Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“ Some of the American collections have in recent years made a great advance in their acquisition of good pictures. At Boston (Museum of Fine Arts) all schools are represented, so too at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is strong in Italian and Dutch works. ”

“ The first freehand drawing in Boston was taught there, but was given up when the public schools undertook it. In the same way a school of practical design was carried on for many years, but finally, in 1903, was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts. ”

“ The New England Conservatory of Music has an enviable reputation, and the Lowell School of Design, the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and the school connected with the Museum of Fine Arts are representative of Boston as a centre of art education. ”

“ The Museum of Fine Arts, on the east side of the square, is of red brick, in Italian-Gothic style, and is the repository of works of inestimable value, the collection of Japanese art and that of antique casts being among the best in the world. ”

“ In the Back Bay Fens, reclaimed swamps laid out by F. L. Olmsted, still other groups have formed—among others those of the marble buildings of the Harvard medical school; Fenway Court, a building in the style, internally, of a Venetian palace, that houses the art treasures of Mrs. J. L. Gardner, and Simmons College. Here, too, is the new building (1908) of the Museum of Fine Arts. Throughout the Fens excellently effective use is being made of monumental buildings grouped in ample grounds. ”

“ If it were possible for the Boston Museum, under its wise direction, to gather these four drawings into its ownership and to exhibit them side by side well lighted and isolated from other conflicting art, a real service would be done to the whole community of art students ”

“ If, then, the museum is to fulfil its greatest function, in bringing its treasures into the lives of all the people, the first and most important consideration in choosing a site is, how easily will it be accessible to the majority of people who will visit the museum? In certain unfortunate cases it has been deemed wise or expedient to choose a position far from the centre. Let us consider, for a moment, the Boston Museum. When the old building in Copley Square was put up, a plot of ground considered sufficient for an indefinite growth was bought. ”

“ Attached to the Athenæum is a gallery of the fine arts, in which is held an annual exhibition that has hitherto been the source of a considerable income. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Massachusetts Historical Society, are highly respectable institutions which have issued numerous volumes of great value, and possess considerable libraries. On the whole, the libraries of Boston are neither so large nor so generally accessible as might be expected from the wealth and liberality of her citizens. ”

“ Another sign of the rapidly increasing activity of the interest taken in the art question in America is presented by the art museums or galleries which have almost simultaneously arisen in Boston, New Haven, New York, and Washington, founded at considerable expense, and entirely without State aid. With the former two are connected important schools for art instruction, combined with fine casts of the masterpieces of ancient plastic art. ”

“ Altogether, their exhibit with its large collection of elegant satin prints, its studies for artists, its historical feature, showing the enormous development of the firm's work since 1856, its interesting illustration by successive printings of how their pictures are made, and its instructive and artistic arrangement of their collection, made it one of the most attractive features of the fair.
What more can we say but that we are proud ourselves of this achievement within our city limits; it cannot fail to increase the fame our beloved Boston as a town of masters in thought and art. ”

“ To conceive the interest attached to the thousand things in this museum, one must imagine a modern city, Boston for example, completely buried by an unexpected and terrific convulsion of nature. Its inhabitants mostly escape, but from various causes leave their city entombed, and in a hundred years the grass grows over it, and its very locality is forgotten. ”

“ On the lowest and most sordid plane however, an institution like the Boston public library is worth many times its cost to the city merely on account of the number of persons from abroad who are attracted to the building as an example of monumental architecture, or because it contains exceptional works of art in its mural decorations, or who visit it as a museum of rare and interesting books. ”

“ Thousands of people living in the city of Boston, who are familiar with the stuffed animals and astonishing wax figures in the old Boston Museum, and are accustomed to air their fancy among the respectable fossils and gorgeous tropical birds in the Museum of Natural History, have perhaps never so much as heard of the wonder-exciting collection of anatomical curiosities known as the Warren Museum. ”

“ Next to the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library is the largest in America. Bostonians love the fine arts, and the many open spaces and public grounds 47 are adorned with statues of eminent men and groups representing historical events. The people seem to be always studying and investigating, the women as well as the men pursuing the difficult paths of abstruse knowledge, so that armies of them, fully equipped, scatter over the country to impart the learning of the "Modern Athens" to less fortunate communities. ”

“ The question of communication is here even more complicated than in Boston, and yet the very fact that there will undoubtedly never be a street-car line going directly past the Museum is in itself an advantage, because the dangers from vibration are thus removed. ”

“ Schools of technical training and societies of artists likewise exist wherever there are important galleries. Exhibitions during the winter season and at great national expositions give abundant opportunity for rising talent to display itself; and, in addition, there has been a growing public patronage of painting, as shown by the extensive mural decorations in the Congressional Library building at Washington, in the Boston Public Library, in many colleges and churches, in courts of justice, in the reception-rooms of large hotels, in theatres and elsewhere. ”

“ At present the church is used as a museum, where antique curiosities and historical relics are on exhibition to the public, and the Old South Preservation Committee is making strenuous efforts to save the building from the iconoclastic hand of Progress, which has dealt blows in so many directions in Boston, destroying a large number of interesting landmarks. ”

