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MUSEUM  IDEALS 

OF  PURPOSE  AND  METHOD 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS,  BOST_ 

MUSEUM  IDEALS 

OF  PURPOSE  AND  METHOD 

BY 

BENJAMIN  IVES  OILMAN 


PRINTED   BY  ORDER  OF 

THE  TRUSTEES   OF  THE  MUSEUM 

AT   THE   RIVERSIDE   PRESS 

CAMBRIDGE 

1918 


COPYRIGHT,   1918,   BY   MUSEUM   OF   FINE   ARTS,   BOSTON 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  January  r<fi8 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS,  BOSTON 

Mr.  Benjamin  Ives  Gilman,  the  author  of  "Museum 
Ideals  of  Purpose  and  Method/'  has  long  held  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  this  Museum.  In  recognition  of  Mr.  Gil- 
man's  mature  thought  upon  the  theory  and  practice  of 
museum  administration,  the  Trustees  are  very  glad  to 
authorize  the  inclusion  of  the  book  among  Museum  pub- 
lications. 

October,  1917. 


ERRATA 

Page  66,  Line  8. 

For  the  word  "  criticizing,"  read  the  words  "  picking  flaws." 

Page  406,  Note  1. 

The  quotation  from  Professor  Santayana  should  not  be  cap- 
italized. 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
SAMUEL  DENNIS  WARREN 

JANUARY  25  1852  —  FEBRUARY  19  1910 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

1901-1906 
MOVING  SPIRIT  IN  THE  PROJECT 

FOR  ITS  PRESENT  BUILDING 

BOLD  LEADER  ACUTE  COUNSELLOR 

FAITHFUL  FRIEND 


PREFACE 

THE  writer  desires  to  acknowledge  with  gratitude  the 
kindness  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  which  he  serves 
in  authorizing  the  inclusion  of  this  book  among  Museum 
publications. 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  American  Astronomical 
Society  Professor  Edward  C.  Pickering  is  reported  as  say- 
ing: "A  great  deal  has  been  done  by  wealthy  men  in  pro- 
viding equipment  and  plants  for  the  study  of  astronomy, 
but  the  important  thing  for  the  future  is  to  use  money 
for  the  increasing  of  efficiency  and  obtaining  results.  We 
have  enough  plants,  we  now  want  greater  results."  A 
similar  situation  at  the  moment  confronts  museums  in 
America.  Wealthy  men  have  done  a  great  deal  in  pro- 
viding collections  and  buildings  to  house  them;  but  the 
important  thing  for  the  future  is  to  use  money  for  increas- 
ing the  efficiency  of  these  acquisitions,  and  obtaining  re- 
sults from  them.  Growth  has  been  the  paramount  care 
hitherto  of  our  museums.  The  use  of  growth  needs  to 
become  their  paramount  care  instead. 

As  a  matter  of  convenience  collections  of  science,  and 
collections  of  art  are  alike  called  museums.  Yet  it  may 
be  claimed  both  that  collections  of  art  have  a  better  right 
to  the  title,  and  that  a  radical  difference  between  them 
calls  for  the  independent  naming  of  collections  of  science. 
Although  there  were  no  muses  of  painting  or  sculpture, 
it  was  the  realm  of  fancy  over  which  the  sisters  presided, 
and  not  the  domain  of  fact.  Moreover,  as  exhibits,  ob- 
jects of  art  serve  a  purpose  for  which  they  were  intended, 
and  objects  of  science  a  purpose  for  which  they  were  not 


x  PREFACE 

-  the  purpose,  namely,  of  being  inspected  by  beholders. 
Objects  of  art  were  made  to  be  looked  at,  and  looked  at 
they  are  accordingly.  Objects  of  science  were  not  made 
to  be  looked  at,  and  looked  at  they  are,  nevertheless.  The 
scientific  collection,  as  the  less  natural  type  of  exhibi- 
tion, calls  for  an  independent  name.  But  in  default  of 
any  convenient  term,  we  shall  doubtless  continue  to  use 
the  phrase  "museum  of  science"  in  spite  of  its  contra- 
diction, and  "museum  of  art"  in  spite  of  its  redundancy. 

For  an  intelligent  decision  as  to  the  use  of  growth  in 
museums  etymologically  so-called,  or  public  collections 
of  fine  art,  we  should  know,  first,  what  are  the  results  at 
which  these  institutions  aim,  and,  second,  how  such  re- 
sults may  most  effectively  be  obtained.  The  present  book 
is  a  contribution  toward  replies  to  these  two  questions: 
first,  regarding  museum  purposes;  second,  regarding  mu- 
seum methods. 

The  editor  of  the  Burlington  Magazine,  in  an  article  on 
"Museums"  in  the  issue  for  September  15,  1908,  wrote: 
"The  time  has  arrived  when  the  question  of  exactly  what 
their  function  is,  and  what  it  ought  to  be,  must  be  asked 
and  solved.  Boston  must  have  the  honor  of  having  been 
the  first  place  where  this  question  has  attracted  serious 
attention;  and  where  in  the  building  of  the  new  museum 
it  is  understood  that  a  new  solution  of  the  problem  is  to 
be  exemplified."  Boston  may  accept  this  testimony  with 
due  humility,  and  may  rejoice  that  in  its  present  museum 
building  the  solution  which  the  Burlington  states  and 
commends  as  the  "aesthetic  ideal"  has  been  permanently 
expressed  in  granite  and  marble.  With  its  piano  nobile  de- 
voted to  exhibition,  and  its  basement  set  apart  for  study, 
the  structure  proclaims  that  the  controlling  purpose  of 
a  museum  of  art  is  aesthetic,  its  subordinate  purpose  sci- 
entific. In  pursuance  of  the  expressed  aim  of  Samuel 


PREFACE  xi 

Dennis  Warren,  then  President  of  the  Museum,  to  make 
it  "possible  for  all  who  would  to  work  together  toward 
a  common  end,"  all  four  methods  known  to  inquiry  were 
utilized  in  reaching  a  museum  scheme  embodying  this 
fundamental  principle:  experience,  derived  from  a  gen- 
eration of  museum  work,  experiment,  in  a  specially 
constructed  building,  observation,  by  a  commission  trav- 
elling in  Europe,  and  study,  devoted  to  the  existing  litera- 
ture of  museum  planning.  It  is  in  Boston  again  that  the 
aesthetic  ideal  has  first  received  explicit  official  statement. 
The  Annual  Report  for  1916  of  Mr.  Morris  Gray,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Museum,  sets  a  milestone  in  the  history  of 
the  management  of  museums  of  art  by  its  definite  recog- 
nition that  the  duty  of  providing  for  the  proper  enjoy- 
ment of  their  acquisitions  is  their  fundamental  duty  and 
now  the  pressing  one.  Time  has  fully  verified  the  assump- 
tion of  the  founders  of  the  Museum  "that  the  Museum 
is  to  be  what  its  name  expresses,  a  Museum  of  the  Fine 
Arts;  that  its  primary  object  is  to  collect  and  exhibit  the 
best  obtainable  works  of  genius  and  skill;  that  the  appli- 
cation of  the  fine  arts  to  industry  and  the  illustration  of 
the  fine  arts  by  archaeology  are  both  within  its  province, 
but  that  neither  of  these  is  its  first  object."  l 

The  first  section  of  this  book  presents  a  reasoned  plea 
from  various  angles  in  support  of  the  aesthetic  ideal,  under 
the  title  of  the  Ideal  of  Culture.  It  is  argued  that  a  museum 
of  art  is  primarily  an  institution  of  culture  and  only  sec- 
ondarily a  seat  of  learning. 

The  identity  of  culture  with  artistic  enjoyment  is  by 
no  means  an  accepted  commonplace  among  us;  nor  is  the 
distinction  between  culture  and  education  by  any  means 
clearly  drawn  by  all  of  those  who  use  the  words.  It  is  here 

1  Eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston 
(1883),  p.  12. 


xii  PREFACE 

assumed  that  culture  consists  at  bottom  in  the  spiritual 
process  of  liking  things  that  other  people  before  us  have 
made  to  their  liking,  whether  these  things  are  habits  of 
speech  or  behavior,  political  institutions,  or  the  things 
we  narrowly  call  works  of  fine  art.  More  closely  defined, 
in  harmony  with  modern  usage,  culture  means  sharing 
in  such  likings  as  have  an  authoritative  basis  of  one  kind 
or  another,  and  are  thus  representatives  of  what  we  call 
standards  of  taste.  According  to  this  definition  culture  and 
education  differ  doubly.  Culture  is  an  affair  of  the  feel- 
ings, of  what  are  called  the  "  sensibilities."  Education  may 
train  the  sensibilities,  but  it  may  also  train  other  capaci- 
ties, bodily  or  mental.  Moreover,  the  sensibilities  without 
training  are  often  capable  of  the  sympathetic  response 
we  call  culture,.  While  the  scope  of  education  extends 
beyond  culture,  culture  is  in  a  measure  independent  of 
education.  Not  all  education  is  cultivating,  and  not  all 
culture  is  educated.  Each  term  in  its  way  covers  more 
than  the  other. 

Among  opportunities  of  culture,  of  liking  things  that 
others  have  made  to  their  liking,  works  of  fine  art  are 
preeminent.  We  are  indeed  pardonable  in  naming  them 
alone.  A  museum  is  an  institution  devoted  to  preserving 
certain  of  these  works  which  are  still  likable,  although 
not  usable  as  they  once  were.  The  ideal  of  museum  pur- 
pose here  called  that  of  culture  affirms  that  such  institu- 
tions ought  to  offer  their  contents  primarily  for  the  exer- 
cise of  the  likings  they  illustrate,  or  less  abstractly,  for 
the  enjoyment  of  their  beauty. 

This  is  an  ideal  at  once  true  and  needing  to  be  preached 
among  us.  It  is  true,  because  a  museum  object  is  apt  to 
be  more  valuable  as  an  opportunity  of  enjoyment  than 
for  any  other  purpose.  Being  among  the  things  that 
others  have  made  to  their  liking,  when  we  like  it  in  turn, 


PREFACE  xiii 

we  aid  it  to  accomplish  that  one  of  its  native  purposes 
which  it  can  still  subserve  in  its  new  surroundings;  and 
anything  is  apt  to  be  more  valuable  for  a  purpose  for 
which  it  was  made  than  for  any  other.  Thus  a  museum 
of  fine  art  which  regards  and  treats  its  acquisitions  as 
primarily  things  to  be  enjoyed,  opportunities  of  culture, 
gives  their  chief  present  value  the  chief  place,  as  it  should. 
Further,  the  ideal  of  culture  needs  to  be  preached 
among  us.  A  generation  ago  an  American  writer  of  dis- 
tinction, speaking  of  our  elaborately  instructed  classes, 
called  their  culture  "a  hollow  mockery."  This  was,  and 
is  still,  a  fact  in  the  sense  that,  just  as  no  one  could  pos- 
sibly be  so  wise  as  Lord  Thurlow  looked,  so  no  one  could 
possibly  be  as  cultivated  as  some  people  among  us  are 
supposed  to  be.  The  literature,  the  music,  painting  and 
sculpture,  the  institutions,  the  customs,  the  manners, 
which  even  the  most  favorably  placed  and  receptive  be- 
holder can  ever  come  to  like  as  their  creators  liked  them, 
make  up  a  comparatively  small  aggregate  for  each  indi- 
vidual. In  defiance  of  this  personal  limit  it  is  the  effort 
of  our  higher  instruction  to  accomplish  a  more  or  less 
complete  humanization  of  every  one  subjected  to  it. 
What  it  aims  at  is  a  broad  culture  —  the  reawakening 
of  at  least  the  standard  enthusiasms  of  the  race  in  every 
new  student.  What  it  accomplishes  is  at  best  to  expose  him 
to  sources  of  inspiration"  many  of  which  he  is  incapable 
of  responding  to  except  mechanically.  Hence  among  our 
elaborately  instructed  classes  an  abundant  growth  of 
hollow  mockeries  of  culture.  Hence  an  intellectual  snob- 
bery which,  instead  of  actually  liking  things,  likes  only 
to  seem  to  like  them.  Hence  among  the  population  gen- 
erally an  almost  total  ignorance  of  what  culture  really  is, 
and  a  well-nigh  universal  identification  of  it  either  with 
the  factitious  enthusiasms  which  are  the  most  conspicu- 


xiv  PREFACE 

ous  product  of  an  instruction  that  aims  at  it,  or  with  this 
instruction  itself.  Against  these  popular  delusions  mu- 
seums of  fine  art,  as  conservators  of  some  of  the  chief 
instrumentalities  of  culture,  are  called  to  fight.  In  a  land 
which  has  hardly  yet  begun  to  endow  music  and  the 
drama,  they  are  almost  the  sole  foundations  representa- 
tive of  culture  as  distinguished  from  education;  and  need 
to  assert  themselves  as  such.  In  our  larger  communities 
especially,  from  the  beginning  homes  of  the  higher  instruc- 
tion, the  doctrine  that  enjoyment  is  the  chief  aim  of 
museums  of  art,  instruction  a  secondary  aim,  needs  to 
be  preached  as  this  book  seeks  to  preach  it. 

The  painter  Fromentin  once  wrote:  "Le  temps  ne  re- 
specte  pas  ce  qu'on  a  fait  sans  lui"  "Time  does  not  respect 
what  is  done  without  his  aid."  This  book  has  been  writ- 
ten during  intervals  of  reflection  upon  a  busy  official 
career  and  has  occupied  eighteen  years  in  the  writing. 
Time  having  been  conciliated  so  far,  may  perhaps  respect 
it  until  its  conclusions  have  been  fairly  and  widely 
weighed.  This  is  not  so  modest  a  hope  as  it  sounds. 
Fairly  to  weigh  any  new  doctrines  means  to  assimilate  their 
element  of  truth  and  to  reject  their  element  of  error. 
As  William  James  noted,  we  assimilate  new  truth  in  three 
steps.  We  are  first  inclined  to  say,  "It  is  absurd";  then, 
"It  is  sensible  but  not  novel";  and  finally,  "I  have  long 
thought  so  myself."  When  this  third  stage  is  reached, 
and  not  before,  a  truth  has  been  assimilated  and  is  ready 
to  issue  in  action.  Joubert  wrote,  "No  one  knows  any- 
thing well  unless  he  has  known  it  a  long  time";1  and 
Holmes,  "knowledge  and  timber  should  n't  be  used  much 
until  they  are  seasoned."  ?  The  hope  that  the  seven  ideals 
of  this  book  will  be  fairly  and  widely  weighed  —  the  ele- 
ment of  truth  in  them  domesticated  and  seasoned  in  our 

1  Pensees,  2  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table. 


PREFACE  xv 

minds  —  before  the  volume  is  forgotten,  is  an  ambitious 
hope  rather  than  a  modest  one.  If  the  ideal  of  Culture, 
though  true,  still  needs  to  be  preached  among  us,  no  little 
time  must  elapse  before  it  will  become  a  part  of  the  gen- 
eral museum  consciousness.  Grave  practical  difficulties, 
moreover,  oppose  the  acceptance  of  what  truth  there 
may  be  in  the  six  ideals  of  method  here  based  upon  the 
cultural  ideal  of  purpose.  Our  museum  buildings  now 
generally  employ  either  top  or  side  light.  The  prevailing 
type  presents  a  combination  of  skylights  and  blank  walls. 
They  are  mostly  also  constructed  or  planned  in  hollow 
squares.  Most  of  them  admit  of  remodelling  to  give 
Diagonal  Lighting  in  part  or  wholly;  and  the  future 
schemes  of  many  could  be  changed  to  give  Radial  Expan- 
sion, to  give  enveloping  gardens  instead  of  enveloped 
courts;  but  at  what  a  cost  of  enthusiastic  conviction  and 
of  money  in  both  instances!  Not  in  a  generation  of  dis- 
cussion and  experiment  could  the  museum  world  reach 
a  final  opinion  on  a  break  with  tradition  so  complete  and 
so  costly.  The  ideal  of  Restful  Inspection  condemns  the 
greater  part  of  the  show-cases  now  existing  in  the  greater 
part  of  our  museums  —  an  equipment  costing  many  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars,  and  still  good  for  many 
years'  use.  However  true  it  may  be  that  these  fixtures 
are  radically  inefficient  and  urgently  need  to  be  replaced 
by  forms  like  those  here  advocated,  the  conviction  can 
spread  only  very  slowly  against  an  immense  mental  inertia 
and  a  partiality  tenaciously  rooted  in  habit.  The  ideals  of 
Official  Companionship  and  the  Interpretative  Catalogue 
must  await  a  generation  with  the  ability  and  the  freedom 
to  give  the  one  and  write  the  other:  hardly  the  genera- 
tion now  rising,  though  possibly  the  next  following.  We 
are  at  present  only  in  our  first  rude  attempts  at  realizing 
either  ideal,  and  are  learning  mostly  by  our  mistakes. 


xvi  PREFACE 

That  a  museum  of  art  must  have  exegetes  or  official  inter- 
preters, as  Furtwangler  1  predicted  years  ago,  seems  self- 
evident.  But  they  must  be  critics,  not  teachers,  expo- 
nents of  culture,  not  representatives  of  education;  and 
the  class  hardly  exists  among  us.  Critic  means  censor 
only  by  perversion.  In  the  valuable  sense,  a  critic  is 
one  who  has  begun  to  understand  a  work  of  art  and  who 
seeks  to  lead  others  to  its  understanding.  In  this  sense 
the  museum  is  the  hom.e  of  the  critic  of  tangible  art,  as  the 
laboratory  is  the  home  of  the  scientist,  the  library  of  the 
scholar,  the  court  of  the  lawyer,  the  church  of  the  preacher. 
Doubtless  one  day  a  visitor  to  every  museum  of  art  may 
count  in  advance,  if  he  so  desire,  upon  some  serious  intro- 
duction to  the  spirit  of  its  contents,  neither  arid  nor  gush- 
ing, either  by  the  spoken  or  the  written  word  of  a  critic 
in  its  service.  Doubtless  also  this  will  be  a  distant  day. 
The  ideal  of  Composite  Boards  is  the  museum  application 
of  the  general  principle  that  any  organized  effort  is  most 
successful  when  the  varied  skills  it  engages  are  given  their 
representation  in  the  body  that  ultimately  controls  it. 
In  other  fields  this  principle  is  already  frequently  applied 
in  practice.  The  granting  of  votes  to  women,  the  ad- 
mission of  employees  as  stockholders  in  the  corporations 
they  serve,  the  movement  giving  the  faculties  of  colleges 
a  share  in  their  management,  are  unmistakable  signs  that 
the  future,  however  far  away,  belongs  to  the  composite 
ideal.  In  the  special  field  of  museum  administration  there 
have  already  been  instances  in  which  the  head  of  the 
working  staff  and  others  similarly  active  have  been  in- 
cluded in  the  corporation.  Gradually  doubtless,  but 
doubtless  only  very  gradually,  there  will  be  more  such 
instances.  Writing  about  1830,  Stendhal  (Henri  Beyle) 
predicted  that  he  would  not  be  read  to  good  purpose  until 

1  Ueber  Kunstsammlungen  aus  alter  und  neuer  Zeit.   (Munich,  1899.) 


PREFACE  xvii 

about  1880,  a  prophecy  which  foretold  almost  to  a  year 
the  time  of  the  greatest  vogue  of  his  novels  and  essays. 
Perhaps  1960  might  be  named  as  a  possible  date  when 
the  seven  ideals  of  this  book  —  if  they  have  not  mean- 
while been  forgotten  —  will  have  been  widely  and  fairly 
weighed. 

But  may  not  museums  of  art  as  we  now  know  them  be- 
come themselves  an  obsolete  type  of  institution  in  this 
interim?  At  a  time  and  in  a  land  where  the  "phono- 
graphic church"  is  seriously  proposed,  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  some  other  way  of  doing  justice  to  our  tangible 
artistic  heritage  than  its  permanent  public  exhibition  may 
be  invented.  There  are  already  not  wanting  the  most 
serious  criticisms  of  the  whole  conception  of  the  modern 
museum.  The  naturalist  J.  G.  Wood  writes,  "To  the 
general  public  a  museum  of  whatever  nature  is  most  in- 
tolerably dull."  *  The  lively  German  writer  Julius  Lang- 
behn  describes  a  museum  of  art  as  a  place  "where  every 
separate  object  kills  every  other  and  all  of  them  to- 
gether the  visitor."2  Robert  de  la  Sizeranne  inveighs 
against  them  as  prisons  of  art,  an  indictment  often 
echoed.3  A  remark  of  M.  Anatole  France  represents  the 
utmost  that  can  be  'said  in  their  disparagement:  "Since 
by  a  universal  law  life  feeds  on  life,  the  Sicilian  peasant 
who  builds  his  hut  from  the  debris  of  a  Greek  temple  is 
more  a  philosopher  than  all  the  curators  of  museums."  4 
Against  these  biting  verdicts  may  be  set  the  recent  judg- 
ment of  a  literary  jury  that  a  poem  inspired  by  a  mu- 
seum object  —  Keats's  "Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn"  —  is 
the  most  perfect  in  the  English  tongue.  The  salvage  of 

1  Nineteenth  Century  (1887),  p.  384. 

2  Rembrandt  als  Erzieher  (Leipzig,  1890),  p.  17. 

3  "Les  Prisons  d'Art,"  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  (1899),  p.  114 /.    The  critic 
T.  Thore  had  many  years  before  called  them  "  cemeteries  of  art."  Salons  de 
W.  Burger.    (Paris,  1870.)    Salon  de  1861,  p.  83. 

