Gallery

“ The gallery is a feature of every house in this city that lives outdoors, be it big or little, humble or grand, or lowly or mean. It is on the first floor or the second, or even the third, though the third it seldom reaches, for few people care for houses of great height. Indeed, there are hundreds of homes of but one story, full of the costliest tokens of the taste of an artistic people. And the soil below is so like a morass that ample space must be left between floor and earth; while as for cellars, I have heard of but two in all the great city. ”

“ Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm colouring, and its cold tints. ”

“ Having completed our perambulation, we ascended to the gallery at the top of the house, from whence we can survey the country that lies spread like a rich panorama at our feet, looking more than usually fair and brilliant as the mellow sunlight brings out every inequality and brightens every object with its magical radiance. ”

“ So that all art consists in this commerce, every soul being an artist and every brain that is worth talking about being an art gallery, and there is no gallery in this world, not in the Vatican or the Louvre or any other place, comparable with the gallery in every great brain. The millions of pictures that are in every brain to-night; the landscapes, the faces, the groups, the millions of millions of millions of things that are now living here in every brain, all unseen, all invisible forever! ”

“ All stir has ceased for some time, for every gallery has long ago been packed. We may sit, now, and look and think at our leisure. We have glimpses, here and there and yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of portions of many galleries and balconies, wedged full with other people, the other portions of these galleries and balconies being cut off from sight by intervening pillars and architectural projections. ”

“ When we are told of picture galleries with their thousand works of art, and are warmed by the descriptions, feeble though they must be, of many of them, we seem to be suddenly led by a lamp of more magical power than Aladdin's; for what was his gallery of fruit-trees bearing, precious stones, to a gallery rich in pictures, the still brighter fruits of genius, presenting endless variety, each one almost a world in itself, and all, enticing the imagination into regions unbounded, of charm and loveliness, suggested, though not made visible, but to the mind's eye? ”

“ The gallery is long and narrow and dark, and set with iron gates, iron-bound chests, locks, bolts and bars, fantastic great keys, lamps, and the like, and over the balustrade one may lean and talk of one's finer feelings and regard Michael Angelo's horned Moses, or Trajan's Column (in plaster) rising gigantic out of the hall below and far above the level of the gallery. And here on a Wednesday afternoon were Lewisham and Miss Heydinger, the Wednesday afternoon immediately following that paper upon Socialism that you saw announced on the notice board in the hall. ”

“ It has been well said, that a complete gallery, on a broad foundation, in which all tastes, styles, and methods harmoniously mingle, is a court of final appeal of one phase of civilization against another, from an examination of which we can sum up their respective qualities and merits, drawing therefrom for our own edification as from a perpetual wellspring of inspiration and knowledge. ”

“ Then comes the long gallery, running the whole width of the building, stored with curiosities, where we used to run races and play hide-and-seek with the children of the house in bygone days, and tremble when evening came on lest some bogie from his lurking-place should spring out upon us. ”

“ We spend fortunes for picture-galleries, but what are the tiny painted copies compared to the great originals, the mountains, the glens, the streams and waterfalls, the fertile fields, the breezy downs, the silver sea! These are the gems of the universal gallery, the common heritage of man, the property of the humblest who has eyes to see, and as free as the air we breathe. ”

“ When he entertained it was in a vast drawing- room, palatially equipped, its walls hung with flowing masses of pale red velvet, embroidered with foliage flowers and butterflies, and set with crystals and precious stones.
It was his art gallery, however, which flattered him most. He knew nothing of art, and underneath his pretentions cared less, for he was a complete utilitarian; but it had become fashionable to have an elaborate art gallery, and he forthwith disbursed money right and left to assemble an aggregation of paintings. ”

“ The Grand Gallery, as it is called, is a quarter of a mile long, and over forty feet wide, and with its elegantly ornamented ceilings, its magnificent collection of nearly two thousand splendid paintings, including some of the finest masterpieces in the world, and superb vista, presents a coup d'œil that can hardly fail to excite enthusiasm even from those who are not professed admirers of pictures. ”

“ Let us follow the gaze of the half-dozen persons grouped in front of the tapestry hanging in the northern gallery, and see.
But first, of whom is this small and mystic group composed? Who are these men who in the middle of the night, in the security of a completely shuttered building, busy themselves, not with the inestimable treasures surrounding them, but with an odd and seemingly mountebank adventure totally out of keeping with the place and their absorbed demeanor? ”

“ Under an oak-tree loaded with leaves and nuts, under a sky full of eternal eyes, I stand in a thoroughfare; but in the works of our plastic arts, and especially of sculpture, creation is driven into a corner. I cannot hide from myself that there is a certain appearance of paltriness, as of toys, and the trumpery of a theatre, in sculpture. Nature transcends all our moods of thought, and its secret we do not yet find. But the gallery stands at the mercy of our moods, and there is a moment when it becomes frivolous. ”

“ A gallery of art is a perpetual feast of the most intense and refined enjoyment to every one capable of entering into its phases of thought and execution, analyzing its external and internal being, and tracing the mysterious transformations of spirit into form. ”

“ What is a gallery in a house to a gallery in the streets, which every market-man rides through, whether he will or not? Of course, there is not a picture-gallery in the country which would be worth so much to us as is the western view at sunset under the Elms of our main street. ”

“ So, too, the art gallery, recalling the gentler associations of the past amidst surroundings of harmonious beauty and its attendant sense of comfort, is essentially a place of rest for the mind and eye. In the more famous galleries where the wealth of paintings allows a grouping of pictures according to their respective schools, one may choose the country, the epoch, the style or even the emotion best suited to one’s taste. ”

