ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS
VISITOR'S REPORT
Painting SCHOOL

THE VISITOR for the time being is MASTER of the SCHOOL. His duty is to
set the Models, to examine and correct the performances of the Students, to give
them Advice and Instruction, and to maintain due Order and Discipline.

NAME OF VISITOR Walter Sickert, Esq., A.R.A.
PERIOD OF DUTY From June 1st To June 27th, 1925.

SUGGESTIONS AND REMARKS

Instruction
I desire in a spirit of the most sincere humility and gratitude
to the President and Council to state briefly my attitude in teaching. Every practical man
knows that he must aim at exercising his functions well within (or just within) the
cordial assent of the body whose member and servant he is. I desire to be what is called
in Scotland "a good back-door wench" to the Royal Academy. A clear statement of
policy is due from me, and I only refrained from filling up my first form in order
to gain another month of experience, an omission for which I apologise.

I have long been of opinion that it should be the policy of
the Royal Academy to foster and recreate a school of painting in the "sublime" manner
(I beg that for the moment the President & Council will be good enough to banish from their
conversation my own work)

I believe that single figure commissioned portraiture will
take care of itself, and so will landscape. Both these branches will include themselves.
I believe in teaching the entire divorce between studios in
drawing or painting, and the execution of pictures. I believe that the maximum
benefit to be desired from models will be got by engaging them for the month and
posing them in a kind of knot in the centre of the room so that the whole
result of chiaroscuro can be studied all round. I believe in the old (Veronese, Bark
and Fondamenta) level for the eye. In the St. Martin's Lane &c pictures of drawing schools
everyone is sitting. That is not to say that Constable executed six-footers sitting in Charlotte
Street. It is little short of criminal to encourage women to stand for hours to make studies.
I think that every student for drawing and painting should be compelled to take
lessons in modelling sufficient to enable them to make wax models on a small scale
(Wilkie, Hogarth) I find considerable natural capacity and keen application in, say, nine-tenths
of students. I think we should try to keep out the amateur element. Perhaps only students who
can prove teaching or such-like engagements should be permitted to attend less than all-time.

Respectfully yours W.R. Sickert July 2 25