4  Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard. 


xviii  PREFACE 

this  particular  vase  was  well  worth  the  cost  of  the  col- 
lection it  adorned.  For  the  future  we  can  at  least  affirm 
that  some  form  of  institution  will  persist  which  will  con- 
tinue to  bear  the  testimony  which  our  museums  now  bear 
to  the  truth  that  beauty  is  of  longer  life  than  utility.  The 
inevitable  vicissitudes  of  things  will  see  to  it  that  myriads 
of  artistic  achievements  of  every  tangible  kind  will  cease 
to  hold  their  place  in  life  and  if  not  lost  will  need  to  be 
conserved  in  places  set  apart.  William  Morris  casts  up 
the  account  for  and  against  museums  in  a  paragraph: 
"Certainly  any  of  us  who  may  have  any  natural  turn 
for  art  must  get  more  help  from  frequenting  them  than 
one  can  well  say.  It  is  true,  however,  that  people  need 
some  preliminary  instruction  before  they  can  get  all  the 
good  possible  to  be  got  from  the  prodigious  treasures  pos- 
sessed by  the  country  in  that  form;  there  also  one  sees 
things  in  a  piecemeal  way;  nor  can  I  deny  that  there  is 
something  melancholy  about  a  museum,  such  a  tale  of 
violence,  destruction,  and  carelessness  as  its  treasured 
scraps  tell  us."  l  With  this  summary  we  curators  may 
be  content.  Museums  are  in  truth  the  treasure-houses 
they  are  vaunted  to  be,  delicate  and  difficult  as  is  the 
task  of  putting  into  people's  hands  the  keys  to  these 
treasures,  and  sadly  imperfect  surrogates  as  are  museum 
conditions  for  the  vanished  worlds  in  which  the  treasures 
once  actually  lived. 

The  value  of  such  treasures  is  as  inadequately  gauged 
by  the  time  we  spend  in  looking  at  them,  as  the  value  of 
poem  and  story  by  the  time  we  spend  in  reading  them. 
The  admirer  of  Michel  Angelo  or  the  Venetians  finds  a 
new  impressiveness  in  real  human  presences,  the  afternoon 
has  new  charms  for  the  lover  of  Claude  Lorraine,  mythol- 
ogy new  delights  for  the  friend  of  Poussin  or  Bocklin. 

1  Hopes  and  Fears  for  Art,  p.  21. 


PREFACE  xix 

Likewise  the  nights  and  days  have  a  new  radiance  for 
the  student  of  Dante,  the  Alps  and  the  ocean  new  won- 
ders for  the  intimate  of  Byron  and  Swinburne,  London 
and  the  Thames  new  fascinations  for  the  familiar  of 
Dickens.  Writing  of  a  calm  at  sea,  Bullen  in  his  Cruise 
of  the  Cachalot  describes  it  as  "such  a  calm  as  one  real- 
izes when  one  reads  sympathetically  that  magical  piece 
of  work  'The  Ancient  Mariner/  "  So  largely  is  the  world 
what  the  artists  make  of  it  for  us. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I.  PURPOSE 

I.  ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART      ....      3 

Fine  Art  and  Beauty.  Gift  and  Craft.  Matter  and  Form.  Process 
and  Product.  Art  for  Art's  Sake.  Beauty  and  Divinity. 

II.  POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART 45 

Education.  Fine  Art.  Education  in  Fine  Art.  Popular  Education 
in  Fine  Art.  Culture. 

III.  THE  AIMS  OF  MUSEUMS.    THE  IDEAL  OF  CULTURE     .      .    75 

I.  DR.  GOODE'S  THESIS  AND  ITS  ANTITHESIS       ....     77 

II.  THE  TRIPLE  AIM  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART        ...     82 

III.  ON  THE  DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  ART        .     89 

IV.  THE  DIDACTIC  BIAS  IN  MUSEUM  MANAGEMENT     .       .       .  103 

V.  CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE:  A  MEDITATION  ON  SKIM- 
MING SUGAR  WITH  A  WARMING-PAN 110 

PART  II.  METHOD 
I.  GROWTH 121 

ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS 123 

II.  CONSTRUCTION.  THE  IDEALS  OF  DIAGONAL  LIGHTING  AND 

RADIAL  EXPANSION 137 

I.  A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 139 

II.  GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 162 

Attic  light  versus  side  or  top  light.  The  nave  plan  versus  the 
court  plan. 

III.  THE  SKIASCOPE 238 

HI.  INSTALLATION.  THE  IDEAL  OF  RESTFUL  INSPECTION     .      .  249 
I.  MUSEUM  FATIGUE 251 

II.  SEATS  AS  PREVENTIVES  OF  FATIGUE  .  .  270 


xxii  CONTENTS 

IV.  EXEGESIS.   THE  IDEALS  OF  OFFICIAL  COMPANIONSHIP  AND 

THE  INTERPRETATIVE  CATALOGUE 277 

I.  THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT 279 

II.  DOCENT  SERVICE  AT  THE  BOSTON  ART  MUSEUM    .       .      .  312 

III.  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL      .       .       .       ...       .       .317 

IV.  GALLERY  BOOKS 333 

V.  GOVERNMENT.    THE  IDEAL  OF  COMPOSITE  BOARDS.    SOME 

GENERAL  PROBLEMS 345 

I.  THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT 347 

II.  ADMINISTRATIVE  ORGANIZATION  AND  ITS  Two  PERTURBATIONS  363 

III.  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY  WITH  AND  WITHOUT  QUOTATION  MARKS     369 

IV.  THE  ECONOMICS  OF  A  CHARITABLE  FOUNDATION     .       .       .  372 
V.  MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 377 

Museum  publicity.  State  support  and  free  admission. 

APPENDIX 

AIMS  AND  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  CONSTRUCTION  AND  MANAGEMENT 
OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART:  A  SYLLABUS 397 

MUSEUM  REGISTRY  OF  PUBLIC  ART 410 

I.  MUSEUMS  OF  ART  AND  THE  CONSERVATION  OF  MONUMENTS     .  410 

II.  THE  REGISTRY  OF  PUBLIC  ART  AT  THE  MUSEUM  OF  FINE 

ARTS,  BOSTON 415 

OBSERVATIONS  IN  EUROPEAN  MUSEUMS  .  426 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 

PART  I.    PURPOSE 

I.    ON  THE   NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART 

II.    POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE   ART 

III.    THE  AIMS  OF  MUSEUMS 


I 

ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE   OF  FINE   ART 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 
I 

ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE   OF  FINE  ART 

I  LEARNED  to  read  from  a  book  called  "Reading  without 
Tears."  A  single  page  remains  in  my  memory.  Two  chil- 
dren are  playing  in  a  nursery.  One  calls  to  the  other: 
"Come  quickly  to  the  window  and  see  the  queen  go  by!" 
At  the  corner  of  the  page  appeared  a  captivating  picture 
of  the  queen  in  all  her  state. 

Such  a  child  is  every  artist.  The  window  is  his  art.  The 
playmate  is  his  public.  The  queen  is  his  vision. 

FINE  ART  AND   BEAUTY 

The  root  meaning  of  the  word  "art"  is  that  of  construc- 
tion, or  the  purposed  combination  of  things.  A  passing  re- 
mark of  Aristotle's  1  divides  the  arts  of  mankind  into  the 
arts  of  our  Necessities  (avay/caia)  and  the  arts  of  Pastime 
(Siayayfy ;  the  distinction  being  that  the  arts  of  our  Neces- 
sities are  followed  for  their  use  (XP^at<:)>  the  arts  of  Pas- 
time for  their  own  sake.  This  dichotomy  of  the  arts  has 
been  current  in  Europe  since.  Our  English  adjective  "fine " 
applied  to  art  means  that  the  purpose  of  the  artist  is  ful- 
filled as  soon  as  his  work  exists.  It  satisfies  him  simply  by 
being.  The  adjective  "useful"  means  that  the  purpose  of 
the  artist  is  not  fulfilled  until  his  work  brings  something 
else  to  pass.  It  satisfies  him  only  by  doing.  Art  consists  in 
rearranging  our  surroundings  nearer  our  desires,  and  is 
fine  art  or  useful  art  according  as  the  rearrangement  ful- 

1  Metaphysics,  i. 


6  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

fils  its  aim  immediately  and  by  itself,  or  indirectly  and  by 
proxy. 

In  Continental  languages  the  arts,  called  in  English 
"fine"  are  called  the  "arts  of  Beauty"  (Belle  Arti,  Beaux 
Arts,  Schoene  Kuenste,  etc.).  The  usage  adheres  to  the 
only  immemorial  and  authoritative  conception  of  beauty: 
that  of  a  value  inherent  in  the  beautiful  thing,  to  be  felt 
as  soon  as  it  exists.  According  to  the  Taoist  books  in 
China  (deriving  from  Lao-Tse,  600  B.C.)  beauty  is  "the 
usefulness  of  the  useless."  It  is  a  certain  merit  which 
things  may  still  possess,  although  they  are  of  no  avail  to 
bring  anything  else  worth  while  to  pass.  Although  good 
for  nothing,  a  thing  need  not  be  worthless.  It  may  be  good 
in  itself;  and  this  is  what  is  called  its  beauty.  The  Asiatic 
conception  was  reached  independently  in  Africa  a  millen- 
nium later.  St.  Augustine  writes  in  his  "Confessions"1 
of  discovering,  after  long  thought,  the  distinction  between 
the  Beautiful  and  the  Fit  (Pulchrum  et  Aptum) .  The  one  he 
defines  as  that  which  is  complete  in  itself;  the  other  as  that 
whose  value  lies  in  its  adjustment  to  other  things.  More 
than  a  millennium  later  a  similar  idea  reappeafMn  Europe. 
To  Immanuel  Kant  beauty  was  "  Purposi veness  without 
purpose."  Unclear  as  this  utterance  remains  in  spite  of 
the  context  and  the  commentators,  the  likeness  to  the 
Taoist  phrase  is  striking,  and  its  kinship  to  St.  Augustine's 
conclusion  apparent.  A  thing  may  be  suited  to  nothing 
else,  and  yet  may  suit  us.  In  this  event,  although  useless, 
it  is  beautiful.  The  production  of  things  having  such  an 
internal  worth  is  the  object  of  Aristotle's  arts  of  Pastime, 
our  fine  arts;  and  they  are  properly  called  the  beautiful 
arts. 

The  inquiry  may  be  pushed  further.  When  a  thing  is 
good  in  itself,  what  is  it  that  makes  it  so?  Of  what  nature 

1  Book  iv,  13. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART  7 

is  this  experience  that  we  have  only  to  become  aware  of  to 
be  satisfied  with?  What  is  this  intrinsic  value  that  we  call 
beauty?  The  answer  given  is  that  it  is  joy,  or  delight,  or  by 
whatever  other  name  we  choose  to  call  the  well-known  fact. 
A  beautiful  thing  is  one  that  is  pleasing  in  itself.  Pleasure 
is  the  one  intrinsically  valuable  thing  known  to  man.  Even 
virtue  and  knowledge  gain  their  worth  from  the  happiness 
they  promise.  The  question  —  Why  should  we  do  right? 
—  is  one  that  can  be  and  often  has  been  put  and  proven. 
The  question  —  What  good  is  knowledge  apart  from  the 
happiness  it  brings  in  pursuit  or  use?  —  can  also  be  argued. 
But  the  questions  —  Why  should  we  be  happy?  —  What 
good  is  pleasure?  —  are  nonsense  to  every  one. 

It  is  possible  to  misconstrue  this  doctrine.  Yet  it  con- 
tains a  fundamental  truth  as  these  questions  show;  and 
one  that  needs  only  to  be  built  upon  by  an  inquiry  into  the 
relation  of  truth  and  right  to  pleasure.  In  advance  we  may 
admit  that  it  justifies  the  definition  of  the  fine  arts  con- 
tributed by  the  critic  Hazlitt  in  the  last  century  to  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica.  The  fine  arts  are  those  "aiming 
at  the  production  of  pleasure  by  the  immediate  impression 
which  they  make  on  the  mind."  This  immediate  impression 
of  pleasure  we  call  their  beauty.  The  present  century  inter- 
prets this  conclusion  in  thoroughgoing  fashion,  affirming 
that  an  object  is  not  beautiful  unless  our  pleasure  in  it  is  as 
much  a  part  of  it  as  its  color  or  shape  or  any  other  in- 
herent quality.  As  Mr.  Santayana  now  phrases  it,  beauty 
is  "objectified  pleasure." 

While  the  edition  of  the  Britannica  was  current  in 
which  Hazlitt's  Essay  appeared,  another  noted  English- 
man gave  a  definition  of  the  fine  arts  which  appears  at 
first  sight  to  contravene  it.  In  his  address  at  St.  Andrews 
in  1865,  John  Stuart  Mill  said:  "If  I  were  to  define  art,  I 
should  be  inclined  to  call  it  the  endeavor  after  perfection 


8  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

in  execution.  If  we  meet  with  even  a  piece  of  mechanical 
work  which  bears  the  marks  of  being  done  in  this  spirit— 
which  is  done  as  if  the  workman  loved  it  and  tried  to  make 
it  as  good  as  possible,  though  something  less  good  would 
have  answered  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  ostensibly 
made  —  we  say  he  has  worked  like  an  artist."  The  essen- 
tial agreement  of  this  view  with  Hazlitt's  comes  to  light 
when  we  reflect  what  it  is  to  love  an  inanimate  object. 
Love  in  this  sense  is  delight  in  the  presence  of  the  object; 
it  is  pleasure  derived  immediately  from  it,  and  coming  from 
nothing  to  which  the  object  leads,  from  which  it  proceeds, 
or  which  is  in  any  way  other  than  itself.  Any  product  of 
human  purpose,  according  to  Stuart  Mill,  which  evidences 
its  maker's  love  for  it  —  his  pleasure  in  the  immediate 
impression  which  it  makes  on  his  mind — is  a  work  of  fine 
art.  Here  we  rejoin  the  Britannica  definition. 

The  production  of  even  a  piece  of  mechanical  work  giv- 
ing this  direct  pleasure  Stuart  Mill  called  "perfection  of 
execution."  The  phrase  is  apt;  for  any  creation  which 
satisfies  us  as  well  directly  by  what  it  is  to  us,  as  indirectly 
by  what  it  does  for  us,  may  rightly  be  called  per-factum, 
made  through  or  thoroughly.  Chopin's  highest  praise  for 
music  expressed  the  idea  of  perfection  in  negative  terms: 
Rien  ne  me  choque.  Not  that  his  perceptions  were  a  blank; 
but  that  their  intense  activity  awakened  no  desires  —  at 
least  marked  ones  —  without  satisfying  them. 

GIFT  AND  CRAFT 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  human  brain,  and  we  may  doubt- 
less say,  the  human  hand,  is  capable,  undirected  by  con- 
scious purpose,  of  products  more  nearly  perfect,  leaving 
less  to  be  desired,  than  any  won  by  pains.  It  is  not  by  art 
but  by  nature  that  men  best  attain  the  direct  delight  that 
is  the  aim  of  fine  art. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND"  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART  9 

The  admission  is  general.  Milton  wrote  of  Shakespeare: 

"Whilst  to  the  shame  of  slow  endeavoring  art 
Thy  easy  numbers  flow,  ..." 

The  prouder  source  from  which  they  flowed  was  Shake- 
speare's quick  conceiving  nature.  Matthew  Arnold 
writes:  "Wordsworth's  poetry,  when  he  is  at  his  best,  is 
inevitable,  as  inevitable  as  Nature  itself.  It  might  seem 
that  Nature  not  only  gave  him  the  matter  for  his  poem 
but  wrote  his  poem  for  him."  Of  the  jewels  five  words  long 
that  sparkle  throughout  literature-- "Southward  many 
an  emerald  mile"  or  Shakespeare's  own  "John-a-dreams, 
unpregnant  of  my  cause"  —  it  would  seem  likewise  that 
many  must  have  presented  themselves  as  they  are  to  the 
mind  of  the  poet,  who  only  wrote  them  down,  as  Coleridge 
wrote  down  "Kubla  Khan"  from  a  dream.  A  French 
critic  declares  in  general  terms,  "Masterpieces  are  made 
without  thought,  without  even  intention,"  —  that  is, 
without  art. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  also  what  is  born  to  brain  or  hand 
as  a  thing  of  joy  is  apt  to  be  but  a  germ,  an  item  of  promise, 
whose  persistent  contemplation  invites  change  for  the 
better.  How  insignificant  the  origin  in  Beethoven's  note- 
books, of  the  immortal  melody  sung  at  the  close  of  the 
Ninth  Symphony.  Its  finished  form  is  a  triumph  of  art 
over  nature. 

Here  appear  at  once  the  sphere  and  the  limits  of  fine 
art.  Its  purpose  is  to  finish  a  promising  beginning,  to  per- 
fect it,  to  make  it  thoroughly,  to  produce  from  a  sugges- 
tion of  charm  a  completely  satisfactory  thing;  yet  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  greatest  application  may  be  outdone  by  the  free 
gifts  of  inspiration.  A  suggestion  may  defy  completion. 

Two  allied  sources  of  mistake  obscure  to  us  the  suprem- 
acy of  inspiration.  We  hear  that  in  fine  art  matter  is  indif- 
ferent; form  alone  gives  it  value.  Heine,  with  characteris- 


10  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

tic  irreverence,  and  also  characteristic  sharp-sightedness, 
makes  fun  of  this  principle,  naming  a  certain  tailor  of 
his  time  who  "charges  the  same  for  a  dress  coat,  whether 
or  not  he  furnishes  the  cloth."  l  We  hear  also  that  artistic 
excellence  resides  in  method,  not  in  result  of  method;  in 
the  solution  of  a  problem,  irrespective  of  whether  the  prob- 
lem is  worth  solving  or  not.  Byron  wrote,  "The  poet  who 
executes  best  is  the  highest."  2  Each  of  these  opinions  may 
appear  to  give  the  palm  in  fine  art  to  reflection  rather  than 
spontaneity.  In  reality  neither  does;  for  the  form  of  a 
work  of  art  and  its  method  may  be  as  much  the  fruit  of 
spontaneity  as  of  reflection. 

MATTER  AND  FORM 

There  remain  the  questions:  What  do  these  utterances 
of  two  preeminent  minds,  and  of  others  before  and  since 
really  signify;  and  are  they  true  or  false?  Does  the  beauty 
of  a  work  of  fine  art  in  fact  reside  in  its  subject  or  its  treat- 
ment? Is  its  immediate  charm  in  fact  an  affair  of  the  way 
it  is  done  or  the  thing  that  is  done? 

First,  as  to  the  question  of  matter  and  form.  These  two 
words  are  used  in  a  sense  opposite  to  their  philosophic 
meaning  when  we  refer  them  to  the  subject  and  treatment 
of  a  work  of  art.  In  the  exact  acceptation,  the  form  of  any 
object  of  sense  may  be  defined  as  the  complex  of  relations 
subsisting  between  its  parts;  the  matter  of  it  consisting  in 
these  parts  themselves.  We  grasp  its  form  by  the  use  of  the 

1  Gedanken  und  Einfatte.   Kunstwerk.    "In  der  Kunst  ist  die  Form  alles,  der 
Stoff  gilt  Nichts.   Staub  berechnet  fur  den  Frack,  den  er  ohne  Tuch  geliefert, 
denselben  Preis,  als  wenn  ihm  das  Tuch  geliefert  worden.   Er  lasse  sich  nur  die 
Form  bezahlen,  und  den  Stoff  Schenke  er." 
Again  in  Schopfungslieder,  6: 

"Den  Himmel  erschuf  ich  aus  der  Erd 
Und  Engel  aus  Weiberentfaltung, 
Der  Stoff  gewinnt  erst  seinen  Werth 
Durch  kunstlerische  Gestaltung." 

'  Letter  to  John  Murray  on  Rev.  W.  L.  Bowles's  Strictures  on  Pope. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    11 

intellect,  its  matter  by  the  use  of  the  senses.  When  the 
words  are  applied  specifically  to  works  of  art,  the  reverse 
is  the  case.  We  grasp  what  is  called  the  matter  of  a  work  of 
art  by  using  our  powers  of  generalization  upon  it;  the  form 
given  this  matter  by  using  our  powers  of  perception.  Its 
subject  consists  of  abstract  ideas  which  the  work  em- 
bodies; its  treatment  consists  of  the  concrete  embodiment 
given  these  ideas. 

The  philosophic  meaning  of  the  words  "form"  and  "mat- 
ter" may  be  illustrated  by  a  wave.  What  is  it  that  travels 
toward  us  when  a  wave  approaches  the  shore?  Not  the 
water  composing  it.  Each  particle  of  water  simply  oscil- 
lates up  and  down,  forward  and  back.  Adjacent  particles 
successively  assume  a  certain  complex  of  space  relations 
among  themselves;  and  it  is  the  appearance  of  this  form 
that  approaches.  What  dashes  overwhelmingly  upon  the 
rocks  is  the  matter  of  the  wave,  its  component  particles  of 
water,  each  rising  and  falling,  advancing  and  retreating. 

