Musette

“ Following the long lane which ascends between a wing of the palace and its garden wall, Narcisse and Pierre at last reached the Museum of Antiquities. Ah! what a museum it is, with galleries innumerable, a museum compounded of three museums, the Pio-Clementino, Chiaramonti, and the Braccio-Nuovo, and containing a whole world found beneath the soil, then exhumed, and now glorified in full sunlight. For more than two hours Pierre went from one hall to another, dazzled by the masterpieces, bewildered by the accumulation of genius and beauty. ”

“ Around this street great numbers of celebrated buildings are erected, from the close of the seventeenth century up to the present, including the School of Arts and Sciences, royal stables, universities and palaces of Kaiser Wilhelm I; the old Museum, a beautiful building in Greek style, all abounding in collections of choice antiques, art, in the way of frescos, bronzes, gems, vases, pictures, stationery, and everything on earth to delight the eye of the connoisseur as well as to tire it; so that royalty and its environs lose half their interest when forced to gorge oneself day in and day out. ”

“ He who goes over this immense building, cannot do so without a feeling of admiration for the men whose energy has brought together this vast and wonderful collection of things, the like of which cannot be found in any other museum in the world. The reflection of the setting sun against a mirror in one of the rooms, told me that night was approaching, and I had but a moment in which to take another look at the portrait that I had seen the previous day, and then bade adieu to the Museum. ”

“ They think that if they climb up the steps to the museum—a new building made more conspicuous than it need be by a board bearing the word Musee in enormous letters—if they walk along the ramparts, stare for a moment at the gateways, and then go round the abbey buildings with one of the small crowds that the guide pilots through the maze of extraordinary vaulted passages and chambers, that they have done ample justice to this world-famous sight. ”

“ As I have already pointed out, there is probably no museum in the world in which so small a proportion of the objects worthy of exhibition is visible to the public, or in which the objects are crowded together so closely. It is now more true than ever that if another museum building as large as the present one were provided, it could be at once filled with specimens already on hand." We feel no doubt that our American cousins will be equal to the occasion. ”

“ On one side of the Picture Gallery is the Natural History Museum, and on the other, collections of ancient tapestry, enamels, cabinets, and furniture. In a separate saloon is the faïence, consisting chiefly of plates. In the second storey is the MUSEE DE FABRIQUE. In the centre of the room are models of the ribbon-looms, and round the walls, under glass, specimens of the ribbons, which, from their small size and arrangement, do not show to advantage. Even the portraits, although most remarkable specimens of silk-weaving, are apt to be passed by, as simply very good engravings. ”

“ In the National Gallery one finds a throng of nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually doing them a great deal of good. The British Museum would, in itself, be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think and read at his leisure moments about what he saw. ”

“ Mistral's museum is just across from the church, but I have already spoken of that—briefly, when it is worth a volume. One should be in a patient mood for museums—either to see or to write of them—a mood that somehow does not go with automobile wandering, however deliberate. But I must give a word at least to two other such institutions of Arles, the Musée Lapidaire, a magnificent collection of pagan and early Christian sarcophagi and marble, mostly from the ancient burial field, the Aliscamp—and the Musée Réattu. ”

“ Once upon a time a famous art museum searched the world over for the best paintings it could find. After a long search, the museum found a beautiful Old Master painting depicting youths and maidens frolicking in a wood. The directors were only too glad to pay millions for this painting because they were captivated by its beauty and elegance. How delightfully the maidens' hair and mouths were drawn, how perfectly the hands and arms of the youths, how life-like the bare feet on the forest floor. ”

“ She had sunk into her great armchair, and was weeping hot tears.
Ten minutes later, M. Charnot and Jeanne entered with me into the jealously guarded museum.
Museum was the only name to give to a collection of such artistic value, occupying, as it did, the whole of the ground floor to the right of the hall. Two rooms ran parallel to each other, filled with pictures, medals, and engravings, and were connected by a narrow gallery devoted to sculpture. ”

“ The size of the rooms gives ample space for the public exhibition of Antiquities, including statues, not much less than life-size, if necessary; whilst the galleries, though lofty, will not dwarf them. Competent critics have pronounced that it is a mistake to suppose that all sculptures look better in magnificent rooms. The solidity of the Museum building, throughout, leaves no doubt of its upper floor being strong enough to receive ordinary marble statues, not to speak of busts and smaller objects. ”

“ In planning, therefore, the division of space in a museum, the committee should always arrange for exhibits of interest to the local industries. In addition there must, of course, be a collection for cultural purposes, which should mean material covering the history of art in all periods and all countries. A collection of reproductions is of inestimable value in the teaching of the history of art. Few museums can hope to possess fine examples of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Gothic and Renaissance sculpture. ”

“ In this house, designed as a gift primarily to the people of his adoptive city and native State, the urgency of whose release from the bondage of ugliness he was in a position to measure—in this museum of museums, a palace of art which was to show for compact as a Greek temple was compact, a receptacle of treasures sifted to positive sanctity, his spirit to-day almost altogether lived, making up, as he would have said, for lost time and haunting the portico in anticipation of the final rites. ”

“ The public galleries of a museum, whether of natural history, antiquities or art, should not contain the bulk of the collection, but only special things, carefully selected, and equally carefully placed in case or on wall, with artistic judgment as to space-bordering and colour of background, and with scientific perfection of illumination, so as to produce the "just" impression on the leisurely visitor. ”