“ In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got our first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. ”

“ Art Academies and Museums have also been greatly multiplied. It is often a surprise to find, in a comparatively small town, a fine Art Gallery, rich in a variety of precious objects. Such an one is the Art Museum of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me. ”

“ It is not only in shops that we in England have to learn how to "dress our windows." But at any rate, no one will deny that we have of late made enormous advances in the art.
Nevertheless, the beauty and grandeur of the British Museum collections, beauty on which I have already touched in the Bloomsbury chapter, impress us in spite of fog, and grime, and dull London galleries. And the feeling for the suitable arrangement and disposal of our artistic treasures grows upon our directors year by year. ”

“ Nowhere has the skilled artist-architect been so freely permitted to carry out his designs unhampered by stupidity and stinginess as in Boston, and the result has been a collection of public buildings unsurpassed by those of any modern city. ”

“ Washington, by Stuart, there is nothing here of particular interest, although there are often pictures loaned to the Museum by old residents of Boston, which are historically valuable. It is much to be desired that the collection of portraits by Copley in the Museum of Harvard College could be deposited in the Museum. There ought to be in this institution as complete a representation of the early art of the country as can be procured, and it would be comparatively easy to accomplish this at the present time. ”

“ There were now many wealthy business men in the country, and thus artists had a fair chance of a livelihood while their ideals and technique were developing. In Boston, [Pg 226] New York, and Philadelphia were the beginnings of the museums which were a few years later to become schools of art of no mean importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The places of public amusement in Boston are not numerous, nor remarkably well patronized. The Tremont theatre affords the only dramatic entertainment that is much resorted to by strangers and people of fashion. It is a handsome building, with a front of Quincy and Hallowell granite. This front is in imitation of the Ionic order, with four pilasters and two antœs, one on each angle, supporting an entablature and pediment, and elevated on a basement seventeen feet. The Warren theatre is a minor establishment, and is much frequented. The New England Museum attracts numerous visitors. ”

“ The woeful lack of imagination displayed in [80] building a city without recognizing the need of its citizens for recreation through play, music, and art, has been borne in upon us many times. New Yorkers need to be reminded that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was effectually closed to a large proportion of the citizens until, on May 31, 1891, it opened its doors on Sundays. It is interesting to recall that of the 80,000 signatures to the petition for this privilege, 50,000 were of residents of the lower East Side and were presented by the “Working People’s Petition Committee.” ”

“ Boston is now producing no literature except a little criticism. Contemporary Boston art is imitative art, its writers are correct and imitative writers the central figure of its literary world is that charming old lady of eighty-eight, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. One meets her and Colonel Higginson in the midst of an authors' society that is not so much composed of minor stars as a chorus of indistinguishable culture. There are an admirable library and a museum in Boston, and the library is Italianate, and decorated within like an ancient missal. ”

“ The BOSTON MUSEUM, North side the Market, has lately received many very valuable additions, among which are
The Philadelphia, New-York, and Salem Beauties, and a number of other Figures.—Also, a variety of natural curiosities, among which are the skin of the Sea-Elephant, in natural preservation, which measures 8 feet in length, and 6 feet round the body, &c. The skin of the African Lion, a Calf with 8 legs, 2 bodies, and one head, in natural preservation, &c. &c.
Museum opened every day and evening, Saturdays and Sundays excepted.
☞ Admittance to the Museum, 25 Cents. ”

“ Numerous galleries were opened in the cities, and the travelling-car penetrated into all parts of the country. By November, 1841, there were six studios in Boston, and a larger number in New York.
The interest and curiosity of the general public in regard to these pictures painted by nature's own hand is not to be described. A small frame containing a half dozen pictures exhibited at door or window was constantly surrounded by crowds of eager spectators, and the guesses hazarded as to the method of their production were interesting to a degree. ”

“ New York has a Metropolitan Museum, filled with the finest specimens of ancient and modern art, which is always [121] open to the public, besides an Academy of Design, a Society of American Artists, an Architectural League and any number of galleries that are constantly instructing the people in what is being done by native and foreign contemporaneous artists—whether they be painters, sculptors, or architects. ”

“ The City Library of Boston has one feature entirely new in the visible of a great public collection. A large portion of the books, under certain regulations, are circulated among the inhabitants of the city, and thousands avail themselves of this privilege. Here, then, is opened a great fountain of knowledge in the midst of a wide population: all may come, without money and [Pg 535] without price. The visible pages of learning, wisdom, science, truth, imagination, ingenious theory, or deep conviction lie open not only to the eyes, but to the hearts and homes of a great people. ”

“ In the Boston Museum, for instance, the collections on the ground floor are for study and the visitor who wishes to see the exhibition collections must climb a flight of glaring white steps. How much better it would be to have an attractive vista of exhibition rooms opening out from the entrance hall and to hide the stairs somewhere in the ends of the wings where they need not be either costly or very large. By providing an elevator for the public and staircases six or eight feet wide, it would be possible to take care of even a rather large crowd. ”