In  applying  the  same  words  to  a  work  of  art  we  are  mis- 
led into  thinking  of  its  matter  likewise  as  something  solid 
and  concrete,  and  of  its  form  as  something  tenuous  and 
abstract.  Meanwhile  in  reality  the  r61es  are  exchanged. 
It  is  the  matter  or  subject  of  a  work  of  art  that  is  the  tenu- 
ous and  abstract  thing;  and  the  form  or  treatment  that  is 
the  solid  and  concrete  thing.  This  specialized  usage  con- 
fines the  matter  of  a  work  of  fine  art  to  general  ideas  which 
we  may  believe  it  expressed  dimly  or  clearly  to  the  artist; 
and  regards  its  form  as  the  embodiment  he  has  given  these 
ideas,  considered  independently.  The  proviso  limiting 
matter  to  those  general  ideas  under  whose  guidance  we  may 
conceive  the  artist  to  have  worked  is  a  necessary  one. 
Else  part  of  the  matter  treated  in  a  landscape  showing  the 
mouldering  roof  of  a  cottage  might  be  the  idea  of  the 
lamentable  fate  of  those  born  before  the  invention  of  a 


12  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

certain  wood  preservative;  for  this,  too,  is  a  general  idea 
which  the  picture  may  express  to  a  manufacturer  inspect- 
ing it.  So  understanding  the  terms  matter  and  form,  the 
question  —  "What  proportion  of  the  beauty  of  a  work 
of  art  is  due  to  its  matter  and  what  to  its  form?  "  -  is  an 
impossible  one.  We  cannot  subtract  its  matter  and  leave  its 
form.  The  two  things  compared  must  be  the  matter  on  one 
side  and  the  total  work  on  the  other.  We  must  ask — What 
proportion  is  there  between  the  beauty  which  abstract 
notions  may  possess  and  that  which  may  be  given  their 
concrete  illustration?  Not,  be  it  noted,  the  proportion 
between  the  value  of  an  abstract  notion  and  the  value 
of  its  concrete  illustration.  By  the  beauty  of  a  general 
idea  we  do  not  mean  its  usefulness,  the  indirect  worth  it 
may  possess  through  the  grasp  it  gives  us  of  the  world, 
but  the  pleasure  its  simple  contemplation  affords.  To  the 
question  as  thus  stated  the  answer  cannot  be  doubtful. 
Heine  is  right.  Speaking  broadly,  the  internal  fascination 
of  the  matter  of  a  work  of  fine  art  considered  separately  is 
a  negligible  affair  compared  with  the  charm  which  may 
inhere  in  the  total  work  as  formed  matter.  To  use  the 
familiar  word,  the  "story"  of  a  work  of  art,  made  up  out 
of  the  general  ideas  it  embodies,  contributes  only  minimally 
to  the  beauty  it  may  possess, 

In  proof  of  this  conclusion  let  us  take  two  actual  in- 
stances in  which  the  matter  of  a  poem  has  been  outlined 
for  us,  in  the  one  case  by  the  poet,  in  the  other  by  an  ac- 
curate if  antipathetic  observer.  Poe  thus  describes  in  detail 
the  story  of  his  poem  "The  Raven";  without  being  able 
to  avoid  making  his  description  itself  a  kindred  work  of 
art  in  prose.  "A  raven,  having  learned  by  rote  the  single 
word  *  Nevermore,'  and  having  escaped  from  its  owner,  is 
driven  at  midnight,  through  the  violence  of  a  storm,  to 
seek  admission  at  a  window  from  which  a  light  still  gleams 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART  IS 

-  the  chamber  window  of  a  student,  occupied  half  in 
poring  over  a  volume,  half  in  dreaming  of  a  beloved  mis- 
tress deceased.  The  casement  being  thrown  open  at  the 
fluttering  of  the  bird's  wings,  the  bird  itself  perches  on  the 
most  convenient  seat  out  of  the  immediate  reach  of  the 
student,  who,  amused  by  the  incident  and  the  oddity  of 
the  visitor's  demeanor,  demands  of  it,  in  jest  and  with- 
out looking  for  a  reply,  its  name.  The  Raven  addressed 
answers  with  its  customary  word  'Nevermore'  —  a  word 
which  finds  immediate  echo  in  the  melancholy  heart  of  the 
student,  who,  giving  utterance  aloud  to  certain  thoughts 
suggested  by  the  occasion,  is  again  startled  by  the  fowl's 
repetition  of  '  Nevermore.'  The  student  now  guesses  the 
state  of  the  case,  but  is  impelled,  as  I  have  before  explained, 
by  the  human  thirst  for  self-torture,  and  in  part  by  super- 
stition, to  propound  such  queries  to  the  bird  as  will  bring 
him,  the  lover,  the  most  of  the  luxury  of  sorrow  through  the 
anticipated  answer  'Nevermore.'  .  .  .  The  reader  begins 
now  to  regard  the  Raven  as  emblematical — but  it  is  not 
until  the  very  last  line  of  the  very  last  stanza  that  the  in- 
tention of  making  him  emblematical  of  Mournful  and  never- 
ending  Remembrance  is  permitted  distinctly  to  be  seen." 

The  other  instance  is  the  following  succinct  account  of 
the  story  of  Tennyson's  "Enoch  Arden,"  which  is  said  to 
have  been  given  by  the  English  economist  Walter  B age- 
hot.  "A  sailor  who  sells  fish  breaks  his  leg,  gets  dismal, 
gives  up  selling  fish,  goes  to  sea,  is  wrecked  on  a  desert 
island,  stays  there  some  years,  on  his  return  finds  his  wife 
married  to  another,  speaks  to  a  landlady  on  the  subject, 
and  dies." 

As  to  the  other  member  of  the  comparison,  what  shall 
we  say  is  the  work  of  art  itself?  The  impressions  received 
in  contemplating  it  may  be  very  different  things  with  dif- 
ferent people.  Which  can  be  called  the  work? 


14  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

What  the  poet  Edwin  Markham  found  in  Millet's  pic- 
ture of  the  "Man  with  the  Hoe"  he  has  eloquently  set 
forth  in  the  poem  bearing  that  title: 

"Bowed  by  the  weight  of  centuries  he  leans 
Upon  his  hoe  and  gazes  on  the  ground, 
The  emptiness  of  ages  in  his  face, 
And  on  his  back  the  burden  of  the  world. 

"Slave  of  the  wheel  of  labor,  what  to  him 
Are  Plato  and  the  swing  of  Pleiades? 
What  the  long  reaches  of  the  peaks  of  song, 
The  rift  of  dawn,  the  reddening  of  the  rose? 

"  How  will  it  be  with  kingdoms  and  with  kings  — 
With  those  who  shaped  him  to  the  thing  he  is  — 
When  this  dumb  Terror  shall  reply  to  God, 
After  the  silence  of  the  centuries?" 

But  let  us  hear  Millet  himself.  His  ruling  purpose,  he 
tells  us,  was  to  paint  man  and  his  surroundings  as  a  unit; 
and  this  purpose  is  now  spoken  of  as  his  especial  origi- 
nality, his  contribution  to  the  art  of  landscape.  "When 
you  paint  a  picture,"  he  said,  "be  it  a  house,  a  wood,  a 
plain,  the  sea,  the  sky,  think  always  of  the  presence  of  man, 
of  his  affinities  of  joy  or  pain  with  such  a  spectacle;  then 
an  inward  voice  will  speak  to  you  of  his  family,  his  occu- 
pations, his  anxieties,  his  predilections;  the  idea  will  bring 
within  that  orbit  all  humanity;  in  creating  a  landscape 
you  will  think  of  man,  in  creating  a  man  you  will  think  of 
the  landscape."  Of  the  "  Man  with  the  Hoe,"  he  wrote  to  a 
friend:  "  The  on  dit  about  my  •'  Man  with  the  Hoe '  always 
seem  to  me  most  strange,  and  I  am  obliged  to  you  for  tell- 
ing me  of  them,  for  they  give  me  a  new  opportunity  to 
wonder  at  the  ideas  that  are  attributed  to  me.  In  what 
Union  did  my  critics  ever  find  me?  Socialist!  Truly  I 
could  answer  them  in  the  words  of  that  Auvergnat  com- 
missioner who  replied  to  a  criticism  from  his  fellow-towns- 
men: 'They  say  at  home  that  I  am  a  Saint-Simonian ; 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    15 

*t  is  n't  true,  I  don't  even  know  what  that  means.'  Can't 
people  simply  conceive  the  ideas  which  may  come  into 
one's  mind  at  the  sight  of  a  man  who  is  destined  to  gain 
his  living  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow?  There  are  even  people 
who  say  that  I  deny  the  charm  of  the  country.  I  find  far 
more  than  charms.  I  find  infinite  splendors.  I  see  as  well 
as  they  do  the  little  flowers  of  which  Christ  said:  'Even 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these.' 
I  see  clearly  the  haloes  of  the  dandelions,  and  the  sun 
which  unfolds  yonder,  over  the  landscape  and  beyond,  his 
glory  in  the  clouds.  I  see  no  less,  in  the  smoking  plain, 
horses  at  work;  then  in  a  stony  spot  a  man  tired  out,  whose 
ejaculation  'han'  has  been  heard  since  morning,  and  who 
tries  to  straighten  up  and  get  his  breath.  The  drama  is 
wrapped  in  splendors.  My  critics  are  educated  people  of 
taste,  I  fancy;  but  I  cannot  put  myself  in  their  skin,  and  as 
I  have  never  in  all  my  life  seen  anything  but  the  fields,  I 
try  to  say  as  I  can  what  I  have  seen  and  experienced  while 
I  worked  there." 

Far  less  success  than  Millet  met  in  trying  to  say  on 
canvas  what  he  had  seen  and  experienced  might  attend 
other  artists  with  other  beholders.  Imagine  the  Abbe 
Prevost's  novel  of  "Manon  Lescaut"  perused  by  Goethe's 
student  in  "Faust,"  in  whose  opinion 

"The  hand  that  Saturdays  wields  the  broom 
Will  best  caress  thee  Sundays." 

Or  by  the  English  squire  of  the  popular  play,  who  wooed 
because  "The  Hall  needs  a  mistress,  and  its  hearth- 
stones baby  feet";  or  by  Rodolphe  in  Murger's  "Vie  de 
Boheme"  with  his  learned  certainty  that  "V instrument 
itait  d' accord" ;  or  by  Dante,  whom  the  maiden  he  had 
met  but  twice  or  thrice  on  earth  must  warn  him,  even  in 
heaven,  "Not  only  in  my  eyes  is  Paradise."  To  the  Bursch 
the  novel  would  suggest  blows  —  "Pruegel"  \  to  the  squire, 


16  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

divorce.  To  Rodolphe  it  would  give  back  his  whole  youth; 
to  Dante  also  bits  of  heaven,  all  spotted  by  the  world. 
What  must  his  Crucifixion  in  San  Marco  have  been  to  Fra 
Angelico  as  he  painted  it;  and  what  would  it  have  been  to 
Geronimo  and  his  band  of  Apaches,  who  heard  the  story 
after  their  capture  only  to  grunt  their  regret  that  this  par- 
ticular method  of  death  by  torture  had  never  occurred  to 
them  in  any  of  their  raids?  These  are  differences  of  com- 
prehension based  on  mental  and  moral  endowment  and 
experience.  There  are  also  differences  of  physical  capacity : 
muscular  and  tactile  idiosyncrasies;  individualities  of  visual 
or  auditory  perception  —  varieties  of  type  or  range  of 
sensations  of  sight,  varieties  of  force,  discrimination  and 
retentiveness  of  sensations  of  noise  or  tone. 

These  are  the  differences  and  the  possibilities  of  dif- 
ference between  individual  impressions  from  one  and  the 
same  work  of  art.  What  then  is  the  work?  Evidently  it  is 
the  thing  the  artist  wrought;  and  this  thing  is  the  total 
impression  from  the  work  which  satisfied  him  to  leave  it 
as  it  is,  to  believe  it  thoroughly  made  —  per-factum  —  as 
far  as  possible  to  him.  To  find  the  work  made  we  must  go 
back  to  the  maker.  Instead  of  assuming  him  to  be  in  our 
skin  —  to  use  Millet's  phrase  —  we  must  put  ourselves  in 
his  skin.  We  must  resurrect,  as  far  as  we  may,  the  sensa- 
tions, images,  thoughts  and  feelings  which  his  finished  crea- 
tion embodied  to  him.  We  must  conceive  the  work  as  it 
unrolled  itself  in  his  mind,  when,  at  its  completion,  he 
could  review  it  in  every  part,  in  the  revel  (Schmaus)  which 
Mozart  said  the  final  review  of  his  compositions  brought 
him.  It  is  this  experience  that  we  must  engender  again  in 
our  own  spirit  if  we  would  know  the  work  of  art  as  it  is. 
In  the  words  of  Pope: 

"A  perfect  judge  will  read  each  work  of  wit 
In  the  same  spirit  that  its  author  writ." l 

1  Essay  on  Criticism,  Part  n. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    17 

Anything  short  of  this  reconstitution  of  the  artist's  own 
perception  of  his  work  is  ignorance  of  it  more  or  less  pro- 
found; for  it  is  ignorance  of  that  which  brought  it  into  being, 
of  that  for  which  it  exists  at  all. 

It  is  true  that  by  no  means  every  workman  intending 
that  the  fruit  of  his  toil  shall  offer  the  world  materials  for 
such  a  revel  obtains  his  wish.  We  sometimes  speak  of  the 
artist  as  of  a  supernal  being  differing  in  kind  and  not  sim- 
ply in  degree  from  other  men.  An  artist's  work  may  even 
in  part  be  his  despair;  as  when  Rostand  exclaims:  "What 
matters  it  though  rhyme  and  metre  yield  to  us,  if  the 
dream  we  would  put  into  them  no  longer  lives ! " 1  He  may 
mistrust  both  it  and  himself;  as  when  Zola  asks:  "Surely, 
there  is  some  good  in  what  I  have  done";  or  Kipling: 
"Heart  of  my  heart,  have  I  done  well?"  His  enthusiasm 
may  be  a  fire  of  straw  that  in  the  end  would  have  burned 
itself  out  where  it  was  kindled;  as  we  may  believe  of  many 
of  the 

**.  .  .  epics  .  .  .  wrecked  by  time 
Since  Herrick  launched  his  cockle-shells  of  rhyme." 

He  may  live  to  condemn  his  work  himself,  as  we  may  fancy 
that  emulator  of  Michel  Angelo  did  who  perished  of  chagrin 
under  the  ridicule  heaped  upon  his  Moses  of  the  Fontana 
dei  Termini.  Or,  however  inextinguishable  in  himself,  he 
may  find  the  fire  of  his  fancy  incommunicable  to  others,  as 
Bizet  found  the  beauties  of  his  "  Carmen  "  incommunicable 
to  the  Paris  of  his  day.  But  unless  the  fire  is  there,  the 
revel  ready,  he  is  no  artist  at  all,  as  Arnold  reminded  his 
fellow-craftsmen  in  uncouth  lines  that  seem  humorously 
intended  as  an  instance  of  what  they  condemn: 

"What  poets  feel  not,  when  they  make, 

A  pleasure  in  creating, 
The  world  in  its  turn  will  not  take 
Pleasure  in  contemplating." 

1  E.  Rostand,  Le  Vers  el  i'ldee. 


18  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

Nevertheless,  it  is  in  the  artist's  own  soul,  great  or  small, 
that  alone  we  can  find  his  work.  In  spite  of  all  the  uncer- 
tainties and  difficulties  of  the  task,  we  must  try  to  live  over 
again  —  as  far  as  we  may,  and  it  may  not  be  very  far  — 
his  experience  as  its  re-reader,  re-auditor,  re-spectator. 
To  know  it  we  must  go  back  to  him. 

According  to  Schopenhauer,  the  artistic  object  is  in  it- 
self what  he  calls  a  Platonic  Idea,  although  he  is  ready  to 
admit  that  Plato  might  have  questioned  the  appropriate- 
ness of  the  name.  It  is  a  something  neither  abstract  nor 
concrete,  but  both  at  once  —  what  may  be  called  a  uni- 
versal particular.  This  sounds  like  one  of  those  distressing 
things,  not  unknown  in  philosophy,  which  are  what  they 
are  not.  But  if  we  may  interpret  the  phrase  by^  our  own 
lights  the  laws  of  thought  still  stand  in  spite  of  it.  The  work 
of  art  is  not  the  sum  of  abstractions  the  artist  sought  to 
embody  in  it;  nor  yet  the  particular  thing  which  any  and 
every  one  may  find  it  to  be;  but  only  that  particular  thing 
which  the  artist  recognizes  as  his  message  to  whom  it  may 
concern.  He  may  have  caught  the  ultramarine  of  a  brim- 
ming brook  against  the  new  green  of  springing  grass  under 
an  April  sky,  and  forced  the  tones  of  the  combination, 
subordinating  or  omitting  other  details  that  were  unneces- 
sary to  its  verisimilitude  or  distracting  from  the  beauty 
that  had  struck  his  fancy.  This  is  to  see  things  through  a 
mood,  or  a  temperament,  or  an  endowment;  as  a  portrait 
does  and  a  photograph  does  not.  The  real  picture  does  not 
lie  on  the  canvas  open  to  every  eye,  but  in  the  mind  of  the 
artist  and  his  twin-brother,  the  beholder  whose  eyes  are 
portals  to  a  like  mind.  In  this  sense  we  may  agree  that  a 
work  of  art  is  a  universal  particular:  an  Idea,  in  at  least 
a  new  Platonic  acceptation. 

The  two  members  of  the  comparison  —  the  matter  and 
the  work  —  are  now  clear.  On  the  one  hand,  the  matter, 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    19 

consisting  of  certain  general  ideas  which  the  work  expresses 
to  the  artist;  on  the  other,  this  subject  formed  into  the 
concrete  object  experienced  by  him  as  the  work.  In  com- 
paring the  two  in  the  specimen  instances  of  "The  Raven  " 
and  "Enoch  Arden,"  our  business  is  to  estimate  the  inter- 
nal charm  of  the  subjects  of  these  poems  as  stated  to  us, 
in  relation  to  the  charm  of  the  objects  which  we  know  as 
the  poems.  To  this  end  we  must  try  at  first  to  divest  our- 
selves of  our  knowledge  of  the  poems,  lest  fragments  of  their 
form  should  mingle  for  us  with  their  matter  in  recurrent 
memories.  We  must  further  try  to  neglect  the  opposite 
tempers  in  which  the  two  stories  are  narrated,  one  insen- 
sibly harmonizing  with  the  mood  of  the  poem,  the  other 
purposely  diverting  us  from  it.  We  must  then  compare  the 
two  series  of  abstractions  with  the  poems  as  we  re-read 

Kthem.  Thus  carrying  out  the  two  comparisons,  it  appears, 
as  it  would  in  any  other  cases,  that  the  beauty  of  the  mat- 
ter of  a  work  of  art  is  a  vanishing  quantity  compared  with 
the  beauty  that  the  work  itself  may  possess.  Poe's  sum- 
mary of  "The  Raven"  has  little,  indeed,  of  the  compelling 
power  of  the  poem  even  to  us  of  another  century.  Who 
that  has  heard  "Enoch  Arden"  read  as  it  may  be  will 
remember  the  cry,  "A  sail!  A  sail!"  with  anything  but 
a  thrill,  or  Bagehot's  epitome  with  anything  but  impa- 
tience. The  subjects  of  the  two  poems  seem  simple  threads 
through  them,  the  verses  themselves  two  superbly  woven 
textures  —  of  apt  and  graceful  expression,  of  imagery,  of 
pathos,  of  insight,  of  rhythm,  of  harmony  and  melody  of 
sound  —  that  the  threads  serve  only  to  bind  together. 
Speaking  generally,  no  exposition  in  abstract  terms  of  the 
content  of  any  work  of  man's  hand  that  the  maker  loved 
and  made  for  us  to  love,  possesses  an  immediate  pleasur- 
ableness,  a  beauty,  even  remotely  approximating  the  par- 
ticular delight  of  which  it  was  born  and  which  it  aims  to 


20  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

perpetuate.  To  seek  formulas  in  which  its  kernel  of  native 
charm  shall  be  imprisoned,  its  inherently  valuable  essence 
drawn  off  for  us,  is  to  grasp  at  shadows  for  substance,  and 
to  leave  ourselves  poor  when  we  might  be  rich.  In  Ger6me's 
atelier,  before  the  picture  called  Les  Deux  MajesUs  show- 
ing a  lion  crouching  in  the  desert  and  gazing  at  the  rising 
sun,  a  visitor  is  said  once  to  have  remarked:  "C'est  bien, 
QCL;  mais  qu'est-ce  que  cela  prouve?"  "Cela  prouve"  re- 
plied Gerome,  "que  vous  etes  idiot."  1 

The  question  implicit  in  the  remark  of  Heine  has  proved 
impossible  to  answer  as  he  suggested  it.  Does  the  beauty 
of  a  work  of  art  reside  in  its  matter  or  its  form?  Of  the 
second  member  of  this  alternative  we  have  no  independent 
experience.  We  can  isolate  more  or  less  of  the  subject  of 
a  work  of  art  in  a  series  of  statements,  but  the  process  of 
abstraction  leaves  no  residue  that  we  can  separately  iden- 
tify as  the  treatment.  For  this  we  have  been  constrained  to 
substitute  the  work  of  art  itself,  and  have  found  that 
beauty  of  matter,  inherent  charm  of  a  group  of  abstrac- 
tions, is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  immediate  pleas- 
urableness,  the  beauty,  that  we  may  discover  when  we  try 
to  reproduce  in  ourselves  the  total  of  impressions,  sensory, 
imaginative,  and  emotional,  in  which  we  are  led  to  think 
the  work  consisted  to  the  workman.  Heine's  remark,  al- 
though an  inexact  statement,  involves  a  truth. 