“ The gallery contains many of his finest pictures, and in particular the last of all which he painted—Destiny, a tremendous figure with a shadowed face; masses of filmy light are about it, and power moves in the arm that holds the book; there is a secret hidden which the grey face knows. ”

“ Within the church there is a corresponding gallery, from which the visitor may observe the interior decorations, and from the loftiest gallery of all, there is a vast and delightful panorama which includes river and country as far as the eye can see. What can be more beautiful than this scene? Where can one find a grander, more solemn atmosphere than within these walls where the spirits and the hands of men have worked for ages? ”

“ The gallery of the Belle Arti is rich in paintings of the olden times, when the soul worked more than the hand; when the artist sought, in the first place, to conceive the sublime, and the glorious endeavour bore him aloft among the angels and saints, whose blissful ecstasies he was enabled to represent. Why did not some among these great artists portray the other passions that ennoble our nature? ”

“ You enter a gallery, containing the portraits of some eminent family, whose deeds have left their imprint for ages on the country to which they belong. You take your stand at the founder of the illustrious stock, and probably his large, open, noble figure sinks at once into your memory, as if you had before you some huge relic of the fossil world. ”

“ Of what avail is it, that curtains of the richest damask keep out the too intrusive sunlight, or that carpets of the finest texture cover the floors, since the shutters are always closed, and the magnificent parlors rarely echo the steps of a visitor? Of what avail is the gallery of really exquisite paintings, selected at an immense cost from European collections? Hidden from the curious eye, lest perchance some harm might come to them, never looked upon by the possessor, they might as well be buried under ground, so far as concerns the actual enjoyment derived from them. ”

“ Doubtless there are many who join us in the wish that not only every large, but every small city might have its gallery of reproductions as well as its public library—a gallery in which children could grow up familiar with the noblest productions of Greece and Italy, in which the laborer could pass some of his holiday hours, and in which the mechanic could find the stimulus to make his own work beautiful as well as good. ”

“ The Orangery in the Tuileries Gardens, where the bazaar was being held, had been sumptuously decorated for the occasion. Crimson velvet hangings with fringes of gold concealed the walls, and transformed the huge bare gallery into a lofty gala hall. Towards one end on the left, large curtains, also of crimson velvet, were stretched across the gallery, cutting off a portion of it. ”

“ So through the long evening the people sit upon the gallery and chat or read or sing or doze or plan or discuss their family affairs. By day the galleries are protected with gay-colored awnings or those filmy woven sheets of reeds which keep out the glare and let through the light and the fragrant breeze. Children make of the gallery a play-house; young people here entertain their friends; the elders discuss the affairs of a nation or dwell on that wonderful past [Pg 50] through which this ancient Southern city has come tumultuously down through the lines of Castilian and Saxon and Gaul. ”

“ The gallery itself is a most magnificent thing; it really is quite a long fatiguing walk from one end of it to the other; and the crowds of people of all ranks who are constantly to be met with there render it altogether one of the most curious and interesting spectacles in Europe. ”

“ Varieties of little staircases, and a garret gallery called Dick's haunted gallery; a blocked-up room called the King's room; then a modern dressing-room, with fine tables of Bullock's making, one of wood from Brazil—Zebra wood—and no more to be had of it for love or money.
But come on to the great gallery, longer than that at Sudbury,—about one hundred and thirty-six feet long,—and at the farthest end we came to a sort of oriel, separated from the gallery only by an arch, and there the white marble bust of the great Mr. Watt struck me almost breathless. ”

“ The utmost luxury of ornament has been lavished on the walls and ceilings, some in painting, some in relief; but in each, the subjects and ornaments are appropriate to the situation, and as each gallery has been originally adapted to its destination, every where the effect to be produced has been judiciously studied. The light is not too great, nor too generally diffused—it is poured in from high semicircular windows on one side only, so as to throw the sculpture into beautiful relief. ”

“ As we look at the pictures and statues in a gallery, we read the stories they tell, feel the sentiment they express, study the grace they embody, or linger lovingly over the evidences they present of artistic skill. ”

“ The midday sun shining upon its polished surface is too brilliant for the eye to bear with satisfaction: for a position from whence to view it, the gallery on the top of the entrance-gate inside is decidedly the best point of observation. ”

“ In the gallery there is nothing to disturb you; there is not a man opposite you with a pistol in his hand. In the gallery you are calm and collected, you have risen at your ordinary hour, you are returning from a stroll through the sunlight ”

“ There is nothing gorgeous in this gallery: every thing is in good taste; and yet the mouldings and fret-work of the ceiling are of the most elaborate description. The pictures in the gallery are all originals by eminent masters, and are the private property of the sovereign. ”

“ ART GALLERIES. An art gallery (by which, as distinguished from more general Museums of Art, q.v., is here meant one specially for pictures) epitomizes so many phases of human thought and imagination that it connotes much more than a mere collection of paintings. In its technical and aesthetic aspect the gallery shows the treatment of colour, form and composition. In its historical aspect we find the true portraits of great men of the past ”

“ Let us finish our picture of lovely Woodbine.
Across the entire front of the main floor as well as the second story, ran a wide piazza, gallery they call it in that part of the country. The lower gallery gave upon a broad, velvety lawn dotted with elms, beeches, oaks and 21 feathery pines. No path led to this gallery, and when one stepped from it one’s feet sank into the softest green turf. ”