The Electors of Saxony from 1553 to 1733 collected large quantities of art works in their Dresden palace, and by 1724 there were separate salons for statuary, ivories, wood-carving, stone and metal-work, gold and silver smithing. The term Griine Gewolbe (Green Vaults) was applied to the collection. Dresden also acquired, in the 19th century, its Historisches Museum for arms and armor. Ludwig I of Bavaria near the middle of the 19th century brought into being great collections of ivories, wood-carving, Limoges enamels, etc., in his palace at Munich. Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia gathered to gether his art collections and placed them in his Berlin palace which received the title "Konig fiche Kunstkammer° (Royal Chamber of Art). Its immense popularity and usefulness and its rapid growth caused it to be removed to the "Berlin Museum.' Vienna got together its fine armor collection from the Ambras castle and its great quantities of art and industrial art treasure in the Imperial Palace. Darmstadt, Hanover, Nuremberg, got their museums. In Italy the Uffici Palace Museum of Florence con tained many decorative art collections, such as the "Cabinet of Gems*; also the Pitti Palace of Florence became a museum for great gold, silver and bronze art work besides jewelry and faience collections. Rome had long since her galleries of antiques and art collections. England re mained oblivious to the fact of the growing decorative arts movement until the Universal Exhibition held in London in 1851, when she opened her eyes to the poverty of her art product from the lack of collections to afford examples as models. Many purchases were made for the British Museum (Arundel Collec tion, Bernay Collection, etc.). At Burlington House a new museum of decorative arts was accumulated. South Kensington Museum was built and filled with art treasures for use of students of the arts. In 1857 the South Ken sington Department of Science and Art was started with branches elsewhere for art instruc tion. In the Paris Exposition of 1867 was shown the great advance in France in its pot teries, its glass work, also in the furniture in dustry. Vienna then (1864) started her Museum for Art and Industry with fine examples of the arts and crafts. South Kensington Museum (1872) opened its Bethnal Green Museum branch in the midst of the factory district. Berlin in 1867 started its Kunstgewerbe Museum (Museum of Arts and Crafts) after the Vienna model to soon become one of the richest collec tions in the world. Its instruction schools quickly grew to large proportions in the pro vincial towns, elevating the chief industries. The Vienna Universal Exposition of 1873 de veloped into her "Fachschulen' (schools for special branches of study), now so numerous. In Bavaria the Munich National Museum (founded 1867) became powerful in its art work; the ancient treasures of Nuremberg as sisted her to greatly increased industrial activity, and it later received its Gewerbe Museum with its permanent exhibition for manufacturers and merchants. Its arts and crafts schools became specialized with separate establishments such as for metal-founding, bookbinding, locksmith ing, etc. Now started Kunstgewerbe museums at Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Kaiserslauten, Frankfort, Stuttgart, to be followed later by those of Diisseldorf, Konigsberg, Danzig, Karls ruhe, Cologne, Kiel,• Krefeld, Halle, Hanover, Flensburg, etc. Crafts expositions helped the industrial art progress, such as those at Munich (1876), Berlin (1872), Dresden (1875), Cologne (1876), Lubeck (1879), Dusseldorf (1880), Nuremberg (1885 ), Augsburg (1886), Strassburg (1895), Dusseldorf (1901). The great progress ive outcome of all these activities became ap parent in the Paris Exposition (1900) and the Turin Exposition (1902).
France, in order to maintain her hold, and seeing her supremacy in the decorative arts severely threatened, formed the "Union des Beaux-Arts Appliques l'Industrie° and founded a "Retrospective° Museum for annual exhibitions. This became later the "Musee Na tionale des Arts Decoratifs° located in the Louvre, and, with the State factories at Sevres for porcelains and other enamel techniques, the Gobclins doing decorative art work, the Garde Meuble (furniture, etc.), France . was enabled to at least hold her own with the sharp competi tion. In England William Morris carried on his decorative arts propaganda backed by such artists as Burne-Jones, Rosetti, Ford Madox Brown, etc., and his workshops (started in 1874) showed fine work in quality and capacity. In 1883 they started the "Art Workers' Guild,* to be continued as the "Arts and Crafts Exhibi tion Society" (1880-90). In 1:.•:5 started the "Birmingham Guild of Handicrafts.° Walter Crane, Professor Lethaby, J. Hungerford Poi len, etc., continued working enthusiastically to
further the British decorative arts movements. In recent years the magnificent Victoria and Albert Museum (London) emerged from the less pre tentious South Kensington Museum. Summing up the above historic facts we arrive at the fol lowing analysis of conditions. The movement brought about by Germany transformed the method of displaying the contents of the mu seums for archaeological, cultural and esthetical purposes into a systematic arrangement for in dustrial, practical study propaganda. The scheme was so successful in industrial results that the other advanced European nations had to fall into line.
Until quite recent times nothing of this artist artisan propaganda was practised in the United States. European art students and artisan specialists have found here a free noncompeti tive and highly profitable field for their talents. What little has been done to promote native teaching of the decorative arts has been of a sporadic nature, unsupported by the government. Its chief platform has been that of study in the schools. But a national awakening has taken place. Museums are being opened in all the industrial centres, and all are basing their activities in a systematic teaching of ((Art* in a vocational sense; the art museums of New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Buffalo, Worcester, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Toledo, San Francisco, etc., are vying with one another to excel in con ceiving methods of teaching art for practical purposes to the neighboring schools with lectures and class visits to the exhibited ex amples of the Gothic, Renaissance and other periods. Art schools for vocational teaching are multiplying; in New York we have as centres, the Art Students' League, the Na tional Academy of Design, Pratt Institute, the Independent School of Art, the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, the Beaux Arts, Cooper-Union, Teachers College, the New York School of Applied Design for Women, etc.; a worthy beginning imbued with an en thusiastic impulse. See also INTERIOR DECORA TION.
Bibliography.—Bucher, B.,
der technischen Kiinste> (Stuttgart 1875-93) and
der Kunstgewerbe) (Vienna 1883) ; Bliimner and von Schorn, (Geschichte des Kunstgewerbes) (Prague and Leipzig 1884437) ; Bussler, F.,