PROCESS  AND   PRODUCT 

The  question  implicit  in  Byron's  remark,  although  a  pos- 
sible one,  proves  also  unanswerable.  Does  the  beauty  of  a 

1  The  same  conclusion  may  be  indirectly  reached  by  a  strict  deduction  from 
indubitable  premises.  While  we  cannot  isolate  the  form  of  a  work  of  art,  we  can 
compare  two  embodiments  of  the  same  motive:  for  example  the  Joan  of  Arc  of 
Dubois  and  the  Joan  of  Arc  of  Fremiet.  The  differences  between  them  belong  to 
the  factor  of  form.  Now  these  differences  are  literally  infinite.  But  in  calling  the 
subject  of  the  two  the  same  we  define  it  as  a  finite  group  of  abstractions. 
Whence  it  follows  mathematically  that  matter  in  a  work  of  art  vanishes  in  com- 
parison with  form. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART  21 

work  of  art  reside  in  method  or  result  of  method?  The 
question  is  unanswerable  because  it  shuts  us  up  to  one  or 
other  alternative.  "The  poet  that  executes  best  is  the 
highest "  suggests  that  artistic  excellence  inheres  in  the  way 
a  thing  is  done.  What  is  done  does  not  count.  The  truth  is 
that  either  or  both  may  count.  Byron's  remark  —  thus 
interpreted  and  perhaps  unjustly  —  although  an  exact 
statement,  involves  an  untruth.  The  thing  its  maker  loved, 
and  made  for  us  to  love,  may  be  either  a  process  of  accom- 
plishment, or  the  product  accomplished,  or  both  at  once. 
What  he  took  his  delight  in  may  either  be  solely  his  use  of 
means  to  an  end,  or  solely  the  end  he  reached,  irrespective 
of  how  he  came  there;  or  he  may  glory  in  dexterity  and 
achievement  at  once. 

All  our  sports,  including  games  of  skill,  are,  in  their  meas- 
ure and  way,  fine  arts  of  the  process.  They  consist  in 
bodies  of  rules  for  reaching  certain  goals  in  rivalry;  and  the 
true  spirit  of  sport  consists  in  an  enjoyment  of  strife  to- 
ward the  goal  under  the  rules.  The  goal  may  be,  and  often 
is,  wholly  indifferent.  Victory,  the  attainment  of  it,  is  a 
touchstone  of  the  excellence  of  the  striving,  and  its  antic- 
ipation is  one  source  of  our  delight  in  the  striving;  but  the 
sport  is  over  when  it  ensues,  and  its  joys  —  the  bag,  the 
decision,  the  record,  the  prize  —  are  an  addendum  to  the 
sporting  fervor.  The  real  sportsman  —  the  true  lover  of 
hunting,  fishing,  yachting,  rowing,  football,  tennis,  golf, 
billiards,  cards,  chess  —  is  an  artist  of  the  process.  He  is 
even  satisfied  to  lose,  if  he  has  played  his  game  well  — 
that  is,  in  a  way  that  in  the  long  run  wrould  bring  victory 
—  for  his  joy  is  gaudium  certaminis. 

Gaudium  certaminis  in  real  life  may  develop  the  artistic 
spirit.  Admiral  Dewey,  just  after  his  "conquest  of  an  em- 
pire without  the  loss  of  a  man,"  is  said  to  have  remarked, 
"I  hope  it  will  be  thought  a  workman-like  job,"  having  in 


22  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

mind,  not  the  empire,  but  the  conquest.  The  railroad  or- 
ganizer Harriman  is  reported  to  have  remarked  of  his  suc- 
cess, "There  is  more  in  the  game  for  me  than  what  has 
been  said;  there  is  the  satisfaction  of  doing  a  thing  right"  l 
—  in  his  turn  thinking,  not  of  the  systems  consolidated, 
with  the  wealth  and  power  they  brought  him,  but  of  the 
ingenious,  daring  and  patient  combinations  by  which  he 
effected  his  purposes,  other  men  notwithstanding.  These 
were  a  work  of  art;  there  was  beauty  in  them. 

The  joy  of  non-competitive  struggle,  mental  or  bodily  — 
gaudium  certaminis  without  an  animate  opponent  —  may 
make  of  it  a  work  of  art.  A  mathematical  proof  brings  to 
light  two  chief  sources  of  our  delight  in  the  use  of  means. 
We  may  take  pleasure  either  in  their  economy  or  their 
aptness.  Economy  of  means  gives  us  a  sense  of  power,  their 
aptness  a  sense  of  good  fortune;  both  pleasant  things, 
capable  of  making  the  process  that  illustrates  them  warm 
our  hearts  as  we  review  it.  A  geometrical  demonstration 
may  be  elegant  both  because  so  simple  and  because  we 
wonder  at  the  discovery  of  the  tiny  but  inevitable  gateway 
to  the  new  certainty.  The  certainty  itself  —  for  instance, 
that  the  angle  reached  by  the  proof  is  the  tenth  part  of  a 
circle  —  may  be  wholly  indifferent.  The  method,  not  the 
result,  is  here  a  work  of  fine  art.  Feats  of  strength,  agility, 
leger-de-main,  may  become  works  of  fine  art,  uninterest- 
ing as  the  deeds  accomplished  —  the  thrown  weight,  the 
cleared  bar,  the  bits  of  paper  held  in  the  air  by  a  fan  - 
may  be  in  themselves.  What  the  singer  admires,  and 
wants  us  to  admire  in  his  roulades,  the  violinist  in  his 
cadenzas,  is  not  the  musical  phrases  —  these  may  be 
empty  and  tedious  enough  —  but  the  deft  play  of  the 
vocal  organs,  the  miraculous  bowing  and  fingering. 

Yet  incomparably  the  more  important  type  of  fine  art 

1  At  a  dinner  of  the  Economic  Club  in  New  York,  November  30,  1908. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    23 

is  that  in  which  the  work  is  product  also,  and  not  solely, 
if  at  all,  process;  an  end  achieved,  whether  or  not  the  means 
toward  the  end  as  well.  The  product  may  be  an  occur- 
rence —  as  in  literature,  music,  acting,  the  dance  —  or  a 
tangible  object  —  as  in  painting,  sculpture,  their  minor 
derivatives  and  architecture.  In  either  case  the  process 
remains  unperceived  by  the  beholder,  although  the  product 
may  in  one  or  another  point  betray  it,  and  by  intention  of 
the  artist.  His  art  is  then  one  of  both  process  and  product. 
The  gossamer  make  of  a  Chinese  ink-painting  may  pro- 
pose to  the  beholder's  admiration  the  wonderful  surety  of 
the  maker's  hand ;  the  endless  refinements  of  a  Greek  carv- 
ing his  acuteness  of  eye,  his  delicacy  of  hand,  the  subtlety 
and  reach  of  his  imagination. 

But  for  the  beholder  of  productive  art  there  remains 
between  process  and  product  the  gulf  that  separates  per- 
ception from  inference.  He  does  not  see,  he  only  fancies, 
the  artist  at  work.  There  remains  for  him  also  the  bar  that 
any  ignorance  of  the  artist's  craft  may  interpose.  There 
remains  for  him  also  the  immense  disproportion  between 
the  range  of  impressions  concerned  in  process  and  prod- 
uct: on  the  one  side  the  events  of  a  workshop,  on  the 
other  the  macrocosm  about  the  maker,  the  whole  of  life 
outside  his  technical  task,  any  part  of  which  the  microcosm 
forming  the  work  may  set  before  its  beholder.  Finally,  the 
choicest  elements  of  his  work,  those  due  to  inspiration,  con- 
tain no  intimation  of  the  process  of  their  birth,  for  there 
was  no  process.  They  did  not  become  at  all,  they  simply 
were,  to  him  as  they  are  to  us.  These  are  conclusions  very 
damaging  to  the  element  of  process  in  productive  art.  The 
beholder  means  the  future.  The  value  he  cannot  descry  is 
not  the  worth  whereby  Vuom  s'eterna  —  the  maker  im- 
mortalizes himself.  For  the  beholder  the  beauties  of  genesis 
are  too  impossibly  recondite,  too  absurdly  scanty,  com- 


24  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

pared  with  the  open  and  illimitable  charm  which  a  product 
may  possess  independently  of  all  its  hints  of  how  it  came  to 
be.  Technical  qualities  —  if  by  this  phrase  we  mean  fea- 
tures that  betray  the  secrets  of  a  craft  —  are  nothing:  the 
work  of  art  apart  from  them  is  everything.  They  doubtless 
made  up  the  chief  beauty  of  a  coat  by  Heine's  tailor,  for  we 
may  believe  it  offered  little  to  the  non-sartorial  eye;  like- 
wise the  brushwork  of  a  painter,  that  makes  its  effect  as  if 
by  enchantment,  may  be  our  wonder  and  his  pride.  But 
when  all  is  said,  we  can  still  call  these  beauties  nothing. 
Our  admiration  of  skill  has  its  close  limits ;  our  admiration 
of  its  results  none. 

But  let  us  be  on  our  guard  against  the  deceitfulness  of 
words.  The  phrase  "technical  qualities"  has  plainly  an- 
other meaning,  and  one  of  importance  for  beauty.  Techni- 
cal quality  in  a  sestina  may  mean,  it  is  true,  the  dexterous 
process  which  we  infer  laid  out  six  stanzas  and  a  final  trip- 
let with  the  same  six  terminal  words  in  varied  combina- 
tions, and  fitted  to  them  comprehensible  and  charming 
lines.  The  idea  of  this  process  counts  truly  for  little  in  its 
beauty.  But  technical  quality  may  also  mean  a  fact  of 
observation :  the  fact,  for  instance,  that  all  the  six  stanzas 
and  the  final  triplet  of  a  poem  ring  changes  on  the  same 
six  words;  and  this  is  a  most  enjoyable  characteristic  of 
the  product.  The  phrase  technical  quality  can  rightly  be 
applied  to  such  a  feature  for  the  reason  that  only  a  writer 
long  exercised  in  metrical  composition  can  compass  it. 
Technical  qualities  in  this  sense  are  difficult  beauties. 
They  are  the  perfections  of  execution  in  a  work  of  art, 
its  far-fetched  and  dear-bought  excellences.  Doubtless  it 
is  this  sense  that  we  must  read  into  Byron's  dictum.  If 
so,  no  knowledge  of  the  artist's  craft  is  needed  to  perceive 
the  perfection  of  execution  he  praised :  only  eyes  and  their 
patient  use. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    25 

It  is  true  that  a  knowledge  of  the  possibilities  of  failure 
in  such  attempts  may  greatly  sharpen  our  eyes  and  develop 
our  patience  in  the  apprehension  of  their  success.  The 
case  may  be  compared  to  that  of  translation.  The  process 
of  finding  the  nearest  equivalent  in  one  language  for  an 
expression  in  another  may  reveal  to  us  its  meaning  much 
more  quickly  than  the  process  of  acquiring  it  as  a  part  of  a 
mother  tongue.  Nevertheless  the  mental  standpoint  of  the 
translator  is  one  of  only  demi-culture.  Until  he  can  forget 
the  vernacular  quasi-equivalent,  until  he  can  return  wholly 
to  the  atmosphere  of  the  phrase  to  be  translated,  as  if  it 
were  his  mother  tongue,  he  has  but  half  comprehended  it. 
So  with  the  apprehension  of  a  piece  of  productive  art. 
Unless  we  can  forget  the  thoughts  of  method  which  have 
sharpened  our  eyes  and  developed  our  patience  to  appre- 
hend its  results,  and  live  alone  in  these  results,  we  have 
missed  the  full  impression  that  the  artist  offers  us.  The 
mental  standpoint  of  the  beholder  who  must  find  in  knowl- 
edge of  technique  the  key  to  a  grasp  of  technical  qualities, 
of  the  hard- won  excellences  in  the  work  beheld,  is  also  one 
of  demi-culture.  Yet  let  us  not  deny  to  the  demi-culture  of 
translation  its  rights  to  respect.  Better  a  thousand  times 
only  to  touch  the  hem  of  ancient  saintly  garments  than  to 
ignore  the  Vedas  and  the  Prophets  altogether;  and  only 
to  look  into  faces  transfigured  by  beautiful  visions  than  to 
know  nothing  at  all  of  Sophocles,  or  Virgil  or  Tolstoi.  So 
the  aid  of  a  knowledge  of  craftsmanship  is  not  to  be  de- 
spised, if  it  but  supply,  and  not  intensify,  the  lack  of  in- 
tuitive recognition. 

However  perceived,  the  apprehension  of  technical  quali- 
ties in  this  sense  does  not  shut  us  up  in  the  atelier,  but 
opens  to  us  the  world  without.  But  while  they  may  be 
choice  parts  of  the  finished  work,  they  may  not  be  its 
choicest  part.  The  fruits  of  inspiration  are  still  the  despair 


26  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

of  technique,  still  "the  shame  of  slow-endeavoring  art." 
These  have  no  paternity  on  earth.  They  are  nameless 
offspring  of  an  immaculate  conception,  as  all  the  greatest 
blessings  of  mankind  are  held  to  be. 

The  answer  to  the  question  implicit  in  Byron's  dictum 
proves  more  complex  than  the  conclusion  as  to  matter  and 
form.  It  appears  that  there  are  two  types  of  fine  art:  one 
in  which  the  work  of  art  —  the  thing  "done  as  if  the  maker 
loved  it,"  to  use  Mill's  phrase  —  is  the  means  he  uses  to- 
ward an  end;  the  other  in  which  it  is  also,  if  not  exclusively, 
the  end  he  reached.  There  are  also  two  senses  which  may 
be  given  the  phrase  "technical  quality."  In  the  fine  arts 
of  process,  technical  qualities  in  the  first  sense  of  features 
telling  of  productive  activity,  are  everything,  the  result 
achieved  nothing.  In  the  arts  of  product,  —  the  fine  arts 
par  excellence  —  they  are  nothing,  the  result  everything. 
But  the  phrase  may  also  mean  features  of  a  result :  those, 
namely,  which  it  requires  much  practice  in  an  art  to 
achieve,  though  none  to  apprehend ;  and  in  this  second  sense 
the  productive  arts  owe  technical  qualities  much,  albeit  not 
the  best,  of  their  beauty. 

A  woeful  error  —  apparently  not  uncurrent  —  jumbles 
the  dicta  of  Heine  and  Byron.  The  blunder  may  be  stated 
in  the  following  inference:  In  fine  art,  matter  is  nothing, 
form  everything;  therefore  what  an  artist  takes  for  his 
theme  is  indifferent,  the  whole  of  art  lies  in  his  way  of 
treating  it.  That  this  conclusion  is  an  extravagance  ap- 
pears when  we  reflect  that  in  the  general  judgment  a  half- 
length  would  never  be  so  good  a  portrait  if  taken  from  the 
waist  down,  as  it  might  be  if  taken  from  the  waist  up ;  nor 
a  picture  of  an  ulcer  —  to  keep  to  a  bearable  instance  — 
ever  so  commanding  a  work  of  art  as  a  landscape  might  be. 
The  painter  Raffaelli  even  affirms  that  there  never  was  a 
well-painted  battle  piece.  The  conclusion  rejected,  what 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    27 

is  wrong  with  the  inference?  The  fallacy  is  plausible.  If 
matter  is  zero  in  art,  what  difference  can  it  make  from  what 
zero  an  artist  starts?  The  reply  is  that  to  call  matter  noth- 
ing in  comparison  with  the  work  that  sets  it  forth  is  not  to 
deny  the  endless  differences  of  such  nothings.  The  ab- 
stract notions  that  make  them  up  are  like  the  differentials 
of  mathematics,  all  infinitesimal,  yet  varying  indefinitely 
when  integrated.  The  fallacy  is  plausible;  yet  so  egregious 
as  to  be  well-nigh  impossible  of  statement  in  terms  which 
shall  not  be  laughable.  Are  there  then  no  differences  of 
enjoyableness  in  objects  illustrating  different  general  ideas: 
a  tree  and  a  pencil,  for  instance,  a  disaster  and  a  dance? 
Thus  reduced  to  clarity,  the  muddled  persuasion  that 
motive  is  indifferent  in  fine  art,  treatment  all-powerful, 
proves  only  ridiculous. 

These  two  tendencies  of  opinion  regarding  the  fine  arts 
par  excellence  —  that  which  seeks  their  beauty  in  matter, 
instead  of  formed  matter,  and  that  which  seeks  it  in  proc- 
ess, instead  of  finished  product — are  both  vagaries,  indic- 
ative the  one  of  the  lay  attitude  of  mind,  the  other  of  the 
professional.  They  are  Idols  of  the  Cave,  to  use  Lord 
Bacon's  metaphor:  illusions  born  of  the  different  spheres 
within  which  men's  lives  are  passed.  For  most  of  us  our 
whole  existences  are  a  training  in  an  instantaneous  passage 
from  appearances  to  what  they  signify,  from  things  to  the 
stories  they  relate.  The  habit  is  out  of  place  when  the  things 
are  works  of  art.  It  misleads  us  in  our  search  for  the  espe- 
cial good  that  the  thing  was  made  to  bring  us.  Nevertheless 
the  familiar  tendency  reasserts  itself  here  also,  and  we  ask: 
"What  does  this  thing  show?"  "Whither  does  it  lead?" 
As  if  love  led  out  of  itself.  Of  the  lovers  in  "Les  Mise- 
rables"  Victor  Hugo  writes:  "Marius  and  Cosette  did  not 
ask  whither  this  wras  going  to  lead  them.  They  looked  upon 
themselves  as  already  arrived.  It  is  a  curious  idea  of  peo- 


28  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

pie  to  think  that  love  leads  anywhere."  l  Again,  for  the 
few  who  are  artists  life  passes  in  a  perpetual  struggle  with 
means  of  expression.  If  teachers  of  others,  as  most  artists 
are  at  one  time  or  another,  they  are  perpetually  criticising 
the  procedure  of  their  art,  and  inculcating  its  rules.  Pro- 
cedure and  its  rules  come  therefore  to  dominate  their 
thoughts,  as  they  do  the  thoughts  of  professional  philoso- 
phers. The  process  of  argument,  in  the  words  of  William 
James,  "is  usually  a  thing  of  much  more  pith  and  moment 
than  any  particular  beliefs  "  it  reaches.  On  all  mankind  the 
spirit  of  custom  is  "heavy  as  frost  and  deep  almost  as  life." 
What  wonder  then  that  the  layman,  confronted  by  an 
appearance  whose  native  value  inheres  inextricably  in  its 
whole  self  as  embodied  abstraction,  should  evaluate  it  not 
by  what  there  is  in  it,  but  by  what  he  can  separate  out  of 
it.  What  wonder  that  to  a  professional  the  work  of  art 
tends  to  mean  chiefly  the  toil  it  cost,  and  takes  its  value 
chiefly  from  its  success  rather  than  from  its  claims  to  suc- 
ceed. Meanwhile  the  body  of  impressions  which  make  up 
the  work  itself — the  reality  which  the  story  outlines,  the 
aim  which  the  technique  serves  —  is  slighted.  To  almost 
every  one  the  phrase  "study  of  art  "means  talk  about  it, 
or  practice  in  it;  to  almost  no  one  the  occupation  of  con- 
templating it.  Of  the  time  and  effort  we  devote  to  this 
ubiquitous  study  what  proportion  is  taken  up  by  actually 
listening  to  songs  and  symphonies,  actually  reading  poems, 
actually  inspecting  pictures  and  statues?  Let  the  ignorance 
out  of  which  public  and  professional  alike  speak  and  write 
upon  them  declare  how  little.  The  public  attends  to  the 
story  of  a  work,  the  professional  to  its  make,  and  neither 
to  the  story  as  made.  So  Cinderella  sat  by  the  fire  unno- 
ticed, while  her  two  sisters  went  to  the  ball  and  won  the 
admiration.  Yet  she  was  the  real  queen  and  in  the  end  re- 
ceived the  crown. 

1  Les  Miserables,  ivme  partie,  livre  8me,  chapitre  2. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    29 

ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE 

That  this  often  repeated  phrase  may  not  be  misunder- 
stood, let  us  recall  at  the  outset  the  definition  of  it  given 
by  a  protagonist,  Theophile  Gautier.  "Art  for  art's  sake 
signifies  for  adepts,  a  labor  freed  from  every  care  save  that 
of  beauty  in  itself."1 

A  work  of  fine  art  is  a  creation  of  man  which  is  beautiful 
in  its  totality,  whether  as  process  or  product,  the  work 
beautiful  as  product  being  incomparably  the  more  im- 
portant type. 

