Margaret Talbot Jackson

“ There is nothing more discouraging to the would-be museum visitor than to arrive inside the door and find himself confronted by a seemingly interminable flight of stairs which must be mounted before he attains his object. ”

“ If the visitor can be so easily disturbed he will gain little from his visit. On the other hand, corridors make a museum doubly hard to guard. Where one room opens into another, half as many guards are necessary as where each room opens only into a corridor, for if it is possible for a man to stand in one room and see into one or two other rooms he can do his duty much better than where he has to go to the door of a room in order to see what is happening within it. Some sort of access must be provided, but the clever architect will carefully study the problem of corridor space. ”

“ Some one has well said that the buying of modern pictures for exhibition in a museum is gambling with public funds. It is a hazard which the museum director need not take, as a collection of paintings can be rapidly built up by gift and bequest, and the wise director will therefore spend his available funds on old and well-tried masters. But if the museum director is going to collect modern pictures, why should he not with equal right collect modern furniture of artistic design or modern glass or modern porcelain or any other thing of modern manufacture which has artistic merit? ”

“ Here one passes from room to room without the intervention of corridors, and the temptation to go on and see just a little more is enhanced by the variety in the shape of the rooms and by the material displayed. On the other hand nothing is so wearisome as the long gallery in the Louvre, where one passes some of the most remarkable paintings the world has ever known but is too wearied by the oppression of their nearness and the interminable length of the space that must be covered to be able to enjoy them. ”

“ Much the most important subject for consideration in the building of a museum is the relative advantage of top-light and side-light. Some twenty years ago no one would have considered for a moment the use of side-light in a museum. Now the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that there are some museum men who are unwilling to consider the use of top-light at all, except for modern painting. ”

“ Experiments are being made in Munich with a shellac mixture. But this discolors the cast in a disagreeable manner. In this country some of our older museums are using white water-color paint on the casts when they become too dirty for exhibition otherwise. Such a proceeding makes every student hold up his hands in horror. The spirit of a work of art is such a delicate and evanescent thing that it is only with the greatest difficulty that it can be caught and imprisoned in a cast. ”

“ The falsification of frames is one of the most successful trades, and a fake frame is often so admirable in workmanship that even the greatest connoisseurs are deceived. For these, in many cases, old wood is used and the tricks of shooting buckshot into it to imitate worm holes and collecting dust to rub into the crevices are so cleverly used as to deceive even the expert. ”

“ Much better is a painter's dust brush.
In the matter of the restoration of sculpture, fashion is discouraging more and more any attempts in this direction. It has been said that a statue with a broken nose is much more beautiful than one with perfect features because the imagination can supply an infinitely finer nose than any which an artist could achieve. Be that as it may, the Albertinum in Dresden is setting the example of the ideal way of handling sculpture. Among the many fine marbles this museum possesses, few are in perfect condition ”

“ Modern artists are turning more and more to the style of frames used in the early Renaissance and adapting types of ancient mouldings to their own pictures. Yet rarely do these express artistic merit and the individuality of the artist to the same degree as do frames which follow the dictates of modern design. The excellence of the old designs was due to the fact that the artist was willing to spend infinite pains to make the frame suit the picture. Modern artists are realizing this and many of them now design their own frames. ”

“ No scheme can be formulated that can be rigidly adhered to in all cases. Personality counts largely in museum work and the good administrator may find himself called upon to entirely reorganize his staff for the sake of giving to some one peculiarly brilliant individual in his employ the work he or she is best fitted to do. There is no attempt here to consider the problems that arise with a complicated staff of scientific experts. A spirit of co-operation between all the workers is the essential always and matters more than the exact division of duties. ”

“ The stories that one hears of the remarkable discoveries that have been made of Raphaels and other famous masters hidden away beneath the paint put on by the restorer are as thrilling as any Arabian Nights' tale and probably no layman buys a rather poor picture cheaply without feeling sure that he has an old master disguised. The difficulty in making a restoration is that the restorer, unless he be very conscientious, is carried beyond his original intention to such an extent that it is almost impossible for him not to put in a good deal of his own work on the picture. ”

“ In studying any treatise on color of backgrounds, it is necessary to consider the fact that the light in the different countries varies in intensity, and therefore a color which is beautiful in Italy is not necessarily equally suitable in the United States. Few of our northern cities have at any time of the year the brilliant, glowing, penetrating sunshine that is a characteristic of Italian weather. Even rainy days in Italy are not as dark as rainy days in the North, and the chief necessity in an Italian Museum is to exclude the abundant light. ”

“ The habit of visiting an art museum in the evening has not been formed, and the moving picture show, where a man can sit at ease in his arm-chair and be amused, is much more attractive than the art museum. ”

“ Bronzes, being by nature dark, look well against a larger variety of backgrounds than marble or terra cottas, yet here, too, care must be taken that the color is not too light, as otherwise the contrast will be too sharp. The red color used as a background in the Naples Museum in the room of the Farnese Bull has been highly praised as an excellent color for sculpture, its warm and glowing tone enlivening the cold marble. A more attractive room is the small gallery in the Terme Museum in Rome, where the Fanciulla d'Anzio stands. ”

“ Now the artist must prepare for the fate which, if he is successful, awaits his pictures in the great exhibition halls all over the world. To put a modern picture, especially a large one, in an ordinary side-light, is to lose entirely the nuances desired by the artist. ”

“ There is an art in the arrangement of furniture in a gallery. Brass rods or silken cords to keep people from going too near to objects of value are unsightly and have a bad psychological effect. Children always want to crawl under a rope "just to see what will happen," while grown-ups invariably long to touch objects marked "please do not handle." Skilfully adjusted chairs and tables have the same effect as cords or rods, but seem so naturally a part of the room that no one realizes that they are placed under some valuable tapestry to keep the public from handling it. ”

“ There is hardly a more pernicious fault in a museum building than the provision of corridors which are so wide that it seems a waste not to use them for exhibition purposes and yet which are so narrow that any exhibits crowd oppressively upon the visitor. In this respect the plan of the Bavarian National Museum in Munich is excellent. ”

“ The great difficulty in museum rooms is to get the height necessary for proportion and good light without making the walls look too high and too dark at the top. After much experimentation, it has been discovered that a ceiling with a cove is best adapted for museum purposes. The cove makes a reflecting surface which sends the light directly onto the walls and diminishes the useless space above the hanging line. In the case of top-light, the cove ceiling is particularly important, for the dark pocket between the skylight and the walls is ugly and wasteful of light. ”

“ In side-lighted galleries, radiators may be placed under the windows without interfering with exhibition space. In building a museum, the first requisite is to secure good light; the second, to secure available wall and floor space. In almost every case both wall and floor space are necessary. Radiators placed in the middle of a room not only become very disagreeable and ugly pieces of furniture, but they take available exhibition space. Radiators placed in front of the wall render useless the space which they occupy and make the wall directly above them unavailable for exhibition. ”

“ The largest group of material available for exhibition in an art museum and one which in this country is, alas, often neglected is that which may be classified as Industrial Art, and which includes furniture, textiles, glass, porcelain, iron work, wood carving and all the other objects of artistic workmanship which surround us in our daily life. ”