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.
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).
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.