But  nothing,  however  satisfactory  in  itself,  can  be 
rightly  valued  unless  seen  also  in  its  relation  to  the  rest  of 
life;  and  men  have  always  sought  thus  to  weigh  the  fine 
arts.  Aristotle  writes  of  tragedy:  "By  pity  and  terror  it 
effects  the  purification  of  such  feelings."  Is  he  not  de- 
scribing rather  our  reaction  upon  drama,  than  drama  itself; 
its  use  to  us  rather  than  its  beauty  for  us?  The  books  tell 
us  that  Aristotle  never  made  himself  clear  upon  this  point. 
In  one  of  his  sonnets  Michel  Angelo  condemns  an  undivided 
allegiance  to  beauty  in  reflecting  upon  his  own  past: 

"...  the  passionate  fantasy 
That  made  of  art  my  idol  and  my  king, 
How  error-laden,  now  I  know  full  well."2 

In  his  little  prose  poem  "BeautS  Rustique"  M.  Anatole 
France  writes  of  the  threshing  floor  seen  from  his  window : 
"Dropping  my  books,  pen  and  paper,  I  look  with  envy 
upon  these  threshers  of  wheat,  these  simple  artisans  of 
man's  foremost  labor.  How  humble  and  little  I  feel  beside 
them !  What  they  do  is  necessary.  And  we,  frivolous  jug- 

1  Quoted  in  Larousse's  Encyclopaedia,  article  "Art." 

2  Sonnet  CXLVII. 

"  Onde  1'affectuosa  fantasia 
Che  Farte  mi  fece  idol  e  monarca, 
Conosco  or  ben,  com'era  d'error  carca." 


30  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

glers,  vain  players  on  the  flute,  can  we  flatter  ourselves  that 
we  accomplish  anything,  I  will  not  say  useful,  but  even  in- 
nocent? .  .  .  The  laborers  I  see  from  my  window  will  thrash 
to-day  three  hundred  sheaves  of  wheat;  then  they  will  go 
to  bed  tired  and  satisfied,  without  a  doubt  as  to  the  value 
of  their  work.  .  .  .  But  I,  shall  I  know  to-night,  when  my 
pages  are  written,  whether  I  have  well  filled  my  day  and 
merited  my  sleep?  Shall  I  know  whether  I  have  carried 
good  wheat  into  my  granary?  Shall  I  know  whether  my 
words  are  the  bread  that  supports  life?" 

Here  the  artist  of  Pastime  looks  beyond  his  art,  and  asks 
its  place  in  the  world  of  our  Necessities.  In  so  doing  he 
emerges  from  the  Contemplative  into  the  Active  life;  from 
the  life  personified  for  mediaeval  Europe  by  Rachel  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  Mary  in  the  New,  to  that  personified 
by  Leah  in  the  Old  Testament  and  Martha  in  the  New.  The 
Contemplative  life  so-called  by  our  forefathers  is  an  ex- 
istence devoted  simply  to  becoming  aware  of  things;  the 
Active  life  one  which  turns  them  to  purposes  beyond 
themselves.  The  arts  of  Pastime  have  their  end  in  the  life 
of  Contemplation.  Their  world  consists  of  things  of  which 
we  only  need  to  become  aware  to  know  their  right  to  be. 
The  arts  of  our  Necessities  end  in  the  life  of  Action.  Their 
world  consists  of  things  first  proving  their  right  to  be  when 
turned  to  purposes  beyond  themselves. 

Anything  that  is  has  its  relation  to  our  purposes  direct 
or  indirect.  Though  in  the  arts  of  Pastime,  the  fine  arts, 
we  aim  to  do  nothing  with  the  things  created,  they  will 
inevitably  do  something  with  us;  and  we  have  the  right  to 
demand  that  this  something  shall  at  least  be  nothing  bad 
-  preferably  it  should  be  something  good.  They  must  not 
be  harmful;  they  must  at  least  be  innocent,  as  M.  France 
implies  —  better  helpful.  It  is  evident  that  a  work  of  fine 
art  —  one  created  to  give  pleasure  by  the  immediate  im- 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    31 

pression  it  makes  on  the  mind  —  may  have  its  share 
of  harmful  effect  —  for  example,  the  "Danse  du  Venire"; 
may  be  innocent  —  for  example,  an  arabesque;  or  helpful  — 
for  example,  "the  height,  the  space,  the  gloom,  the  glory" 
of  Milan  Cathedral.  Practically  the  two  worlds  of  the  Con- 
templative life  and  the  Active  life  cannot  be  kept  apart.  A 
work  of  fine  art,  though  made  to  bring  us  the  good  that 
comes  from  simply  looking  at  it,  cannot  fail  to  influence  us 
beside  and  mostly  for  weal  or  woe.  Assuredly  we  must  see 
that  it  shall  not  do  away  by  its  effects  with  the  good  it 
brings  us  as  a  spectacle.  Yet  the  artist  is  concerned  only 
with  the  spectacle:  and  with  its  effects  only  as  these  en- 
hance it. 

A  thing  of  beauty  ought  also  to  be  a  thing  of  use.  Ad- 
mitted. The  proposition  may  also  be  reversed.  A  thing  of 
use  ought  also  to  be  a  thing  of  beauty.  The  demand  of 
practical  men  upon  artists  has  its  legitimate  counterpart  in 
a  demand  of  artists  upon  practical  men.  A  product  of  use- 
ful art  should  not  in  its  turn  do  away  as  a  spectacle  with 
the  good  it  brings  us  by  its  effects.  Practical  men  may  in- 
deed say  that  we  can  get  on  without  beautiful  things,  but 
not  without  useful  things;  clumsy  make  would  be  a  fatal 
lack  in  a  surgical  instrument;  awkward  appearance  prac- 
tically none.  Artists  may  retort  that  it  is  not  worth  while 
to  get  on  at  all  unless  we  reach  in  the  end  what  beautiful 
things  bring  us  at  once.  The  part  of  Mary  in  the  world  is 
a  good  one,  and  cannot  be  taken  away.  She  has  already 
what  Martha  is  still  working  for.  Another  day  may  never 
come,  but  now  is  here. 

The  complete  ideal  for  all  the  arts,  both  fine  and  useful, 
was  clearly  set  forth  to  the  passing  generation  of  English- 
speaking  people  by  William  Morris  in  the  words,  "A  joy 
to  the  maker  and  the  user."  The  motto,  "Art  for  art's 
sake,"  is  frivolous.  A  motto,  "Use  for  the  sake  of  use," 


32  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

would  be  imbecile.  The  cicada  of  La  Fontaine's  fable,  that 
lays  by  nothing  for  winter,  may  be  a  trifler.  An  ant  that 
should  lay  by  and  never  intend  to  take  out  for  winter 
would  be  a  fool.  Anything  with  which  we  have  to  do  should 
at  once  yield  and  promise  joy.  If  it  yield  joy  and  promise 
pain,  like  a  deadly  flower,  it  is  but  partially  perfect,  fitted 
to  the  world  as  Idea  but  not  to  the  world  as  Will,  to  use 
Schopenhauer's  division  of  the  universe.  If  it  yield  pain 
and  promise  joy,  like  medicine,  it  is  partially  perfect  in  the 
opposite  sense,  fitted  to  the  Active  but  not  the  Contem- 
plative life.  It  is  wholly  perfect,  fitted  at  once  to  Idea  and 
Will,  to  the  Contemplative  as  to  the  Active  life,  only  if  it 
both  yield  joy  and  promise  joy,  like  the  rainbow. 

In  fine  art,  as  in  all  other  things,  this  is  the  limiting  case 
of  excellence.  A  creation  of  fancy  ought  both  to  be  good 
and  to  do  good.  The  greatest  poetry,  Matthew  Arnold 
told  us,  is  "the  noble  and  profound  application  of  ideas 
to  life"  "under  the  conditions  fixed  by  the  laws  of  poetic 
beauty  and  poetic  truth."  Of  these  two  criteria  the  first 
stipulates  that  it  shall  do  good,  the  second  that  it  shall  at 
once  be  good  and  do  good.  Taken  together  they  predicate 
a  union  of  Right,  Truth  and  Beauty,  the  three  ancient 
categories  of  value,  into  a  Summum  Bonum.  All  three  are 
forms  of  joy :  Beauty  joy  felt,  Truth  joy  anticipated,  Right 
joy  shared. 

The  three  have  been  identified.  We  are  told  that 
"  Beauty  is  Truth,  Truth  Beauty."  What  does  this 
mean?  Let  us  translate  the  terms  into  accepted  equiva- 
lents: the  immemorial  definition  of  beauty,  now  lumi- 
nously put  in  Mr.  Santayana's  two  words  "objectifiec 
pleasure";  and  the  simplest  definition  of  truth  "the  cor- 
respondence of  idea  with  reality."  Are  we  then  to  under- 
stand that  the  correspondence  of  idea  with  reality  is  ob- 
jectified pleasure;  and  vice  versa?  Truly,  this  is  not  visible 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    33 

at  once.  Literal  Keats's  exclamation  cannot  be.  What 
interpretation  can  we  reasonably  put  upon  it? 

Take  again  the  dictum  that  beauty  and  virtue  are  one. 
As  Lotze  expounds  it,  beauty  is  right  incarnate,  and  right 
is  beauty  invisible.  This  we  can  begin  to  comprehend.  One 
and  the  same  general  system  of  relations  between  individ- 
ual things,  when  perceived  objectively,  is  the  basis  of  all 
our  pleasure;  when  analyzed  subjectively,  proves  to  be  our 
moral  ideal.  For  our  present  un technical  purpose  we  may 
seek  to  express  Lotze's  view  —  in  itself  a  work  of  fine  art 
-in  simpler  words,  and  with  it  that  of  Keats,  without 
perhaps  departing  widely  from  either. 

Beauty  is  truth;  because  that  which  harmonizes  with 
our  experience,  conscious  or  unconscious,  is  a  pleasure;  and 
it  is  harmony  with  experience  in  advance  of  it  that  we  call 
truth.  Truth  is  joy  anticipated.  Hence  the  demand  for  the 
return  to  nature  in  fine  art.  Hence  the  superiority  of  imagi- 
native work  done  "with  the  eye  on  the  object"  to  adopt 
Wordsworth's  phrase. 

Truth  is  joy  anticipated.  Let  not  this  conclusion  be 
mistaken  for  the  absurdity  that  all  truth  is  pleasant;  that 
no  truth  can  be  painful.  What  it  affirms  is  that  truth  qua 
truth  is  a  pleasant  thing.  When  the  reality  occurs  of  which 
the  truth  is  the  idea,  its  encounter  with  a  mind  prepared 
for  it  is  productive  of  pleasure,  however  this  pleasure  of 
satisfied  expectation  may  be  swallowed  up  in  the  painful- 
ness  of  the  reality  experienced.  To  use  Fechner's  phrase, 
the  possession  of  truth  is  "in  the  direction"  of  pleasure. 

Beauty  is  virtue;  because  it  is  the  accomplishment  of 
desire  that  is  pleasure;  and  it  is  action  in  accomplishment  of 
the  desires  of  all  concerned  in  our  act,  felt  and  weighed 
against  one  another  as  our  own,  that  is  virtue.  Right  is  joy 
shared.  Hence  the  demand  that  a  great  work  of  the  imagi- 
nation should  not  alone  be  profound  —  express  truth  — 


34  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

but  be  noble  as  well  —  express  virtue  —  is  a  demand  in  the 
interest  of  its  beauty;  for  thereby  it  acquires  the  sugges- 
tion of  "joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread"  to  quote 
Wordsworth  again;  that  is,  joy  indefinitely  augmented. 
It  is  because  the  Golden  Rule  with  its  phrase  "Whatso- 
ever ye  would'9  commands  the  furtherance  of  desire  de- 
termined as  the  resultant  desire  of  all  concerned,  that  its 
yoke  is  easy  and  its  burden  light.  A  sure  instinct  impels  us 
to  speak  of  "the  music  of  the  Gospel"  and  to  say,  "Our 
highest  Orpheus  walked  in  Judea  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago." 

But  beauty  is  joy  felt,  immediately  and  individually. 
The  labor  of  fancy  starts  in  a  flush  of  private  pleasure  in 
something  seen  or  thought,  and  advances  as  the  glow  ap- 
pears in  new  matter.  How  should  the  mind  be  able  to  add 
new  beauty  to  beauty  given?  A  fascinating  melodic  or 
harmonic  phrase  drops  into  the  musician's  fancy,  perhaps 
after  a  long  interval  of  silence.  Why  should  there  not,  on 
the  doctrine  of  chances,  a  similar  interval  elapse  before  an- 
other presented  itself?  Why  should  a  joy  as  it  were  infect 
the  mind  with  joy?  Why  should  a  pleasure  received  from 
without  enable  a  man  to  build  up  out  of  his  own  head  an 
elaborate  creation  affording  added  pleasure  to  himself  and 
others?  The  process  is  an  unexplained  riddle  of  mental 
science,  but  a  fact  nevertheless.  We  do  not  know  How,  we 
only  know  That.  A  friend  of  Gray's  waited  in  the  poet's 
chambers  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  when  Gray  hur- 
ried up  the  stairs,  dashed  into  the  room,  and  rushed  to  his 
writing  table,  murmuring: 

"Ruin  seize  thee,  ruthless  king! 
Confusion  on  thy  banners  wait!'* 

The  ode  he  had  long  meditated  had  given  him  its  opening 
lines,  and  he  exulted  that  the  spark  had  caught  which 
would  insure  its  progress  in  a  steady  blaze. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    35 

"Chacun  a  son  gout."  The  blaze  starts  and  spreads  in 
very  various  material  in  various  minds.  Different  men 
take  their  pleasure  in  ways  often  most  strange  to  one  an- 
other. The  field  of  experience,  real  and  fancied,  in  which 
a  man  finds  and  can  make  his  pleasure,  determines  the 
range  of  his  artistic  imagination,  constitutes  his  especial 
message  as  an  artist.  Greek  art  sprang  out  of  an  enthusi- 
asm for  the  human  body;  Gothic  art  out  of  the  stimulus  of 
an  angle.  Far  Eastern  painters  and  sculptors  draw  end- 
less motives  from  the  life  of  animals  —  their  habits  and 
their  habitat;  Western  artists  are  chiefly  interested  in 
their  death  —  the  mortal  combat,  the  chase,  the  quarry. 
Religious  truth  awakened  Bunyan's  fancy;  the  cynical 
and  the  sexual  allured  Maupassant.  Shakespeare  seems 
habitually  to  have  written  with  a  mind  so  heavy  with 
thought  and  quick  with  passion  that  he  could  not  stop  to 
utter  it  unless  in  the  fewest  and  most  pungent  words.  A 
like  rapid  and  pregnant  use  of  language  is  a  trait  of  Kip- 
ling. George  Sand's  style  resembles  an  untroubled  cur- 
rent, running  strong  and  full.  These  differences  are  a  dem- 
onstration of  the  inexhaustible  fertility  of  art.  The  worlds 
waiting  to  be  born  of  the  trowel,  the  chisel,  the  brush  or 
the  pen  are  as  indefinitely  numerous  and  various  as  the 
endowments  of  nature  and  circumstance  possible  to  man. 

A  certain  whimsical  member  of  the  Corporation  of  Har- 
vard University  was  accustomed,  when  a  case  of  disci- 
pline came  before  the  board,  to  move  its  reference  to  the 
Committee  on  Fine  Arts,  explaining  that  he  had  always 
noted  an  intimate  relation  between  the  fine  arts  and  im- 
morality. What  is  immorality?  It  is  life  at  the  expense  of 
others.  The  praise  of  such  a  life  under  the  phrase  "the 
will  to  power,"  Nietzsche  called  a  standpoint  "Beyond 
Good  and  Evil"  —  "Jenseits  des  Guten  und  Boesen"  — 
recognizing  the  " transvaluation  of  all  values"  with  which 


36  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

he  saw  white  what  the  civilized  world  had  hitherto  seen 
black.  To  the  rest  of  us  a  giant's  strength  is  valueless  if  we 
use  it  like  a  giant;  but  even  a  pigmy's  strength  invaluable 
if  used  for  others  as  one's  self.  Is  it  true  that  to  the  mind 
wrapped  up  in  works  of  fancy,  as  they  have  hitherto  been 
variously  given  the  world,  others'  woe  is  but  a  dream  — 
"mal  d'autrui  n'est  que  songe"?  Certain  facts  point  that 
way.  Had  the  Greeks  of  antiquity  not  had  better  morals 
than  their  gods  the  race  would  not  have  lasted  long  enough 
to  invent  them.  To-day,  if  French  morals  were  not  better 
than  those  of  their  novels  and  plays,  the  nation  would  have 
been  incapable  of  the  " union  sacree"  in  defence  of  France 
to  which  all  the  world  has  of  late  paid  homage. 

Three  truths  —  one  relating  to  the  work  of  art,  one  to 
the  artist  and  one  to  the  beholder  —  help  to  explain  the 
persistent  drift  of  fine  art  toward  immorality,  whimsical 
indeed  as  the  linking  of  the  two  may  appear  to  us  in  the 
end. 

The  whole  of  nature  is  a  theatre  of  injustice.  Leopardi 
wrote: 

"Nature,  I  know,  hears  not, 
And  knows  not  how  to  pity."1 

The  ultimate  material  of  fancy  is  a  creation  groaning  and 
travailing  together;  and  if  fine  art  mirror  nature,  it  must 
reflect  the  travail  and  the  groans. 

Moreover,  the"  artistic  temperament "  is  especially  prone 
at  once  to  error  and  to  sin,  through  its  very  susceptibility 
to  be  led  captive  by  the  moment's  pleasure.  The  worlds  of 
fancy  are  so  terribly  beguiling  —  above  all  the  ideal  world 
par  excellence,  whose  inhabitants  are  melodies  and  har- 
monies —  that  they  who  spend  much  time  among  them  are 
often  sick  at  heart  when  they  come  back  to  the  real  one. 

"So  che  Natura  e  sorda 
Che  miserar  non  sa." 

G.  Leopardi:  "II  Risorgimento" 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    37 

The  endowment  that  can  seize  and  hold  beauty  —  its  own 
present  joy  —  even  though  it  consent  to  labor  after  truth 
-  the  joy- to-be  of  confirmation  from  without  —  must  still 
rise  above  itself  for  right  —  the  joy  that  neither  is  nor  is 
to  be  its  proper  own. 

Finally,  there  is  a  mental  law  by  which  our  sensibility  to 
beauty  is  enhanced  by  pain,  either  fancied,  or  within  lim- 
its, actual.  From  "deviled"  meats  and  musical  discords  to 
the  sorrows  of  tragedy,  pain  adds  a  spice  to  accompanying 
pleasure  whose  charm  certain  natures  cannot  forego.  In 
the  particular  instance  of  the  charm  of  fancied  pain  we 
cannot  believe  that  any  sentient  being  feels  joy  actually 
in  others'  suffering.  Our  idea  of  the  pain  that  we  see  or 
fancy  others  feel,  however  faint  a  copy  it  may  be  of  its 
original,  is  a  pain  all  the  same.  The  only  joy  is  in  the  stim- 
ulus which  pain  attributed  to  others  lends  to  our  own  vital 
processes.  But  the  existence  of  words  and  phrases  sig- 
nifying malignant  joy,  suggests  that  some  men  have 
confusedly  coupled  their  own  joy  directly  with  others' 
pain.  Some  men  have  also  thought  that  a  state  of  perfect 
happiness  would  be  a  state  of  utter  boredom  and  hence  far 
from  happy.  Yet  to  deny  the  possibility  of  perfect  hap- 
piness on  the  ground  of  its  tedium  is  an  incredible  inepti- 
tude, based  on  the  commonest  of  logical  blunders,  that 
of  petitio  principii,  or  the  assumption  of  the  point  to  be 
proved.  The  argument  runs  —  Bliss  without  alloy  would 
be  tedious;  but  tedium  is  unhappiness,  therefore  perfect 
happiness  would  be  unhappy,  which  is  unimaginable.  The 
major  premise  here  asserts  that  perfect  happiness  is  im- 
perfect, in  a  word  contradicts  itself;  this  assertion  being  also 
the  conclusion.  The  supposed  argument  is  simply  a  reflec- 
tion of  its  initial  contradiction  in  terms.  The  truth  con- 
fusedly grasped  in  the  process  is  that  happiness  for  us  mor- 
tals soon  runs  out  into  ennui.  The  confusion  arises  from 


38  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  failure  to  note  that  while  it  exists  it  is  a  different  thing 
from  the  ennui  which  at  length  "may  succeed  it.  We  have 
only  to  break  away  from  our  kleinstadtische,  clock-tower, 
view  of  the  universe  as  circumscribed  to  the  present  estate 
of  the  genus  homo  sapiens,  to  recognize  the  possibility  of 
other  conditions  and  other  sentiences  in  which  the  advent 
of  ennui,  if  it  ever  threatened,  would  be  forestalled.  Fool- 
ish as  is  the  disbelief  in  the  possibility  of  perfect  happi- 
ness, a  mere  abortion  of  a  puzzled  head,  logic  may  well 
wonder  at  the  number  of  heads  that  permit  themselves,  at 
least  temporarily,  to  be  thus  puzzled. 

