£72 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
No method of art teaching avails which only copies the outside, without 
appreciation of the internal life and individual characters. Our American 
art must observe nature’s principles, then freshly express through them its 
own thought and feeling, and put beauty and character into all materials. 
STUDYING ART—DISCUSSION. 
BY E. F. FENOLLOSA, OF THE BOSTON ART MUSEUM (LATE OF TOKIO). 
Should works of sculpture, after being studied analytically and reproduced in drawing, 
be modeled in clay ? and should works of painting, after such preliminaries, be copied in 
painting by the pupil ? 
Tur fundamental individuality of a work constitutes its greatness. Its belonging to 
a general class does not lift it into eminence. Beethoven’s compositions are great because 
of some individual quality. 
Art training should begin, not in nature, but in art itself. As well send the untrained 
person into the British Museum without a guide, as turn the novice loose in nature 
and tell him to produce works of art from contemplation of her beauties. It is a 
general principle that mind must be brought in vital contact with art before it can get 
anything vital from nature. 
Five years ago, when the Japanese founded their school of art, they agreed to this 
general principle. The pupils must be trained in an atmosphere of art before they are 
put to work. They should study the old masters analytically and synthetically, always 
remembering that art is individual and type an abomination. Flippancy in modern 
Suropean art is caused by a cutting loose from the old masters. Materialistic, photo- 
graphic pictures, using any subject, no matter how inartistic, have resulted. Still, the 
oest artists love the old masters. 
In studying art, there are three dangers against which the student should be 
guarded : 
" (1) There is danger in the historic method of studying art, whether we consider 
painting, decoration, or architecture. If the young student is trained in each school — 
e.g., Greek or Gothic—as a school, he designs in that particular school. Instead, his 
attention should be drawn to the excellences of the work of any and all periods, Greek, 
Egyptian, Arabic, Japanese. Expect him to create as well as the best of these. but do 
a0t limit him to the achievements of the artists of those periods. 
(2) Do not study for the purpose of finding the most perfect works. The most 
instructive come just before the best. In the stage preceding the highest results we 
have all the elements, not worked out to their best. There is the greatest individuality 
in this stage. The world has a right to an inheritance of unlimited possibility, but the 
highest results limit this possibility. The work of the third stage, that of decadence, 
is the slave of the work of the second. The great works of the second stage cannot be 
vitally reproduced. Suppose we wish to study color, and go to Venetian art. We wish 
to know what has been done, how it was done, and what may be done. Shall we go to 
Titian or Veronese, even scraping their pictures, as some did, to ascertain the « How ?” 
No. Bellini was solving the problem. “We will learn from him and not from Titian and 
Veronese, who had solved it. “In like manner, Giotto and Fra Angelico precede Raphael. 
(8) Do not take either painting or sculpture by itself, leaving out decorative art. 
The artist should design industrials as well as pictures and statues. John L. Sargent 
Iraws inspiration from past decorative art as well as from other sources. 
We are not compelled to end our study of the old masters by copying them. We 
want to hold them and the possibilities antecedent to them in solution. Add to the 
discipline of copying, the discipline of thinking out the possibilities into a different 
result. It may be an inferior result, but the discipline is good. Try recasting the 
picture with regard to form, line, or light. Accept criticism upon the visible result. and 
strength will surely result. 
ProFEssor GEORGE I. SCHREIBER, of Armour Institute and of the Art Institute, 
Chicago, congratulated Mr. Fenollosa upon having presented the speaker’s views in a 
bolder manner than he himself might have done.