Shooting gallery

“ A picture is painted in a certain environment of light, color, and tone,—and to Whistler this environment was a vital consideration. For the time being the canvas is the one conspicuous thing in the studio, of even greater importance than subject or model. From this environment of creation, and with which it is in perfect harmony, it is violently forced into conjunction with great squares of atrocious gilt frames and expanses of clashing canvases.
A gallery of pictures is the slaughter-house of art; annual exhibitions are the shambles of beauty. ”

“ The bombardments in the spring of the following year further damaged the gallery, also causing fresh mutilations to the flying buttresses and the pinnacles of the apse.
A plain stone gallery with blind arcading, which formerly ran round the chevet on a level with the springing of the roof, was replaced by Viollet-le-Duc, with pierced battlemented arcading. Part of the original gallery which surrounded the entire building, level with the roof, still exists on the northern side. ”

“ Passing through a lofty guard-room with raftered ceiling—the walls hung with tapestry—where casques and shields of antique pattern shone out, side by side with crescent banners and scimitars captured from the Moors, the guests arrive and are ushered into a Gothic hall of sculptured oak heavily carved, a richly wrought balustraded gallery breaking the lines high up under the cornice. ”

“ A man-at-arms in breast-plate and steel cap, and bearing a long pike, paced up and down the length of this gallery, now and then stopping, leaning over the edge, and gazing up into the starry sky above; then, with a long drawn yawn, lazily turning back to the monotonous watch again.
A dark figure crept out from an arched doorway at the lower part of the long straight building, and some little distance below the end gallery, but the sentry saw nothing of it, for his back was turned. ”

“ On 'stages,' as the workmen call them, or temporary wooden galleries passing from stem to stern, and rising tier above tier, were the rivetters 'with busy hammers closing rivets up,' and keeping the echoes awake with their ceaseless, and, to unaccustomed ears, painful din. The rivet-boys, alike alarmed and amused us, as they leaped from gallery to gallery with fearless agility, brandishing their red-hot bolts, and replying in imp-like screechings to the hoarse commands of their seniors. ”

“ At this, some of the boys looked troubled, and some of the girls tittered; but one and all clapped, in hearty applause of Mr. Reed's little speech.
Then came the tinkle of a bell to announce that all was ready; Ed Tyler and Donald pushed back the sliding doors, and there, in the great square doorway, was the picture-gallery. To be strictly correct, we should call this gallery a gray wall, apparently hung from top to bottom with fine portraits in broad gilt frames, and all looking wonderfully life-like and unnatural; for when a live portrait must not laugh, how can it feel at ease? ”

“ The boxes are perched up so high above the pit, that it gives you a head-ache to look up at the beauty and fashion that nightly adorn them with their thin and scattered constellations; and then the gallery is ‘raised so high above all height,’ it is nearly impossible for the eye to scale it, while a little miserable shabby upper-gallery is partitioned off with an iron railing, through which the poor one-shilling devils look like half-starved prisoners in the Fleet, and are a constant butt of ridicule to the genteeler rabble beneath them. ”

“ The gallery of portraits continues, as if unfolding, as you pass into the sitting room, up the stairway — two flights — along another hall, and then into the workshop, where are gathered the master spirits of the world. ”

“ George left her entirely at liberty every time to decide the question just as she pleased; and she always finally concluded to go on.
Thus they continued to ascend for more than a hundred feet above the stone gallery; and at length they came out upon another outside gallery, which is formed around the top of the dome, at the foot of what is called the lantern. You [Pg 137] can see the place of this gallery in the engraving; though it is so high that the gallery itself, though surrounded by a massive balustrade, can scarcely be discerned. A person standing there would be wholly invisible. ”

“ Blinded Galleries.—Galleries cannot be successfully driven with less than 3 to 31⁄2 feet of undisturbed earth over their sheeting. In making a descent into a ditch, or in pushing forward an approach in siege operations, it is often impracticable to lower the bottom of the trench of departure sufficiently to give the requisite cover for starting a gallery at once. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The windows of these rooms, furthermore, look out on to the garden; they are human, habitable little rooms, reassuring after the pomp of the Ball-room and the galleries. In the sitting-room there is a small portrait of the prim lady, Lady Betty Germaine, sitting very stiff in a blue brocaded dress; she looks as though she had been a martinet in a tight, narrow way.
The gallery leading to these rooms is called the Brown Gallery. It is well named—oak floor, oak walls, and barrelled ceiling, criss-crossed with oak slats in a pattern something like cat’s cradle. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The light comes from the roof with duly modified intensity, and the effect on the pictures is singularly beneficial and clear. Thus a magnificent gallery of pictures is formed, sweeping in one uninterrupted line, from the centre to the end of the building, or for a distance of 700 feet. The effect is very grand and at the same time beautiful, [I-135] while the convenience and ample space will be noticed as a contrast to many picture galleries. There are upwards of 900 pictures of the British, French, Dutch, Belgian, and German Schools, being all by living artists, and for sale ”