The  fact  remains  that  lesser  intensities  of  pain  vivify  to 
the  human  percipient  the  pleasure  that  may  accompany  it. 
Tragedy  owes  its  preeminence  in  fine  art  to  this  mental 
fact.  Terror  and  pity,  the  intensest  forms  of  stimulus  to 
the  perceptions,  have  only  to  be  deeply  veiled  in  fascinat- 
ing drapery  to  bring  us  a  more  massive  joy  than  beauty 
ever  otherwise  provides;  as  the  contrast  between  "Ham- 
let" and  "Titus  Andronicus"  shows  —  equally  bloody 
plays,  but  in  one  the  blood-stains  covered,  in  the  other 
bare.  One  must  be  Shakespeare's,  the  other  cannot  be. 
As  a  citizen,  Hawthorne  congratulated  "our  happy  coun- 
try" on  its  freedom  from  "gloomy  wrong";  but,  as  an 
artist,  in  the  same  breath  called  the  evil  "picturesque." 
Tragedy  smells  of  blood;  yet  in  no  other  way  can  our  pres- 
ent human  sensibility  to  pleasure  be  so  exalted  as  when  the 
pains  of  death  enhance  it,  and  themselves  die  of  their  suc- 
cess. 

Nevertheless,  —  no  matter  how  much  "A  little  dirt 
does  set  off  cleanliness,"  as  Hood's  John  Thomas  replied 
when  his  master  objected  to  his  thumb-mark  on  a  plate, 
-  the  pains  that  enter  into  works  of  art  are  in  themselves 
but  just  so  many  blots  upon  perfection,  in  themselves  but 
just  so  much  subtracted  from  artistic  value.  We  need  only 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    39 

conceive  disgusting  impressions  intensified  to  the  point  of 
nauseating  the  beholder,  visions  of  torture  to  the  point 
of  shattering  his  nervous  poise,  to  unmask  them  as  in  es- 
sence aliens  and  enemies  to  beauty.  It  is  not  terror  and 
pity,  but  the  love  that  casts  out  fear,  that  leaves  us  "pure 
and  prepared  to  rise  into  the  stars"  —  "puro  e  disposto  a 
salir  nelle  stelle"1  Their  world  reveals  to  us  the  sublime 
without  its  terror  or  its  pity; 

"But  while  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay, 
Doth  grossly  close  us  in," 

it  is  mortality  that  touches  us  deepest —  "mortalia  animum 
tangunt" 

Thus  the  fine  arts  appear  when  looked  at  in  relation  to 
the  rest  of  life.  "Fleurs  du  Mai,"  in  so  far  as  Baudelaire's 
title  fits,  are  not  simply  noxious;  they  have  a  canker  at 
their  heart.  In  unmetaphoric  language,  any  features  in  a 
work  of  fancy  by  which  it  teaches  falsehood,  or  weakens 
our  impulses  to  moral  good,  are  in  the  direction  of  ugliness, 
not  of  beauty.  Contrariwise,  any  features  which  teach 
us  truth,  or  fortify  our  regard  for  others,  tend  to  increase 
its  purely  artistic  value.  Innocent  beauty,  pleasant  to  the 
taste,  but  neither  nourishing  to  the  mind  nor  fruitful  to 
the  will,  stands  between,  at  least  conceivably:  a  pure  and 
welcome  good  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  admitting  a  better. 
The  Summum  Bonum  —  best  of  all  —  is  a  tri-unity,  dis- 
tinguishable but  not  divisible  into  its  three  components 
Beauty,  Truth  and  Right. 

These  fundamental  facts  the  conditions  of  our  present 
human  sensibility  tend  to  obscure.  We  sometimes  are  ex- 
horted to  flee  pleasure  as  if  it  were  an  evil.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  the  one  absolute  good.  But  pleasures,  in  the 
plural  sense  of  things  from  which  under  certain  circum- 
stances we  gain  enjoyment,  are  often  indeed  both  vain  and 

1  Concluding  line  of  the  Purgatorio  of  Dante. 


40  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

hurtful.  They  appear  to  us  sporadically  amid  groans  and 
travail,  but  they  do  not  keep  their  promises,  and  they  get  us 
into  trouble  beside.  This  is  not  their  fault,  but  ours  who  do 
not  know  how  to  use  them.  We  give  ourselves  up  to  them, 

"  Fancies  of  good  pursuing  that  are  false 
And  never  yield  the  whole  of  any  promise." l 

thoughtless  of  what  may  come  after  to  ourselves  or  our 
fellows;  and  since  we  find  them  often  heightened  by  little 
pains,  particularly  the  fancied  pains  of  others,  we  mingle 
this  ingredient  carelessly  with  them,  forgetting  that  it  is 
poison  and  serves  a  tonic  purpose  only.  Whence  we  men- 
tally couple  fine  art  and  immorality  as  we  might  a  gem 
with  the  dark  ocean  cave  that  bore  it.  Whence  we  con- 
clude that  fancy  in  itself  is  frivolous  or  worse;  when  it  is 
only  we  ourselves  who  are  deluded. 

BEAUTY  AND  DIVINITY 

We  have  not  completed  a  review  of  fine  art  from  with- 
out when  we  have  considered  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  life. 
There  is  another  world  that  constantly  recurs  to  our 
thoughts  when  they  have  to  do  with  beauty.  We  speak  of 
the  "divine"  loveliness  of  a  statue  or  a  painting  or  a  poem; 
and  of  the  artist  as  inspired  from  "Heaven."  A  drawing  in 
an  old  number  of  the  Fliegende  Blatter  represents  a  young 
girl  among  a  crowd  dispersing  after  a  concert.  Asked 
whence  she  comes,  she  answers  "straight  out  of  Paradise" 

"  Gerade  aus  dem  Paradiese."  Non-human  faculties  and 
non-human  conditions  are  before  our  minds  in  using  such 
phrases.  They  refer  to  another  state  of  existence,  another 
life  than  the  present.  What  is  this  other  world?  What 
is  the  special  relation  to  fine  art  that  these  habits  of  speech 
ascribe  to  it? 

1  "  Imagini  di  ben  seguendo  false 

Che  nulla  promission  rendono  intera." 

Purgatorio,  xxx,  131-32. 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    41 

To  both  the  two  great  branches  of  civilized  humanity  — 
the  East  and  the  West  —  the  world  they  call  better  is  a 
world  in  which  all  souls  find  peace  in  the  bosom  of  a  uni- 
versal Being.  An  inscription  lately  found  at  S.  Sebastian 
in  Rome  traces  the  outline  both  of  the  Nirvana  of  Bud- 
dhism and  the  Heaven  of  Christianity :  et  nos  in  Deo  omnes 

"  and  all  of  us  in  God."  Yet  a  deep  distinction  separates 
the  two;  for  the  peace  of  Nirvana  is  a  static  peace,  the 
peace  of  Heaven  a  dynamic  peace.  The  Bhagavad-Gita 
describes  a  state  "in  which  those  who  take  refuge,  never 
more  return  to  rebirth"  and  its  "bonds  of  action."  The 
spirits  in  Heaven  say  to  Dante  r 

"In  His  will  is  our  peace"; 
and  Milton  sees  them 

"  ...  at  His  bidding  speed 
And  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest." 

Nirvana  gives  the  peace  of  desire  annihilated;  Heaven  the 
peace  of  desire  fulfilled  as  it  awakens.  In  Heaven  desire 
and  fulfilment  are  fused  in  "the  love  that  moves  the  sun 
and  the  other  stars"  —  "Famor  che  muove  il  sole  e  Valtre 
stelle"  1  The  pain  of  longing  vanishes,  the  joy  of  fulfil- 
ment subsists. 

Every  artist  creates  his  own  individual  type  of  what  we 
call  ideal  worlds.  The  tingling  air  of  Harpignies'  pictures, 
the  picturesque  England  of  Dickens's  novels,  the  serene  or 
pathetic  events  of  which  we  are  auditors  in  von  Weber's 
music,  are  independent,  closed  units  within  the  beholder's 
experience.  The  new-Platonic  Ideas  of  which  they  are 
made  are  particular  things,  they  are  in  this  world  of  ours; 
but  they  are  also  universals,  not  of  this  world.  We  cannot 
goon  beyond  the  experiences  of  which  they  consist;  we  can- 
not take  up  our  lives  in  pictures,  novels  or  music.  They  are 
different,  mutually  isolated  simplifications  of  our  common 

1  Concluding  line  of  the  Paradiso  of  Dante. 


42  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

life:  new  creations,  yet  made  out  of  its  familiar  stuff,  out  of 
pigments,  words,  the  sound  of  trumpets.  "Forever  wilt 
thou  love  and  she  be  fair."  That  is  not  at  all  the  way  things 
happen  in  this  world;  yet  the  fairness  and  the  love  are 
integral  parts  of  our  everyday  existence  nevertheless.  But 
the  common  characteristic  of  works  of  fancy  is  that  they 
all  essay  to  transplant  us  amid  perfection;  the  make  they 
aim  at  is  that  of  experiences  which  awaken  desire  only  to 
satisfy  it.  This  is  also  the  pattern  of  Heaven.  Heaven  can- 
not be  found  by  pushing  further  in  this  universe.  Wherever 
we  go,  beyond  the  farthest  star,  we  must  assume  ignorance, 
clash,  unsympathy  and  interference  of  desire.  But  the 
worlds  of  fancy  present  us  with  the  fashion  of  Heaven; 
basing  their  essential  effects,  not  on  clash  and  disappoint- 
ment, but  on  harmony  and  satisfaction.  They  are  not 
Heaven,  but  they  are  its  vestiges  on  earth. 

The  late  Okakura-Kakuzo  used  to  describe  a  master- 
piece as  a  work  before  which  one  would  be  willing  to  die. 
He  was  not  a  man  given  to  sentimentality,  but  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  most  acute  and  well-poised  intelligence.  What 
did  he  mean?  First,  that  masterpieces  are  the  limiting 
cases  of  artistic  achievement,  the  works  that  can  be  called 
per-factum — thoroughly  wrought — without  reserve;  fur- 
ther, that  life  cannot  hold  for  us  anything  better  than 
the  experience  of  the  perfect.  So  far  as  our  private  fate  is 
concerned,  we  have  lived;  for  we  have  loved.  The  saying 
completes  and  deepens  Mme.  de  Houdetot's  "tout  ce  qui 
pent  aimer  devrait  vivre"  by  affirming  that  any  one  who  has 
loved  is  by  that  fact  prepared  to  die.1  Indeed,  if  he  must 
lose  the  perfect  thing,  and  at  once,  as  men  often  must,  it 
may  be  too  much  to  ask  of  limited  human  nature  that  he 
should  wish  to  go  on  living.  All  men  born  of  women  know 

1  The  whole  reported  saying  is,  "La  vie  ne  devrait  avoir  d'autre  limite  que 
V amour;  tout  ce  qui  peut  aimer  devrait  vivre" 


ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PLACE  OF  FINE  ART    43 

in  their  hearts  that  not  fancy  but  fact  couples  love  and 
death.  Rare  indeed  is  perfection  upon  earth.  Yet  it  is  not 
impossible.  A  thing  is  perfect  when  it  satisfies,  not  all  pos- 
sible desires,  but  all  the  desires  it  awakens.  The  capacity 
to  satisfy  all  possible  desires,  beside  being  worthless,  is  an 
unimaginable  idea.  All  possible  desires  include  contradic- 
tory ones,  or  such  as  it  is  unthinkable  should  be  met  by 
one  and  the  same  object  of  perception.  The  word  perfect 
has  a  rational  meaning  only  when  interpreted  relatively  to 
a  beholder.  Absolute  perfection  is  non-sense  —  the  kind  of 
mental  zero  produced  by  taking  a  number  away  from  it- 
self. True  that  a  trough  that  would  be  perfect  to  a  pig 
would  excite  in  a  man  a  vivid  sense  of  imperfection.  True 
also,  that  as  Stuart  Mill  says  "It  is  better  to  be  a  human 
being  dissatisfied  than  a  pig  satisfied."  l  But  it  would  be 
a  capital  blunder  to  infer  from  this  truth  that  discontent 
is  always  divine,  even  in  a  vale  of  tears  like  ours.  "If  this 
were  only  cleared  away,  it  would  be  grand,"  argued  the 
Walrus  and  the  Carpenter  walking  together  on  the  strand. 
Yet  would  they  have  found  it  so?  And  if  they  had,  the 
standards  of  the  Looking-Glass  population  must  yield  to 
those  of  this  world's  children  sporting  on  the  shore,  to 
whom  a  sea-beach  without  sand  would  be  a  most  imper- 
fect place.  The  perfect  is  that  in  which  we  take  pyre  joy, 
but  differs  in  kind  according  to  the  measure  in  which  the  joy 
is  experienced  originally  or  experienced  also  derivatively, 
as  joy  foreseen  or  imputed.  These  alternatives  exhaust  the 
possibilities  of  value;  my  own  present  joy,  joy  mine  but 
not  present,  joy  not  mine.  The  perfect  affords  joy  foreseen 
when  it  expresses  truth,  and  joy  imputed  when  it  expresses 
virtue;  the  standard  of  perfection  rising  by  each  addition, 
since  each  connects  the  percipient  in  its  own  way,  and  both 
together  in  all  ways  with  the  universe  of  joy.  In  a  word, 

1  Utilitarianism,  i. 


44  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

things  sometimes  reach  perfection  in  this  world,  sometimes 
satisfy  all  the  desires  they  awaken,  if  but  rarely  among 
men;  and  of  things  that  disappoint  us,  in  truth  the  over- 
whelming majority,  we  may  always  doubt  whether  the 
imperfections  noted  are  really  lacks  for  us,  or  would  be  for 
others  whose  standard  is  higher  than  ours.  In  particular, 
a  work  of  art  may  fill  the  artist  with  a  satisfaction  at  once 
pure  and  superior  to  any  which  a  discontented  critic  would 
experience  by  changing  it.  Such  a  work  is  a  masterpiece. 
It  is  perfection  incarnate.  To  realize  that  life  has  nothing 
better  to  offer  us  than  the  sight  of  it,  we  have  only  to  be- 
take ourselves  to  the  plane  on  which  it  was  created.  The 
fancy  of  man  is  like  water,  which  can  make  the  commonest 
hollow  or  fearfullest  abyss  of  earth  reflect  a  bit  of  Heaven. 

One  is  loth  to  leave  this  dazzling  theme.  Let  us  glance 
back  over  the  way  we  have  taken.  Fine  art  is  the  creation 
of  beautiful  things.  Beauty  is  the  charm  of  things  that 
appear  happy  in  themselves.  The  crowning  achievements 
of  man's  fancy  stand  outside  him  as  if  they  were  made  by 
another  hand.  Fine  art  is  a  language  in  the  sense  of  an 
utterance.  It  differs  from  a  language  in  that  the  vehicle 
it  uses  does  not  simply  carry  its  message  but  enters  itself 
into  the  message.  On  the  other  hand,  the  activity  of  its 
formulation  is  no  part  of  the  utterance;  though  there  may 
be  parts  of  the  utterance  which  none  but  a  hand  long 
active  could  supply.  A  beautiful  thing  may  be  self-lumi- 
nous with  pleasure;  or  it  may  also  glow  with  pleasure  re- 
flected from  its  truth  or  its  morality.  A  beautiful  thing  is  a 
link  between  earth  and  Heaven,  of  the  earth  earthy,  in  its 
envelope  of  disquiet,  but  heavenly  in  the  peace  that  lies  at 
its  heart.  The  queen  of  the  nursery  story  may  be  an  earthly 
queen  of  tragedy,  but  there  is  a  queen  of  comedy  whose 
lineage  is  divine. 


II 

POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART 


II 

POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART1 
EDUCATION 

Three  senses  of  the  word  "education":  the  loose  sense;  the  broad  sense;  the 
narrow  sense  —  Double  meaning  of  process  and  product  in  each  sense  —  Con- 
fusion between  loose  and  broad  senses;  between  broad  and  narrow  senses;  be- 
tween senses  of  process  and  product  —  The  word  "education"  to  be  here  used  in 
the  narrow,  but  not  narrowest,  sense  of  a  process. 

THE  word  "education"  is  a  very  ambiguous  one,  and 
the  parent  of  much  misunderstanding.  It  conveys  the  gen- 
eral idea  of  a  modification  of  personality  in  three  senses, 
which  may  be  called  respectively  a  loose,  a  broad,  and  a 
narrow  sense.  In  the  loose  sense  education  is  synonymous 
with  influence,  in  the  broad  sense  with  improvement,  and 
in  the  narrow  sense  with  teaching. 

The  loose  sense  was  thus  defined  by  John  Stuart  Mill  in 
his  rectorial  address  at  the  University  of  St.  Andrews  in 
1867:  "Whatever  helps  to  shape  the  human  being  —  to 
make  the  individual  what  he  is,  or  hinder  him  from  being 
what  he  is  not  —  is  part  of  his  education."  Now  every 
one  of  our  experiences  in  life  helps  to  shape  us.  Some  trace 
is  left  upon  us  by  each.  We  are  somewhat  different  after- 
ward from  what  we  should  have  been  had  this  particular 
event  not  happened.  Hence,  using  the  word  in  the  loose 
sense,  nothing  short  of  the  whole  life  history  of  any  one 
constitutes  his  education.  "Education  is  life."  2  The  al- 
cohol that  contributes  to  make  the  European  what  he  is, 
and  the  opium  that  contributes  to  prevent  the  Asiatic  from 
being  what  he  might  be,  are  educational  forces.  Most 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  for 
the  year  ended  June  30,  1913. 

2  Symposium  on  Education,  The  Brooklyn  Eagle  (1903). 


48  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

readers  will  meet  this  claim  with  a  mental  revolt  which  is 
proof  that  the  loose  sense  of  the  word  "education"  is  not 
the  customary  one,  but  an  extravagance  of  speech.  Those 
who,  like  most  of  us,  believe  in  and  wish  to  forward  educa- 
tion, will  refuse  to  admit  that  it  includes  all  influences,  the 
bad  as  well  as  the  good,  the  demoralizing  as  well  as  the 
elevating.  We  shall  demand  that  when  people  talk  about 
education  in  our  hearing  they  shall  mean  something  good 
by  the  word.  They  shall  not  mean  such  influences  as  a 
fascinating  scoundrel  may  exert  upon  a  weak-willed  com- 
panion, or  such  as  a  mental  shock  exerts  over  the  reason 
it  dethrones.  Nothing  shall  be  education  for  us  which  is 
not  an  improving  influence. 

This  second,  or  broad  sense  of  the  word  "education" 
has  been  analyzed  with  admirable  clarity  by  President 
Hadley.  "In  the  broad  sense  it  [education]  includes  every 
exercise  of  activity  which  is  valued,  not  for  its  direct  re- 
sults, but  for  its  indirect  effects  upon  the  capacity  of  the 
man  who  is  engaged  therein."  x  Every  experience  in 
whose  result  upon  the  personality  we  can  see  the  promise 
of  future  good;  every  event  whose  ineluctable  trace  upon 
us  is  formative,  and  neither  indifferent  nor  deformative, 
is  part  of  our  education;  and  only  such  events  are.  Using 
the  word  in  this  broad  sense,  Richard  Steele  said  of  Lady 
Hastings  that  to  know  her  was  a  liberal  education.  Here 
was  a  vivid  and  gallant  recognition  of  a  perpetual  outflow 
of  humanizing  influences  from  a  lovely  woman.  The  re- 
mark is  quoted  also  as  a  tribute  of  Chateaubriand  to 
Mme.  Recamier. 

Yet  we  should  not  speak  of  Lady  Hastings  as  an  edu- 
cator, nor  treat  of  Mme.  Recamier  in  a  history  of  edu- 
cation in  France.  There  is  a  narrow  sense  in  which  the 
word  is  most  commonly  used.  Although  North  American 

1  Symposium  on  Education,  The  Brooklyn  Eagle  (1903). 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          49 

vim  has  been  traced  to  the  dry  air  of  our  continent,  the 
latest  achievements  of  the  United  States  to  the  impulse 
given  by  the  freeing  of  Cuba,  and  no  greater  formative 
influences  have  ever  existed  in  this  country  than  the  ex- 
amples of  Washington  and  Lincoln,  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Education  does  not  observe  and  record  such 
factors  of  national  progress  as  climate,  crises  of  history,  or 
commanding  personalities.  Education  as  most  commonly 
understood  means  more  than  influence,  more  even  than 
formative  influence.  It  means  intentional  formative  in- 
fluence —  the  purposed  moulding  of  one  personality  by 
another.  This  is  the  common,  everyday  root  meaning  that 
runs  through  the  words  "education,"  "educator,"  "edu- 
cational effort,"  "educational  appliances,"  and  the  like; 
and  this  root  meaning  Mill  expressly  recognizes  in  the  ad- 
dress at  St.  Andrews.  After  defining  education  in  the  loose 
sense  in  his  opening  paragraph  he  devotes  the  rest  of  his 
discussion  to  that  "which  each  generation  purposely  gives 
to  those  who  are  to  be  its  successors,  in  order  to  qualify 
them  for  at  least  keeping  up,  and  if  possible  for  raising,  the 
level  of  improvement  which  has  been  attained."  Emerson 
uses  the  term  in  this  customary  sense,  alluding  also  to  a 
possible  broader  meaning  when  he  writes,  "What  we  do 
not  call  education  is  more  precious  than  that  which  we  call 
so."  l  The  most  elevating  influences  of  all,  he  thinks,  are 
those  which  are  not  intentionally  applied  and  so  not  cus- 
tomarily spoken  of  as  a  part  of  education.  People  are 
moulded  to  better  effect  without  formal  means  than  by  any 
of  the  apparatus  we  call  didactic. 

