ABSTRACT
Sir Edward John Poynter (1836–1919) was an English painter, designer, and draughtsman who served as Director of the National Art Training School, and later was President of the Royal Academy and the Director of the National Gallery. The ten lectures that make up the volume were mainly intended for Poynter's students at the Slade or South Kensington. They cover a range of topics that discuss decorative art, art education and various aspects of it, issues of style, and the influence of art on society. A later lecture, 'The Influence of Art on Social Life', given at the Liverpool Social Science Congress held in October 1876, stated that 'it is better to have no decoration at all than such that is purely mechanical'. The review in the Pall Mall Budget (1879) usefully sums up his ideas on design that reflect the earlier ideas of the design reformers of the 1850s.
