Art museum

“ 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 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 first is that an art museum is of the greatest value to a community when its collections embrace both the major and minor arts of all countries and all times. The second is that the standard must be high. It would be idle to pretend that every object in our collection is a masterpiece of the highest order, but it is better to have an ideal, which may not be wholly realized, than to have none. ”

“ Most people in thinking of an art museum have in mind a picture gallery, and the museum director who only collects minor arts or sculpture would be very unpopular; on the other hand, it is not well for the public to forget that all art is not painting and good collections of the other classes of material are essential.
The difficulty of selecting from a mass of modern paintings the ones which will be considered worthy of a place in a museum fifty years hence is extreme. It is unfortunate that we are biased in our views by temperament and by fashion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is never under any circumstances, however, justifiable to treat an object of art and one worthy of a place in a museum as though it were a part of the decoration of the museum. It may by its nature be a decoration to the room, but it must be so arranged that for light and for space and for general effect it is shown to its best advantage. To cut a piece of sculpture, a painting or a tapestry, as a layman might do, to make it fit a given spot in a museum is to commit a crime. ”

“ The museum is the largest art museum in the South and has gained a national reputation because of its biennial exhibitions of contemporary American paintings as well as many other special exhibitions. ”

“ For the first time in the history of the world, a national museum is formed in which a whole nation is interested; formed on a scale which permits the exhibition of monuments of art in unbroken symmetry, and of the productions of nature in unthwarted growth,—formed under the auspices of science which can hardly err, and of wealth [Pg 246] which can hardly be exhausted; and placed in the close neighborhood of a metropolis overflowing with a population weary of labor, yet thirsting for knowledge, where contemplation may be consistent with rest, and instruction with enjoyment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The annual picture expositions in the Champs Elysées are always crowded to suffocation, especially on free days, showing that the common people are not wholly indifferent to art, but for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, the celebrated museum, the one-time residence of the Kings of France, with all its historic memories, its priceless pictures and endless rooms filled with sculptures and antiquities is treated with indifference and neglect. ”

“ There has been a very serious discussion of the effect of light upon collections and, while the art museum is, in this respect, less subject to harm than the scientific museum, there are yet certain groups of material that do suffer from continual exposure, and these should be protected by dark curtains or some other device, and never subjected to direct sunlight. In these classes are miniatures, water colors, textiles, embroideries, colored prints and Oriental paintings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To prevent the monotony that attaches to a mere museum arrangement, in which glass cases are ordinarily the most prominent features, the whole of the collected objects, whether of science, art, or nature, were to be arranged in picturesque groupings, and harmony was to reign throughout. ”

“ By-and-by, when the whirligig of time has brought on another revenge, the museum itself becomes a dust-heap, and remains so till after long ages it is re-discovered, and valued as belonging to a neo-rubbish age—containing, perhaps, traces of a still older paleo-rubbish civilisation. ”

“ The modern museum, on the other hand, should be organized for the public good, and should be, a fruitful source of amusement and instruction to the whole community. Even when Dr Waagen described the collections of England, about 1840, private individuals figured chiefly among the owners of art treasures. ”

“ If the history of this museum of civilization would record strange instances of popular neglect for great works of art, it must at the same time show that works of genius, in whatever perishable material embodied, have a strange vitality. ”

“ Into the museum come the disjecta membra of other lands, other cultures, other civilizations. All that had once been a living faith and practice is here reduced to a separate specimen, pattern, or form. For the museum, the world of art has already been created: the future is restricted to a duplication of the perfected past. This animus is identic with that which made the Romans so skillful in copying Greek statues and so dull in carving their own ”

“ The museum is, of course, largely educational and not entirely or even largely artistic in its aims. It and the art-gallery are also in a very different position from such activities as the subsidized theatre because they are devoted to the unique object—the specimen or the picture—which must be in the hands of the State if it is to be available to all. There is no alternative to the public ownership of museums and art-galleries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He devoted the last four years of his life in classifying and arranging his Museum, which is distributed in twenty-four rooms, and consists of architectural models of ancient and modern edifices; a large collection of architectural drawings, designs, plans, and measurements, by many great architects; a library of the best works on art, particularly on Architecture; antique fragments of buildings, as columns, capitals, ornaments, and friezes in marble ”

“ It is better of course that relics of ancient art should find a haven in a public museum than that it should perish altogether, but any destruction or removal for the express purpose of transportation to a museum should be deprecated. ”

“ In the art museums should be set the final standards of civic life, rather than in any musty libraries or routine classrooms. And the great weapon of the art museums of all the land should be the hieroglyphic of the future, the truly artistic photoplay. ”

“ It has been said that a museum is a reunion of objets d'art brought about by a methodical grouping, either chronologically or categorically. The Duc d'Aumale's Musée de Chantilly is more an expression of personal taste. ”

“ In the eleven months during which they have operated they have been visited by over 110,000 people. In this time it has been demonstrated conclusively that a sales place may partake of the excellence of standard, the beauty of installation, the atmosphere, the character, and the dignity of a modern museum and yet impart quite another form of message. ”

“ A museum in connection with the library, either historical or scientific, or an art gallery, may be made a source of attraction, and of much educational value. The collecting of antiquities, or natural history specimens, or rare bindings, or ancient books or manuscripts, is generally taken up by societies organized for such purposes. The library should try to bring these collections into such relations with itself as to add to its own attractiveness, and to make more interesting and instructive the collections. ”

“ This is a national museum for art and manufactures allied to art. Its collections are becoming enormous and of priceless value, and include many fine paintings, among them Raphael's cartoons, with galleries of sculpture and antiquities and museums of patent models. There are art-schools and libraries, and the buildings, which have been constructing for several years, are of rare architectural merit. The Royal Albert Hall is a vast amphitheatre of great magnificence devoted to exhibitions of industry, art, and music. ”

“ The art-industrial museum, the collection of the historical society, and the ethnographical museum are also of considerable interest, and will be still more useful when they are united in the large building to be erected for them with part of the munificent bequest made to the town by Herr Grassi in 1881. ”

“ A present of copies of the British Museum casts, along with the fund of the Ancient Art Society, would originate a Cast Gallery, and a few good pictures could be bought as a commencement of a National Gallery of Painting, leaving the economy of the managers and the liberality of the public gradually to fill up. ”

“ The second great need is for a museum equipped with well-chosen specimens of the world's art. Our government and citizens are establishing schools of industrial and fine art, yet when we would point our pupils to examples of pure art, lo! ”

“ Near the corner of Little Smith Street stands an architectural museum; it is not a very large building, but the frontage is rendered interesting by several statues and reliefs in stone. This, to [Pg 19] give it its full title, is "The Royal Architectural Museum and School of Art in connection with the Science and Art Department." The gallery is open free from ten to four daily, and in the rooms opening off its corridors art classes for students of both sexes are held; the walls are absolutely covered with ancient fragments of architecture and sculpture. ”

“ Under the same roof is a Technological Museum containing an extensive collection, especially of geological specimens, mainly comprised of those found in Australia. For entomologists and mineralogists the collection here exhibited will present also special interest. An entire wing upon the lower floor of the building—the library proper being up one flight of [Pg 198] stairs—is devoted to statuary and to a public school of art. A third department is appropriated to a permanent exhibition of paintings. ”

“ 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. ”