These  three  senses  —  the  loose,  the  broad,  and  the  nar- 
row —  do  not  exhaust  the  ambiguities  of  the  word  "edu- 
cation. "  Each  of  the  three  has  a  primary  and  secondary 
meaning  duly  set  forth  in  the  dictionary.  The  primary 

1  Spiritual  Laws. 


50  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

meaning  is  that  of  a  process;  the  secondary  that  of  its 
product.  Education  means  at  once  the  imparting  of  capac- 
ity and  the  capacity  imparted;  the  communication  of 
knowledge  or  skill  and  the  knowledge  or  skill  communi- 
cated. In  one  sense  it  means  an  operation  of  which  the 
mind  or  body  is  the  subject;  in  the  other  a  mental  or  bod- 
ily condition  at  which  the  operation  aims.  When  we  say, 
"The  control  of  education  should  be  entrusted  to  the  State," 
we  are  using  the  word  in  its  primary  sense  of  a  process 
which  the  State  should  apply  to  its  citizens.  When  we 
say,  "Popular  education  is  vital  to  a  democracy,"  we  are 
using  the  word  in  its  secondary  sense  of  a  product  which  a 
democracy  needs  to  develop  within  itself. 

This  manifold  ambiguity  affords  ample  room  for  mis- 
conception. A  confusion  between  the  loose  sense,  in  which 
education  means  influence  of  any  kind  exerted  upon  the 
individual,  and  the  broad  sense,  in  which  it  means  forma- 
tive influence  only,  lends  itself  to  a  fatalistic  optimism. 
If  every  experience  is  part  of  our  education,  then  what- 
ever is,  is  in  the  right  direction.  If  the  world  is  all  a  school, 
then  all's  well  with  it  literally.  A  resolute  faith  that  the 
world  may  be  made  better  gives  place  to  the  enervating 
persuasion  that  its  every  detail  is  for  the  best.  We  dare 
not  prevent  anything  lest  we  lose  its  lesson;  nor  dare  we 
bring  about  anything,  ignorant  as  we  are  whether  we  can 
better  what  is  already  for  our  good.  So  old-time  doctors 
forbade  ether  in  childbirth  lest  the  lesson  of  its  pains  be 
lost.  Through  the  use  of  one  word  for  both  improvement 
and  influence,  the  glamour  of  the  one  envelops  the  other 
also.  We  take  up  our  abode  on  the  borderland  of  a  fool's 
paradise. 

A  confusion  between  education  in  the  broad  sense  of 
formative  influence  and  education  in  the  narrow  sense  of 
intentional  formative  influence  tends  to  an  opposite  error. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          51 

We  are  misled  into  thinking  educational  effort  the  pan- 
acea for  all  the  ills  of  society.  In  particular,  we  exalt  edu- 
cational effort  in  its  narrowest  sense  —  that  of  the  in- 
fluences directed  exclusively  upon  the  young  en  masse.  If 
education  —  meaning  formative  influence  —  includes,  as 
in  this  sense  it  does,  every  agency  of  personal  advance, 
then  all  that  need  be  done  to  insure  the  indefinite  improve- 
ment of  the  individual  is  to  look  to  our  system  of  educa- 
tion —  meaning  the  formal  training  given  by  each  genera- 
tion to  the  next.  The  glamour  of  the  idea  of  the  betterment 
of  character  concentrates  itself  upon  one  of  the  means  to 
this  end  —  and,  as  Emerson  notes,  one  of  the  less  precious 
means.  Our  faith  in  the  machinery  of  instruction  becomes 
unconsciously  inflated  beyond  all  reason.  The  school  be- 
comes a  fetich.  We  overlook  chronic  failings  of  schooling 
at  its  best;  its  development  of  the  memory  at  the  expense 
of  the  intelligence,  its  comparative  impotence  to  perfect 
the  will.  "  Sir,"  said  Wellington  to  his  highly  instructed 
aide,  "you  have  too  much  knowledge  for  your  compre- 
hension." Of  some  royal  children  Henry  Crabb  Robinson 
writes:  "These  children  are  overcrammed;  they  know  all 
the  sciences  and  languages,  and  are  in  danger  of  losing  all 
personal  character  and  power  of  thought  in  the  profusion 
of  knowledge  they  possess."1  Again,  furnishing  the  mind 
does  not  in  itself  direct  the  will.  In  technical  language, 
judgments  of  fact  and  judgments  of  worth  are  mutually 
irreducible.  There  is  no  mental  chemistry  by  which  I  see 
can  be  transmuted  into  I  choose.  However  we  train  the 
mind,  unless  the  heart  be  independently  disposed,  we  are 
but  fashioning  an  instrument  of  futility  or  a  weapon  of 
evil.  But  these  criticisms  of  education  in  the  narrow  and 
narrowest  senses  have  the  ring  of  lese-majeste  to  those 
whose  enthusiasm  is  fed  by  the  broad  meaning  of  the  term. 

1  Diary,  vol  n,  p.  104. 


52  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

Finally,  a  confusion  between  education  in  the  sense  of 
process  and  education  in  the  sense  of  product  helps  to- 
ward a  fictitious  valuation  of  preparatory  agencies.  We 
come  to  cherish  training  mistakenly  for  its  own  sake.  It  is 
a  common  human  failing  to  forget  the  end  for  the  means. 
Mr.  Chesterton  has  said  that  practical  men  generally  know 
everything  about  the  matter  they  have  to  deal  with  ex- 
cept what  it  is  for.  The  use  of  one  vocable  for  both  means 
and  end  favors  this  shortsightedness.  If  education,  in  the 
sense  of  developed  capacity,  is  the  ideal  for  humanity, 
then  education,  in  the  sense  of  the  development  of  capac- 
ity, is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  Yet  this  is  a  conclu- 
sion impossible  to  thinking  beings.  If  the  development  of 
capacity  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  then  developed 
capacity  is  secondary,  and  since  an  end  takes  precedence 
over  its  means,  the  development  of  capacity  is  tertiary. 
Nevertheless  we  have  just  asserted  it  primary.  The  way 
out  of  this  self-stultifying  tangle  is  resolutely  to  hold  the 
two  ideas  of  process  and  product  apart,  in  spite  of  their 
common  name,  and  clearly  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  the 
exercise  of  capacity  that  gives  its  development  worth. 
Schooling  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  schooling. 
As  President  Hadley  has  said,  an  educational  process  is  one 
which  is  valued  for  the  capacity  it  engenders.  Only  in 
so  far  as  the  built  character  emerges,  as  its  capacities  show 
their  development  in  action,  do  our  efforts  in  character 
building  prove  their  merit.  The  good  life,  and  not  the  busi- 
ness of  preparing  for  it,  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  present  discussion  of  popular 
education  in  fine  art,  it  will  be  convenient  to  use  education 
in  the  sense  of  process,  not  of  product,  and  in  its  narrow 
but  not  its  narrowest  sense.  So  choosing  among  the  am- 
biguities of  the  term,  it  will  signify  intentional  formative 
influence,  whatever  its  appliances  and  whoever  its  sub- 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          53 

jects.  Artistic  education  will  denote  all  training  in  fine 
art,  whether  given  in  school  or  out,  to  adolescents  or 
adults. 

FINE  ART 

Fine  art  the  embodiment  of  fancy  for  its  own  sake  —  Corroboration  by  artists 
and  critics  —  Two  implications:  (1)  a  public;  (2)  completing  the  artist  —  The 
effort  of  appreciation  —  Corroboration  by  artists  and  critics — Corollaries: 
(1)  kinship  of  public  with  artist;  (2)  dependence  of  artist  on  public. 

Works  of  fine  art  are  commonly  called  creations  of  the 
imagination.  The  definition  is  simple,  clear,  and  unequiv- 
ocal, but  not  satisfying.  Is  not  a  steam  engine  also  a  crea- 
tion of  the  imagination,  or  a  coal  mine,  or  an  intrigue,  since 
all  exist  in  the  fancy  of  their  projectors  before  existing  in 
fact?  Wherein  does  a  work  of  fine  art  differ  from  any  other 
plan  brought  to  pass? 

In  that  it  is  finished  when  it  is  imagined,  and  is  put  into 
external  form  only  to  preserve  it.  Dante  writes:  "Who 
paints  a  figure,  if  he  cannot  be  it,  cannot  draw  it  ;  that  is  to 
say,  no  painter  could  draw  a  figure  unless  he  previously 
made  it  in  his  mind  as  it  ought  to  be." l  But  a  steam  engine, 
a  coal  mine,  an  intrigue,  are  intended  to  be  more  than  they 
are  in  advance  in  the  mind.  They  are  only  begun  when 
they  are  designed  and  are  not  done  until  the  design  is  exe- 
cuted. They  who  execute  them,  not  being  "of  imagina- 
tion all  compact"  aim  beyond  giving  "to  airy  nothing  a 
local  habitation  and  a  name."  An  artificer  in  embodying 
his  fancy  may  be  inspired  by  either  of  two  purposes  —  that 
it  should  exist  permanently  or  that  it  should  bring  about 
something  else.  In  the  first  case,  the  work  of  his  hand  is  a 
work  of  fine  art;  in  the  second,  a  work  of  useful  art.  The 
aim  of  a  work  of  useful  art  —  a  steam  engine,  a  coal  mine, 
an  intrigue  —  lies  beyond  itself,  in  the  flight  of  trains,  the 
payment  of  dividends,  personal  fates.  The  aim  of  a  work 

1  Canzone  xvi:  as  interpreted  by  himself  in  the  Convito,  rv,  cap.  10. 


54  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

of  fine  art  lies  within  itself  —  that  it  should  be  perceived 
as  it  has  been  imagined.  However  an  artist  may  be  gov- 
erned in  embodying  his  visions  by  what  he  aims  to  have 
them  accomplish  —  whether  to  reconcile  himself  with 
Heaven,  to  turn  his  fellows  to  good  courses,  to  impart  to 
them  information  outside  the  work  itself,  to  win  himself 
fame,  or  buy  himself  bread  —  it  is  that  in  them  which  he 
puts  there  solely  not  to  let  it  die  that  constitutes  its  sub- 
stance as  a  work  of  fine  art.  Its  artistic  content  is  com- 
prised within  what  it  is  and  does  not  extend  to  what  it  does. 
The  avowal  is  met  everywhere  among  artists  and  their 
critics.  Goethe  wrote:  "I  sing  as  the  bird  sings  that  lives 
in  the  branches.  The  song  that  must  from  the  throat  is  a 
reward  that  richly  pays."1  Again,  "The  wish  for  applause 
which  the  writer  feels  is  an  impulse  that  nature  has  im- 
planted in  him  to  entice  him  on  to  something  higher,"2 
that  something  higher  being  the  sharing  of  his  happiest 
thought.  To  a  strongly  religious  nature  like  Cowper 
poetic  genius  was  — 

"The  gift 

To  trace  Him  in  His  words,  His  works,  His  ways, 
Then  spread  the  rich  discovery,  and  invite 
Mankind  to  share  in  the  divine  delight."* 

The  motive  of  expression,  essential  to  fine  art,  has  been 
stated  in  sober  and  modest  prose  by  our  own  William  M. 
Hunt:  Artists  "expose  their  work  to  the  public,  not  for 
the  sake  of  praise,  but  with  a  feeling  and  hope  that  some 
human  being  may  see  in  it  the  feeling  that  has  passed 
through  their  own  mind,  in  their  poor  and  necessarily 
crippled  statement."  4  Of  Shakespeare,  Lowell  writes: 
"I  have  said  it  was  doubtful  if  Shakespeare  had  any  con- 

1  "Der  Haerfner"  z  Einleitung  in  die  Propylaen,  p.  209. 

3  Table  Talk.  To  the  same  effect,  Dryden  in  his  Defence  of  the  Essay  of  Dra- 
matic Poesy  (Malone's  ed.,  1800),  vol.  i,  part  n,  p.  160. 

4  Talks  about  Art  (1st  series),  p.  123. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          55 

scious  moral  intention  in  his  writings.  I  meant  only  that 
he  was  purely  and  primarily  poet."  1  Again,  "The  ques- 
tion of  common  sense  is  always,  What  is  it  good  for?  —  a 
question  which  would  abolish  the  rose  and  be  answered 
triumphantly  by  the  cabbage"2  —  the  cabbage  being 
good  to  destroy  for  bodily  support,  the  rose  only  to  enjoy 
while  it  lasts. 

A  work  of  fine  art,  according  to  these  avowals,  is  some- 
thing of  which  the  simple  contemplation  is  worth  while; 
and  the  artist  creates  it  that  this  contemplation  may  take 
place.  His  purpose  —  that  the  work  shall  be  perceived 
as  it  has  been  imagined  —  conveys  two  implications. 

First,  there  is  involved  in  the  conception  artist  —  or 
poet  in  the  wide  meaning  of  TTOIIJT^,  or  maker  —  the  idea  of 
a  public.  Creation,  in  the  artistic  sense,  implies  contem- 
plation. The  maker  cannot  be  thought  without  the  be- 
holder. Goethe  wrote:  "The  artist  is  not  conceivable 
alone,  moreover  does  not  want  to  be  alone.  The  work  of 
art  challenges  men  to  delight  in  it,  and  to  share  their  de- 
light in  it."  3  Alphonse  Daudet  has  written:  "The  artist 
is  not  a  hermit.  However  one  may  seek  to  retire  from  or 
lift  oneself  above  the  public,  it  is  always  in  the  last  analysis 
for  the  public  that  one  writes."4 

Second,  a  work  of  fine  art  is  an  open  letter,  addressed 
not  to  particular  individuals,  but  to  any  who  can  read  it. 
With  an  outlook  as  wide  as  humanity,  its  aim  is  reached, 
not  by  every  inspection  of  it,  but  only  when  it  is  perceived 
as  it  has  been  imagined.  The  artist  is  a  half -being  whose 
complement  is  the  beholder  who  so  perceives  his  work. 
This  perception  by  the  one  which  duplicates  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  other  is  what  is  called  the  appreciation  of  fine 
art.  In  printing,  when  the  outlines  of  one  impression  are 

1  Shakespeare  Once  More.  2  Chaucer. 

8  Ueber  den  sogenannten  Dilettantismus. 
4  Souvenirs  cTun  homme  de  lettres,  p.  151. 


56  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

exactly  superposed  upon  those  of  another,  the  two  are 
said  to  "register."  In  like  manner,  in  order  that  a  work  of 
fine  art  should  exist,  the  mind  of  the  beholder  must  "reg- 
ister" with  that  of  the  artist.  It  is  the  scientific  fashion 
nowadays  to  think  of  every  activity  of  mind  as  having  its 
counterpart  in  some  special  activity  of  brain  —  a  current, 
or  explosion,  or  however  else  we  may  conceive  it,  of  a  par- 
ticular kind.  Using  this  convenient  theory,  appreciation 
may  be  said  to  consist  in  the  exact  reproduction  in  another 
brain  of  certain  currents  or  explosions  that  once  took  place 
in  one  perhaps  long  since  mouldered  into  dust.  It  is  in  this 
perpetual  reperformance  of  a  strain  that  once  beguiled  a 
single  fancy  that  fine  art  has  its  being. 

The  appreciation  of  fine  art  is  therefore  at  once  an  inte- 
gral, part  of  it  and  a  definite  form  of  response  to  its  crea- 
tions, namely,  the  precise  echo  of  the  voice  that  bade  them 
live.  A  work  of  art  does  not  exist  for  a  beholder  who  sim- 
ply enjoys  himself  over  it;  he  must  enjoy  it.  He  must 
make  himself  over  in  the  image  of  the  artist,  penetrate  his 
intention,  think  with  his  thoughts,  feel  with  his  feelings. 
Okakura-Kakuzo  writes:  "An  eminent  Sung  critic  once 
made  a  charming  confession.  Said  he,  'In  my  young  days 
I  praised  the  master  whose  pictures  I  liked,  but  as  my 
judgment  matured  I  praised  myself  for  liking  what  the 
masters  had  chosen  to  have  me  like.'"  Again,  "The  tea 
master,  Kobori-Enshiu,  himself  a  daimyo,  has  left  to  us 
these  memorable  words:  'Approach  a  great  painting  as 
thou  wouldst  approach  a  great  prince/"1  The  same  com- 
parison has  been  used  by  Schopenhauer:  "One  should  look 
at  a  picture  as  one  meets  a  monarch,  waiting  for  the  mo- 
ment when  it  will  please  him  to  speak  and  for  the  subject 
of  conversation  which  it  will  suit  him  to  choose.  One 
should  not  be  the  first  to  address  either  the  one  or  the 

1  The  Book  of  Tea,  pp.  107  and  108. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          57 

other,  for  thereby  one  runs  the  risk  of  hearing  only  one's 
own  voice." x  This  attitude  is  that  of  the  understanding  of 
fine  art  in  the  capital  acceptation  of  that  word.  The  pic- 
ture, the  statue,  the  building,  is  a  sign  that  something  once 
existed  in  the  fancy  of  another  which  he  was  unwilling 
to  let  die.  What  was  that  something?  When  we  have  an- 
swered this  question  aright  —  always  a  searching  question, 
often  difficult,  sometimes  insoluble  —  we  comprehend  the 
work,  and  not  until  then.  Then,  and  not  until  then,  do  we 
perceive  it  as  it  was  imagined. 

The  testimony  of  those  who  know  is  united  on  this  point 
also.  Luther's  estimate  of  the  extent  to  which  a  reader  who 
would  understand  literature  needs  to  duplicate  his  author 
appears  in  the  last  writing  from  his  hand.  "Virgil,  in  his 
*  Bucolics,'  can  be  understood  by  no  one  who  has  not  been 
five  years  a  shepherd.  Virgil,  in  his  'Georgics,'  can  be  un- 
derstood by  no  one  who  has  not  been  five  years  a  farmer. 
Cicero,  in  his  *  Letters,'  can  be  understood  by  no  one  who 
has  not  shared  in  a  large  public  life  for  five  and  twenty 
years.  The  Holy  Scriptures  let  no  one  think  he  has  thor- 
oughly digested  unless  with  prophets  like  Elijah  and  Elisha, 
with  John  the  Baptist,  with  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  he 
has  ruled  religious  communities  for  a  hundred  years  to- 
gether."2 The  genuine  lover  of  art,  Goethe  tells  us,  "feels 
that  he  must  lift  himself  up  to  the  artist  in  order  to  enjoy 
his  work.3  In  a  comment  on  another  remark  of  Goethe's, 
M.  Paul  Bourget  thus  describes  the  temper  of  apprecia- 
tion: "Goethe  expressed  the  principle  with  his  accustomed 
depth  in  saying,  'If  one  have  not  studied  things  with  a 
partiality  full  of  love,  what  one  thinks  about  them  is  not 
worth  saying.'  ...  To  be  partial  in  the  sense  in  which  the 

1  The  World  as  Will  and  Representation,  vol.  n,  cap.  34. 

2  Quoted  in  Gedanken  ueber  Wissenschaft  und  Leben,  Professor  Adolf  Harnack, 
Int.  Wochenschrift  fuer  Wissenschaft,  Kunst,  und  Technik,  no.  1,  April  6,  1907. 

3  Ueber  Wahrheit  und  Wahrscheinlichkeit  der  Kunstwerke,  p.  294. 


58  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

Altmeister  of  Weimar  used  the  expression  means  to  have 
given  the  artist  due  credit,  to  have  placed  oneself  at  his 
standpoint,  to  have  associated  oneself  with  his  purpose,  to 
have  demanded  from  him  nothing  that  he  did  not  intend. 
.  .  .  This  power  of  sympathy  marks  the  true  lovers  of  litera- 
ture, those  to  whom  it  is  really  a  living  thing."1  Saint- 
Saens  notes  that  the  present  generation  can  neither  com- 
prehend nor  love  the  music  of  Gounod,  "regarding  it  in  a 
false  light  and  giving  it  a  significance  altogether  different 
from  what  the  composer  intended.2  The  appreciation  of 
poetry  seemed  almost  an  impossible  task  to  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes.  "Hardly  any  one  ever  understands  a  poem  but 
the  poet.  ...  It  fits  the  mental  mould  in  which  it  was  cast, 
and  it  will  hardly  fit  any  other."3  How  fleeting  and  un- 
controllable our  sympathy  with  plastic  and  pictorial  art 
may  be  is  vividly  revealed  in  Hawthorne's  "Notebooks." 
Of  the  Vatican  sculptures  he  writes:  "It  is  as  if  the  stat- 
ues kept,  for  the  most  part,  a  veil  about  them,  which  they 
sometimes  withdraw,  and  let  their  beauty  gleam  upon  my 
sight;  only  a  glimpse,  or  two  or  three  glimpses,  or  a  little 
space  of  calm  enjoyment,  and  then  I  see  nothing  but  a  dis- 
colored marble  again.  The  Minerva  Medica  revealed  her- 
self to-day."  Again,  of  Guide's  "Hope,"  "If  you  try  to 
analyze  it,  or  even  look  too  intently  at  it,  it  vanishes, 
until  you  look  at  it  with  more  trusting  simplicity."  4  Of 
the  Preludes  and  Fugues  of  Bach's  "Well-Tempered  Clavi- 
chord," Moritz  Hauptmann  wrote:  "They  are  as  difficult 
to  hear  as  to  play;  and  even  hearing  is  not  all  of  it.  One 
must  know  them  so  perfectly  that  one  can,  as  it  were, 
create  them  oneself."5  Writing  of  pictures,  John  La  Farge 

From  the  preface  to  France  el  Belgique,  by  Eugene  Gilbert. 

