The following excerpts, quotes and images were compiled for a Graphics in Context lecture to 2nd year degree students.
It’s starting point was a mention of the ‘South Kensington system’ in the book Pioneers of Modern Graphic Design by Jeremy Aynsley in which he states that;
“this lead to the large scale production of books, magazines, posters and adverts on an unprecedented scale, for education, instruction and education. This led, for economic and practical reasons, to the concentration of large scale printing houses in cities.
The responsibility to train young workers for the graphic trades and industries had previously belonged to the guilds, but now trade schools and colleges of art and design took on the task. The model of design education was largely based on what was known as the ‘South Kensington system’, named after the area of London where the British government established the School of Design in 1837. A network of similar ‘branch schools’ was subsequently set up in manufacturing towns and cities throughout the country”
(Aynsley, J, 2004, p14-15)
I wanted to discover more about the South Kensington system, the Government School of Design the network of branch schools, as these seemed to be the first stirrings of a formalised commercial arts movement. I found an interesting article on the V&A website by Denis Rafael Cardoso which shed more light on the formation of these schools and the Governments growing realisation that art was being used on the continent to promote goods and services and that it had value as an industrial craft. HE states that;
‘The teaching of art and design changed dramatically throughout Europe during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Generally speaking, instruction in fine art and in crafts became increasingly separate, as academies of art sought to distance their members from the world of trades and to cast themselves in the role of guardians of a liberal profession. With the ultimate disintegration of the system of guild apprenticeships, the provision of practical instruction in applied arts and crafts slipped into a state of unprecedented neglect, aggravated by the widespread introduction of new manufacturing techniques and methods of production. » Read the rest of this entry «
