Robert Swain Gifford (1840-1905) was an American landscape painter and educator who taught painting at the Cooper Union school in New York City for nearly thirty years. In 1878 he was interviewed by a correspondent of Scribner's Monthly magazine for an article on New York art schools. While the entire article is fascinating as a glimpse into the early days of famous New York art schools like The Art Students League, Cooper Union, and the National Academy of Design, Gifford's interview stands out for its pertinence to students and teachers everywhere. He addresses the critical distinction between technical instruction and inspiration and which should be a priority.
For context, the Cooper Union school was a revolutionary new school, founded in 1859 by philanthropist Peter Cooper. Art classes were equally open to men and women and completely free for working-class students. This made it a popular destination for young women seeking to study art, and since anyone who passed the entrance exams could study there, the selection of students could be highly varied in degree of skill, ambition, and previous education. This meant that Gifford had a wide differential in his classes, and he gives his thoughts on teaching differing levels of talent and technical ability with understanding and sympathy:
"Every autumn there are a number of applicants for admission to Mr. Gifford's class. Of these a selection is made by the joint judgment of Mr. Gifford and Mrs. Carter, the principal of the schools, and those whom a generous criticism can assume to be sufficiently advanced are allowed to make trial in painting. Perhaps the first month of the term is occupied in determining the class; it takes four or five weeks to decide whether or no in each instance instruction in painting is time wasted for both teacher and pupil. Some come to grief early, finding out speedily the difference between painting and drawing, and return wiser, if sadder, to crayon and paper. Ten or twelve are left, never more, and of these the majority do little through the year beyond making good their title to be instructed--not over two or three, indeed, giving promise of becoming Rosa Bonheurs. All receive adequate attention from Mr. Gifford, however, who sows his seed diligently and cheerily and no doubt tries to think it all falls on good ground. Naturally the first thing he endeavors to inculcate is the difference between painting and drawing. "You can do a good deal by instruction." he says, "even for the pupils of the most talent and the best feeling. You can help them to help themselves. Beyond teaching the technicalities you cannot go of course directly. But reflect how much technicalities mean. No European artist thinks of neglecting the most apparently trivial of them; he has them all at his fingers' ends. It is absurd to affect to despise them, they include so much. For example, unity in color may be called one of them; avoidance of a thin, slimy, shiny finish is another. Untrained painters make mistakes in these matters which a painter with ever so little talent but with training would not think of doing. I group some still-life objects for a model, -- some grasses, stuffs, a bit of Haviland porcelain. I try to show why they are so grouped, that in so grouping them harmony of color is not outraged. Then I try to get them painted with regard to their mutual and interdependent relations; then to have the texture, the quality of each element preserved. That piece of Haviland ware, for instance, I want painted so that it will look as if it were brittle and a blow would treat it, not indent it. After technicalities in their widest sense, I don't know what can be taught. After that--indeed before, for that matter,--success with a pupil depends very much upon the instructor's personality, not upon his theories of painting. If he is himself interested and earnest and can inspire earnestness and interest, of course his success is likely to be greater--caeteris paribus--than if the contrary be true." The work of at least two of Mr. Gifford's pupils during the last year indicates his ability to stimulate the interest of which he speaks."
Quoted from The Art Schools of New York, Scribner's Monthly, October 1878