“ From the objects contained it might be the hall of a palace, or of an old château–or of a gallery in some great museum. On the walls hung splendid tapestries and rare old paintings. Beneath them stood Italian cabinets of superb design, a marriage chest, a Louis XV. sofa in gilt, upholstered with Beauvais tapestry, chairs and bergère to match. Scattered about were vases in old Sèvres, clocks in ormolu, miniatures, and the innumerable objects of ancestral and artistic 74value pertaining to a noble house. Over all lay the mellowness of age, those harmonies of color that bewitch the antiquary. ”

“ The first function of a Museum— (for a little while I shall speak of Art and Natural History as alike cared for in an ideal one) —is to give example of perfect order and perfect elegance, in the true sense of that test word, to the disorderly and rude populace. Everything in its own place, everything looking its best because it is there, nothing crowded, nothing unnecessary, nothing puzzling. ”

“ The Louvre Musée is a vast collection of classified art, and occupies the palace of that name, any room of which will repay one's effort to see it.
Just wander about alone until some work of art compels you to stop before it. 144 Then look at your Baedeker and see if it is something noted. It tickles one's vanity to find one has selected a masterpiece without having it pointed out. ”

“ In metal work, porcelain, jewellery, in all those arts which minister to luxury as well as in those which supply the wants of life, the materials for a similar comparison will be supplied. Numerous statues will be seen, glimmering white among groves of plants and shrubs, and there will be a corridor of paintings. But the exposition will be not only a museum, but a mart, for all the objects exhibited will be for sale, and a constant variety and succession of contributions will thus be secured. At each extremity of the building will be an elegant refreshment pavilion. ”

“ In the studio of the master were the finest blossoms of all epochs of art; richly ornamented German chests of the Renaissance stood near Chinese idols and Greek terra-cotta, Smyrna carpets and Gobelins, and old Italian and Netherlandish pictures were mingled with antique and mediæval weapons. And amid this rich still-life of splendid vessels, weapons, sculpture, and costly stuffs and costumes, which crowded all the walls and corners, there rose to the surface as further pieces of decoration a velvet coat, a pair of riding breeches, and a smart pair of Wallenstein boots. ”

“ Every considerable town ought to have its exemplary collections of woodwork, iron-work, and jewelry, attached to the schools of their several trades, leaving to be illustrated in its public museum, as in an hexagonal bee's cell, the six queenly and muse-taught arts of needlework, writing, pottery, sculpture, architecture, and painting. ”

“ There is a museun, which we visited in the evening, but it is not creditable to the taste of the inhabitants of this fine city. There are multitudes of casts and fossils, and stuffed beasts and birds, and monsters, and a steam-engine modelled in glass, which works beautifully; but all these things are to hide the real character of this institution, and appeared to be passed unnoticed by a large number of respectable-looking people who were thronging into a theatre at the back—a very gloomy-looking edifice, with high pews. ”

“ One of perhaps the most deeply interesting departments of your great British Museum—the wonder of the world—is that noble gallery, consisting of a suite of rooms, opening in line, the one beyond the other, which forms its rich storehouse of organic remains. You must of coarse remember the order in which the organisms of that gallery are ranged. The visitor is first ushered into a spacious room devoted to fossil plants, chiefly of the Coal Measures. ”

“ A collection of reproductions in plaster to supplement original material is desirable. To simply store such a collection as is done in many European museums is a waste of material. Among the visitors to our museums, there are very few who are studying the history of sculpture so profoundly that a crowded or careless arrangement which would be intelligible to a specialist is of any interest. On the contrary, the purpose of a cast collection is to stimulate enthusiasm in the study of art among all visitors. ”

“ Among the most magnificent works of art, we must not forget to mention an immense sideboard in the banquet-hall, loaded with superb silver, worthy of the master hand of Benvenuto Cellini, and consisting of candelabra, pitchers, epergnes, and fruit-dishes, each and every one entitled to an honoured place in a museum, by reason of its rare beauty of form and exquisite ornamentation. ”

“ For every house of the Muses, where, indeed, they live, is an Interpreter's by the wayside, or rather, a place of oracle and interpretation in one. And the right function of every museum, to simple persons, is the manifestation to them of what is lovely in the life of Nature, and heroic in the life of Men. ”

“ Almost all of our larger museums spend a certain amount of money in advertising of one kind or another. The most scholarly form which this takes is, of course, the museum bulletin, but this organ is read by a very small number of the people to whom it is sent. We are trying more and more to make the collections in our museums tell their story and interest the public, and very soon we shall find that the bulletins also will be written with this special object in view and they will no longer be thrown away. ”

“ Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace, and bargain-hunting in the Strada de’ Tribunali, are agreeable enough for a while, but of necessity there comes a time when the mind grows weary of yelling people and of jostling crowds, of stuffy churches and of the chilly halls of the Museum, of steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that we begin to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene. ”

“ A new world of commerce and machinery, having slain and forgotten a past race of artist craftsmen, makes clumsy atonement by sweeping together the fragments of their work and calling the collection a museum. From the four corners of the earth these relics have been gathered. Our hungry minds are bidden to make choice according to fancy, for here is variety of food! ”

“ Happy and absorbed, they sat cross-legged on the floor, taking out bundle after bundle. Outside of a museum they had never seen such shells: they were shaped like fans, lockets, towers, pin wheels, hearts, trumpets. ”