending over
the drawing-board, pencil in hand. Every school-day for three years
these boys will spend an hour in this room. Each division of
drawing--free-hand and mechanical--is thoroughly taught. Every graduate
of the institution will be an expert draughtsman. The room is very
still, only the scratching sound of twenty-four pencils is heard. The
instructor moves about among the students, with here and there a hint, a
suggestion, a correction, or a word of commendation--“good.”
Drawing is the representation on paper of the facts, and the appearance
to the eye of forms. The exercise proceeds by both analysis and
synthesis. A cube is divided into all the geometric figures of which it
is susceptible, and these figures are imitated with the pencil on paper.
Then the figures are reunited, and the cube is similarly imitated. As
the child in the kindergarten is taught several fundamental geometric
facts through the use of variously subdivided cubes, so the student of
drawing is taught by a similar process how to represent these
fundamental facts on paper. For example (1), the student is taught to
draw the following (sketches 1, 2, and 3) geometric forms of the square,
oblong, and circle; (2) he is taught (sketches 4, 5, 6, and 7) to
represent the facts of the oblong block and cylinder; (3) these facts
are expressed as follows (sketches 8 and 9) in working drawings.
Sketches 8 and 9 are such drawings as would be placed in the hands of a
mechanic as plans for the manufacture of the solids they represent; and
the most elaborate working drawings for building and mechanical purposes
are merely the complete development of this division of the art.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Another division of drawing consists in the representation of solids or
objects as they appear to the eye or pictorially. The oblong block and
cylinder, for example, appear to the eye very differently from their
facts represented in the working drawings (sketches 8 and 9), as
thus--(sketches 10 and 11).
[Illustration]
The development of this division of drawing leads to general pictorial
representation.
Finally the mastery of the art of drawing involves a study of the
principles of design as applied to industrial articles with the purpose
of enhancing their value, as designs for wall-paper, carpets,
embroideries, tapestry, textiles generally, and decorative work in wood.
This is the æsthetic element in the art which appeals to and develops
the student’s taste. It is an important feature of drawing, not less on
this account than from the fact that the designer’s profession is a very
lucrative one, but it is less important than object and constructive
drawing, because less fundamental. Besides, object and constructive work
in drawing come first in the order of development, and it is an
inexorable rule of the new education to follow implicitly the hints of
nature.
The basis of the art of drawing is geometry, and its _a_, _b_, _c_
consists in a knowledge of certain geometrical lines, curves, and
angles. This knowledge is gained from examples on the black-board which
are reproduced on paper. But to relieve the student of this school from
the tedium of reproducing, hundreds of times in succession, the same
lines, angles, and curves, object-drawing is introduced very early in
the course; and to render the exercise more attractive, as well as to
impress it more firmly upon the mind, the objects drawn during the day
are made features of the construction lesson in the carpenter’s
laboratory, the wood or iron turning laboratory, or the laboratory of
founding on the following day. At first the objects selected for this
exercise are of a very simple character, as a piece of plain moulding--a
piece of elaborate moulding; parts of a drawing-board--an entire
drawing-board; parts of a table or desk--an entire table or desk; parts
of a draughtsman’s stool--an entire stool; parts of a chair--an entire
chair.
As the student advances in the general course he advances in object and
constructive drawing, from simple to complex forms. He draws, for
example, various parts of the steam-heating apparatus, and from these
draughts makes working drawings of patterns for moulding. These he works
out in the Carpenter’s Laboratory, and thence takes them to the
moulding-room, where they are used in the lesson given in moulding for
casting. This method of instruction leads to a critical analysis of the
entire interior of the school building. Each article is resolved into
the original elements of its construction, and each element or part is
first represented on paper, then expanded into working drawings, and
then wrought out in wood and iron. Finally the student reaches the
engine, every part of which is made the subject of exhaustive study; the
facts of every part are represented on paper, working drawings of every
part are made, and every part is reproduced in steel and iron in
miniature, and, as a triumph of drawing, a representation on paper of
the completed engine is produced.
The value of drawing as an educational agency is simply incalculable. It
is the first step in manual training. It brings the eye and the mind
into relations of the closest intimacy, and makes the hand the organ of
both. It trains and develops the sense of form and proportion, renders
the eye accurate in observation, and the hand cunning in execution.
The students are intent upon their work. The eye is busy acting as
interpreter between the mind and the hand. Having conveyed the
impression of an object to the mind, under its direction it now
photographs the object on paper, and the hand obeying the will traces it
out in lines. Thus the power is gained of multiplying forms of things
with the pencil as words are multiplied by types.
Drawing is a language--the language in which art records the discoveries
of science. It is not German, it is not French, it is not English--it is
universal--common to all draughtsmen. The face of the student exhibits
vivid flashes of intelligence as the picture reveals itself under his
hand. Each line is a word, an angle completes the sentence; with a curve
and a little delicate shading we have a paragraph. The picture begins to
glow with thought. The student’s face flushes, his heart beats quick and
his hand trembles. But he restrains himself, and adds more lines, more
angles and curves, more shading, and the picture is complete. It stands
out in bold relief, and looks like a real thing. If the student knows
the story of the brazen statue of Albertus Magnus he half expects his
picture of a locomotive to move. He listens for the sound of the hissing
steam, and a smile lights up his face as the illusion vanishes.
Presently he will take his drawing to the shop, and at the bench, the
lathe, the anvil, and the forge, reproduce it in iron and steel, and
actually vitalize it with steam.