“ This is almost the only center of light in the place, though it is possible to see that there is some kind of a lamp beyond the half-open door of a windowless hut which is dimly perceived at the back of the gallery. Also, above the foot-bridge, there is a flue in the ceiling, and through this flows downward a faint, pale light, almost imperceptible, like the dimmest twilight. At the back of the gallery, arched openings on either side lead to passages of impenetrable blackness. ”

“ The sophisticated, almost exotic, color of the walls, emphasizing in the work of some all that is crude and materialistic in execution or interpretation, makes their work appear to less advantage than would the usual bleak gallery. And why so many pictures? Why not one picture in each space and that the best each artist could offer? How much more satisfactory the room would then be. Anyone who follows exhibitions will agree that each exhibitor has shown better work at other times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Steep steps lead into a gallery branching out in various directions, with descents into galleries below. These are cut out of soft tufa rock, allowing room for walking upright, and in places opening out into chambers of some size. A perfectly dry atmosphere, and good ventilation, but a place of absolute darkness, lit up only by the candle which everyone carries. A guide precedes, and it is necessary to keep together, for there are gruesome tales of people lost and perishing in these subterranean mazes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have got into three or four of the enemy’s great galleries, which are thirty or forty feet underground and lead to several of their chambers; and in these we fight in armour by lanthorn and candle, they disputing every inch of the gallery with us to hinder our finding out their great mines. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 ”

“ On the side of the room where there are no windows is a private winding staircase by which the servants bring up the requisites for a meal. At the end of the gallery is a bed-chamber, and the gallery itself affords as pleasant a prospect therefrom as the vineyards. Underneath runs a sort of subterranean gallery, which in summer time remains perfectly cool, and as it has sufficient air within it, it neither admits any from without nor needs any. ”

“ Stretching the whole length of the wall is a wooden bench blackened by constant use. This bench has for the last ten years been daily occupied by all the murderers, thieves, and suspicious characters of the Department of the Seine.
Sooner or later, fatally, as filth rushes to a sewer, does crime reach this gallery, this dreadful gallery with one door opening on the galleys, the other on the scaffold. This place was vulgarly and pithily denominated by a certain magistrate as the great public wash-house of all the dirty linen in Paris.
When Prosper reached the gallery it was full of people. ”

“ There was gallery after gallery filled with racks of arms, all beautifully kept, and over the door of each room was the name of the tribe and the number of men who could be mobilised in the event of their being required, and the number of arms and the amount of ammunition that was available for each. ”

“ Every indication points to the belief that, suffocated by the smoke forced down like a wall from the roof, the mass of those in the upper gallery thronged about the entrance to the stairs and were either blocked there so as to make exit impossible, or were unable even to make the attempt to escape, and sank down, one upon the other, to fall in a mass into the horrible pit under the vestibule when the supports of the gallery were burned away. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the side spaces of the room and on the small gallery above, the carpenters made scenery and the scene painters painted it—scenery, paint pots, and actors were all huddled together in one friendly chaos. We always had to be mindful of our costumes. To the smell of fresh paint and the noise of the carpenters’ hammers, we rehearsed our first crude little movies and in due time many an old literary classic. ”

“ They have often before placed a firebrand against a house they could not otherwise take. Those above shot well through the round holes in the bottom of the gallery, and one or two of those below must pay for their bravery with their lives. ”

“ I am supposing a crowded room—of course the object of a National Gallery is that it should be crowded—that as large a number of the public should have access to it as possible—there would of course be certain limited hours, and the gallery would be liable to get filled with the public in great numbers?—It would be disadvantageous certainly, but not so disadvantageous as to balance the much greater advantage of preservation. I imagine that, in fact, glass is essential; it is not merely an expedient thing, but an essential thing to the safety of the pictures for twenty or thirty years. ”