Annales  Politiques  et  Litteraires,  no.  1576,  September  7,  1913. 

A  Hundred  Days  in  Europe. 

French  and  Italian  Notebooks,  pp.  166  and  173. 

Briefe  an  Hauser,  i,  p.  2. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          59 

notes  that  "they  are  excusable  who  feel  as  if  they  had  made 
the  work  which  they  admire.  They  become,  for  an  instant, 
the  man  wjjo  made  it."  l 

Two  corollaries  of  interest  result.  First,  the  power  of  ap- 
preciation in  every  one  is  limited  to  those  artists  of  whose 
natures  he  partakes.  Second,  those  artists  alone  rise  into 
prominence  who  reflect  the  spirit  of  a  time.  Of  the  limits  of 
appreciation  Sainte-Beuve  writes:  "According  to  a  very 
acute  and  just  remark  of  Pere  Tournemine,  one  admires 
only  those  qualities  in  an  author  of  which  one  has  the  germ 
and  root  in  oneself."  2  Okakura-Kakuzo  makes  the  same 
observation.  "We  must  remember  that  art  is  of  value 
only  to  the  extent  that  it  speaks  to  us.  It  might  be  a  uni- 
versal language  if  we  ourselves  were  universal  in  our  sym- 
pathies. Our  finite  nature,  the  power  of  tradition  and  con- 
ventionality, as  well  as  our  hereditary  instincts,  restrict 
the  scope  of  our  capacity  for  artistic  enjoyment.  Our  very 
individuality  establishes  in  one  sense  a  limit  to  our  under- 
standing; and  our  aesthetic  personality  seeks  its  own  af- 
finities in  the  creations  of  the  past."3  Mrs.  Radcliffe  was 
another  to  whom  this  truth  was  plain.  "  But  the  fire  of  the 
poet  is  in  vain,  if  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  not  tempered 
like  his  own,  however  it  may  be  inferior  to  his  in  power." 4 
Of  the  artist  as  the  interpreter  of  his  age,  Joubert  writes: 
"The  writers  who  possess  influence  are  those  who  express 
perfectly  what  others  think  and  who  awaken  in  others 
ideas  or  sentiments  on  the  point  of  being  born.  It  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  heart  of  peoples  that  literatures  exist."5 
Renan  concludes  negatively:  "Wherever  there  is  no  public 
to  nourish  and  inspire  genius,  it  comes  to  nothing."6  In  the 

1  Considerations  on  Painting,  p.  42. 

2  Sainte-Beuve,  Portraits  Litteraires,  I,  p.  71. 

3  Okakura-Kakuzo,  The  Book  of  Tea,  pp.  113,  114. 

4  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  vol.  n,  p.  27.  6  J.  Joubert,  Pensees,  p.  329. 
6  E.  Renan,  Souvenirs  d'enfance  et  de  jeunesse,  p.  67. 


60  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

terse  saying  of  the  Chinese  sage  Lao-tse:  "If  a  noble  man 
finds  his  time,  he  rises;  if  he  does  not  find  his  time,  he 
drifts."1 

A  last  question  transfers  the  discussion  of  fine  art  to 
a  wholly  different  order  of  ideas.  Defining  it  as  fancy 
brought  into  being  for  its  own  sake,  is  its  existence  justi- 
fied independently  of  other  results?  We  have  here  left  the 
sphere  of  what  is,  and  entered  that  of  what  should  be.  The 
transition  is  obscured  in  the  familiar  contention  over  "art 
for  art's  sake,"  which  like  most  disputes,  owes  its  difficulty 
to  its  complexity.  Besides  confusing  the  nature  of  fine  art 
with  its  value,  the  phrase  compresses  at  least  four  ques- 
tions regarding  its  value  into  one  debate.  Should  men 
devote  time  and  labor  simply  to  immortalizing  happy 
thoughts?  Yes.  Are  the  charming  aspects  of  evil  things 
fit  subjects  of  fine  art?  Sometimes;  tragedy,  for  example. 
Should  an  artist  embody  his  conceptions  without  regard  to 
their  influence?  He  cannot.  Are  not  the  most  captivating 
fancies  and  the  most  consummate  utterances  always  the 
indirect  result  of  useful  aims?  Not  always.  But  however 
these  and  other  questions  of  worth  may  be  answered,  the 
truth  remains  that  the  sole  factors  of  artistic  creation  are 
a  moment  too  good  to  lose  and  a  hand  cunning,  enough  to 
hold  it.  Its  essence  is  expressed  in  the  exclamation  of 
Faust :  Verbleibe  dock!  Du  bist  so  schbn! 2  (Remain !  Thou  art 
so  beautiful !)  The  artistic  motive,  mixed  though  it  always 
is  with  others,  is  in  itself  the  impulse  to  impart  imagina- 
tive joy  for  its  own  sake. 

EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART 

Education  in  fine  art  may  aim  to  form  either  artists  or  publics. 

The  content  of  a  work  of  fine  art  is  the  imaginative  joy 
to  which  it  owes  its  being;  and  in  the  apprehension  of  this 

1  Tao-te-King,  600  B.C.  2  Goethe's  Faust,  1st  part,  Studierzimmer. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          61 

content  by  a  beholder  the  work  is  consummated.  Fine  art, 
being  in  its  entirety  the  union  of  creating  and  beholding, 
offers  to  education  a  twofold  opportunity.  Formative 
influence  may  be  applied  by  intention  either  to  develop 
creators  or  to  develop  beholders.  The  purpose  to  develop 
creators  is  narrowly  special.  Poets  are  born,  not  made, 
and  their  ratio  to  the  total  of  births  is  always  small.  Nor 
could  a  large  proportion  of  the  community  be  spared  from 
the  realities  of  life  to  devote  themselves  to  imaging  its 
ideals.  As  a  matter  of  actual  statistics,  those  who  make 
fine  art  in  any  form  their  profession,  whether  as  artists  or 
so-called  artisans,  are  but  a  minute  fraction  of  the  whole 
population.  But  the  purpose  to  develop  beholders  is  widely 
general.  Every  one  can  be,  and  in  greater  or  less  measure 
is,  a  beholder  of  works  of  art. 

Every  one  ought  also,  in  his  way,  to  be  an  artist.  Let  us 
not  forget  this.  All  work  should  be  accomplished  with  joy 
that  a  good  deed  is  born  into  the  world  and  should  contain 
something  to  communicate  that  joy.  But  in  this  wide  and 
unaccustomed  sense  education  in  fine  art  would  merge 
into  the  education  that  teaches  us  how  to  do  anything 
noticeably  well.  When  it  stops  short  of  this  it  remains  the 
special  training  of  a  few. 

POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART 

Popular  education  in  fine  art  the  formation  of  publics  —  Fine  art  surrounds 
real  life  with  an  endless  galaxy  of  ideal  worlds,  citizenship  in  some  of  which  is 
the  birthright  of  every  one  —  Popular  education  in  fine  art  should  not  be  mainly 
technical,  nor  historical,  but  critical  —  A  scheme  of  popular  education  in  fine  art 
through  criticism. 

Hence,  popular  education  in  fine  art,  meaning  by  this 
phrase  an  artistic  education  which  is  owed  to  every  one,  con- 
sists in  forming  beholders.  The  phrases  "education  in  ap- 
preciation," "teaching  the  enjoyment  of  works  of  fancy," 
express  its  appropriate  sphere.  The  advice  of  Aristotle 


62  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

regarding  training  in  music  was,  "Let  the  young  pursue 
their  studies  until  they  are  able  to  feel  delight  in  noble 
melodies  and  rhythms."1  They  were  to  be  trained  not  to 
make  but  to  like;  not  as  poets  but  as  lovers  of  poetry. 
The  injunction  still  demands  emphasis.  Fenollosa  writes: 
"...  We  find  prevalent  discussions  and  experiments  con- 
cerning the  teaching  of  art  in  schools  so  permeated  with  the 
tacit  assumption  that  its  main  purpose  is  to  provide  an 
incipient  training  for  possible  painters  and  sculptors,  that 
warning  seems  necessary.  This  is  to  lose  sight  of  the  great 
public  value  of  art.  Is  it  for  this  that  we  teach  so  widely 
the  other  fine  arts  —  music  and  literature?  Do  we  aim, 
by  our  musical  instruction  in  schools,  in  time  to  train  up  a 
nation  of  eighty  million  composers?  Are  our  courses  in 
literature  devised  to  transform  us  into  a  community  of 
poets?  Public  education  in  art  does  not  look  so  much  to- 
ward creation  as  to  comprehension."  2  In  another  sphere 
Aristotle's  counsel  has  been  lately  voiced  by  President  Wil- 
son. "A  university  is  a  place  where  the  many  are  trained 
to  a  love  of  science  and  letters,  and  a  few  only  to  their  suc- 
cessful pursuit." 

That  the  many  should  have  their  share  in  the  life  of  the 
imagination,  and  hence  have  the  right  to  receive  aid  therein, 
admits  of  no  serious  doubt.  The  real  experience  of  no  one 
is  so  rich  that  he  can  afford  to  dispense  with  imaginative 
experience;  nor  so  poor  that  he  cannot  take  advantage 
of  it.  Uhland  writes:  "Who  sees  alone  what  is,  has  lived 
his  life."  3  Yet  what  is  fine  art,  it  may  be  asked,  but  a  copy 
of  nature?  Were  it  not  better  to  study  the  original  rather 
than  reproductions  that  never  can  equal  it?  The  objection 
betrays  a  radical  misunderstanding  of  the  relation  between 

1  Politics,  nil,  6. 

8  E.  F.  Fenollosa,  "Art  Museums  and  their  Relation  to  the  People,"  The 
Lotus,  May,  1896. 
8  "In  ein  Stammbuch." 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          63 

art  and  nature.  Fine  art  is  to  be  compared,  not  to  a  mirror, 
giving  back  as  close  a  copy  as  may  be  of  the  scenes  before 
it,  but  to  a  sky  in  which  new  counterparts  of  earth  eternally 
appear.  It  is  an  exhaustless  firmament  about  the  real 
world,  incredible  as  may  sometimes  seem  the  endless  birth 
of  new  luminaries  therein.  John  Stuart  Mill  relates  that 
at  one  period  of  his  early  life  "I  was  seriously  tormented  by 
the  thought  of  the  exhaustibility  of  musical  combinations. 
The  octave  consists  only  of  five  tones  and  two  semitones, 
which  can  be  put  together  in  only  a  limited  number  of 
ways,  of  which  but  a  small  proportion  are  beautiful;  most 
of  these,  it  seemed  to  me,  must  have  been  already  dis- 
covered, and  there  could  not  be  room  for  a  long  succession 
of  Mozarts  and  Webers,  to  strike  out,  as  these  had  done,  en- 
tirely new,  and  surpassingly  rich  veins  of  musical  beauty. 
This  source  of  anxiety  may  perhaps  be  thought  to  resemble 
that  of  the  philosophers  of  Laputa,  who  feared  lest  the  sun 
should  be  burnt  out."  l  It  is  indeed  hard  for  us  now  to 
share  in  the  fear.  For  we  look  back  upon  the  immense  de- 
velopment of  music  since  Mill  wrote,  upon  Verdi,  upon 
Wagner,  upon  Debussy;  and  out  upon  the  musics  of  other 
continents,  with  their  unheard-of  complexities  of  rhythm, 
their  differing  tones  and  semitones,  their  alien  keys  and 
modes,  their  independence  of  the  octave  itself.  As  each 
true  servant  of  the  imagination  is  born,  a  new  type  of 
ideal  existence  adds  itself  to  real  life  for  every  kindred 
soul.  When  we  turn  from  nature  to  art  we  take  our  way 
into  happy  worlds  which  gifted  men  have  formed  and 
are  ever  forming  anew  from  the  materials  of  this  sorrow- 
ful earth,  as  the  kaleidoscope  forms  figures  from  its  bits 
of  glass. 

Popular  education  in  fine  art,  if  directed  as  it  should  be 
upon  the  development  of  comprehension,  will  include  but 

1  Autobiography,  chap.  v. 


64  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

a  modicum  of  technical  instruction.  More  would  be  use- 
less, and  even  defeat  the  aim  pursued.  The  problems  and 
methods  through  which  an  artist  struggles  form  no  part 
of  the  imaginative  joy  he  seeks  to  impart.  They  are  but 
means  to  that  end.  The  scaffolding  is  not  a  part  of  the 
building,  nor  the  stage-machinery  of  the  spectacle.  Tech- 
nical knowledge  aids  a  beholder  only  if  it  bring  to  his  at- 
tention elements  in  a  work  for  which  his  eyes  are  too  dull. 
It  is  at  the  same  time  a  hindrance  by  diverting  his  mind 
from  the  work  itself.  Francesco  d'  Ollanda  reports  Michel 
Angelo  as  saying,  "What  one  has  most  to  work  and  strug- 
gle for  in  painting  is  to  do  the  work  with  a  great  amount 
of  labor  and  study  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  afterward 
appear,  however  much  it  was  labored,  to  have  been  done 
almost  quickly  and  almost  without  any  labor,  and  very 
easily,  although  it  was  not."  1  Unless  the  Latin  maxim 
Ars  est  celare  artem  is  mistaken  in  demanding  that  a  be- 
holder should  not  follow  the  poet  at  work,  pedagogic  theory 
is  mistaken  in  demanding  that  he  should.  Not  artists,  im- 
mersed as  they  must  be  in  technique,  are  the  best  critics, 
but  "those  who  have  failed  in  literature  and  art"  as  Lord 
Beaconsfield  wrote  in  Lothair;  or,  as  it  may  be  added, 
those  who  would  have  failed  had  they  not  known  better 
than  to  try.  The  true  beholder,  in  the  words  of  Herr  von 
Seydlitz,is  he  "who  can  partake  in  the  joy  of  creation, 
while  sparing  himself  its  travail  pains."2 

Neither  will  education  in  appreciation  assign  a  large 
place  to  the  history  of  art.  Its  study  is  a  study  of  the  rela- 
tions between  the  artistic  monuments  of  different  times. 
The  comprehension  of  art  is  the  study  of  these  monu- 
ments themselves.  No  two  objects  of  attention  can  well 

1  Third  Dialogue  on  Painting  with  Michel  Angelo.  Quoted  in  Michel  Angelo 
Buonarroti,  by  Charles  Holroyd,  p.  326. 

2  R.  von  Seydlitz,  Monatsberichte  ueber  Kunst-Wissenschqft  u.  Kunst-Handel 
(February,  1901),  p.  223. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          65 

be  more  different  than  a  relation  and  the  objects  between 
which  it  holds.  It  will  be  said,  different  as  they  are,  knowl- 
edge of  the  one  helps  to  a  grasp  of  the  other.  True,  to  the 
abstract  recognition  of  one  or  other  perhaps  unessential 
point.  Like  technical  knowledge,  historical  knowledge 
offers  a  crutch  to  observation.  It  may  direct  the  eyes  that 
need  directing;  and  it  may  also  direct  them  to  no  ma- 
terial advantage.  Professor  Adolf  Philippi  writes,  "First 
see,  then  read  —  for  those  who  need  reading,  and  many 
never  need  it  at  all."  Professor  Carl  Neumann  advises  to 
the  same  effect.  "The  historical  understanding  of  a  work 
of  art  is  advanced  when  we  look  at  it  in  connection  with 
other  works  of  the  same  master  and  time,  and  of  earlier 
and  later  times;  its  artistic  understanding  is  advanced 
hardly  a  step  by  the  process  —  at  most  in  that  the  com- 
parison and  contrast  of  different  works  sharpens  and  trains 
the  eye."  And  again,  "How  often  is  one  asked — .  .  . 
'  What  art  history  is  to  be  recommended  in  order  to  awaken 
an  understanding  of  art?'  But  one  answer  can  be  given. 
'No  art  history  at  all.  The  way  to  art  lies  through  the  in- 
dividual artist.'"1  Comparing  the  content  of  a  work  of 
art  with  the  influences  it  represents,  Professor  Justi  writes : 
"The  more  one  grasps  this  worth  —  incomparable,  and 
independent  of  all  historical  connections  —  the  further 
are  removed  these  side  issues."  2  Of  the  dependence  of 
Leonardo  on  Verrocchio,  Mr.  Berenson  writes:  "Would 
the  full  realization  of  this  dependence  help  us  to  appreciate 
and  enjoy  Leonardo  as  an  artist?  No,  for  the  term  *  artist' 
from  the  aesthetic,  the  only  point  of  view  we  may  admit, 
signifies  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  summation  of  works 
of  art;  and  unless  we  have  enjoyed  and  appreciated  these, 
much  though  we  may  know  about  the  man,  his  manners, 
his  environment,  his  temperament,  his  anything  you 

1  Carl  Neumann,  Rembrandt,  Preface.          2  C.  Justi,  Velasquez,  n,  p.  271. 


66  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

please,  we  shall  know  nothing  of  the  artist."  J  For  we 
shall  know  only  things  related  to  his  work,  not  the  work 
itself;  and  in  the  process  of  relating  them  to  it,  joy  in  the 
work  —  the  essence  of  its  comprehension  —  evaporates. 
Theophile  Gautier  wrote,  "The  necessity  of  analyzing 
everything  has  made  me  necessarily  and  irremediably 
sad";2  and  La  Bruyere  had  learned  the  same  lesson. 
"The  pleasure  of  criticising  deprives  us  of  that  of  being 
acutely  touched  by  very  beautiful  things."  As  the  history 
of  art  is  actually  taught  in  books  and  lectures,  its  only 
serious  value  for  the  understanding  of  art  begins  when  it 
ceases  to  be  art  history  and  becomes  comment  on  one  or 
another  individual  work  by  one  or  another  master  —  in  a 
word,  criticism. 

For  instruction  by  criticism  is  the  essential  element  in 
the  teaching  of  artistic  understanding,  and  should  be  the 
predominating  element  in  popular  education  in  fine  art. 
Criticism  in  no  degree  hostile,  be  it  said;  for  in  reality  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  hostile  criticism.  A  hostile  critic  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms;  as  if  one  should  speak  of  bloody 
ermine.  The  sentence  of  Goethe  just  quoted  from  M.  Paul 
Bourget  is  an  unassuming  rendering  of  the  magnificent 
words  of  St.  Paul,  "Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of 
men  and  of  angels  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become  as 
sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  Sainte-Beuve,  the 
master  critic  of  the  France  of  a  generation  ago,  often 
quoted  with  approval  a  sentence  of  Joubert:  "The  charm 
of  criticism  is  the  penetration  into  other  spirits." 3  The  true 
critic  is  an  alter  ego  of  the  artist;  loving  his  work  as  the 
artist  himself  loves  it,  if  no  less  conscious  of  its  imperfec- 
tions. He  is  the  ideal  beholder,  and  it  is  from  him  that  all 

1  Bernard  Berenson,  Drawings  of  Florentine  Painters,  i,  p.  35. 

2  Letter  to  his  daughter,  quoted  in  the  Figaro,  1888.    So  Renan,  Souvenirs 
d'Enfance  et  de  Jeunesse,  p.  318. 

3  J.  Joubert,  Pensees,  p.  327. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          67 

effective  training  in  beholding  must  come.  On  him  the 
whole  fabric  of  popular  education  in  art  must  rest.  To 
amplify  the  problem  of  Aristotle,  How  can  we  win  the 
people  to  delight  in  noble  art  of  every  kind?  Not  by  tech- 
nical training  beyond  the  rudiments,  nor  by  the  history  of 
art;  but  by  leading  them  into  the  presence  of  noble  art  in 
the  company  of  those  who  themselves  delight  in  it.  M. 
Anatole  France  describes  the  rare  joy  of  "visiting  some  old 
and  magnificent  monument  in  company  with  a  savant  who 
happens  at  the  same  time  to  be  a  man  of  taste  and  intel- 
ligence, capable  of  thinking,  seeing,  feeling,  and  imag- 
ining." 1  Professor  Lichtwark,  recounting  his  experiments 
with  school  children  in  the  study  of  pictures,  writes :  "Who- 
ever does  not  heartily  enjoy  art  had  better  leave  this  kind 
of  instruction  for  others.  As  well  might  a  person  who  does 
not  care  for  music  give  music  lessons."  2  M.  Emile  Faguet 
has  this  type  of  education  in  mind  when  he  writes:  "Taste 
cannot  be  imparted,  I  repeat.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  if  one 
cannot  instruct  others  to  have  taste,  one  can  show  taste  in 
the  presence  of  others  and  incite  them  to  give  proof  of  it. 
.  .  .  Only  incite  them,  it  is  true,  but  strongly  incite  them. 
.  .  .  Contact  with,  and  even  shock,  from  a  man  of  taste, 
rouses,  stimulates,  vivifies,  sets  in  motion  those  capable  of 
taste.  .  .  .  This  is  not  instruction,  but  intercourse;  an 
intercourse  not  giving  taste,  but  accustoming  and  inspiring 
others  to  have  it."3  No  better  instances  of  what  M. 
Faguet  proposes  could  be  given  than  his  own  studies  in 
literature.  They  illustrate  in  perfection  what  Matthew 
Arnold  has  called  the  highest  office  of  the  critic.  "Surely 
the  critic  who  does  most  for  his  author  is  the  critic  who 

1  Anatole  France,  La  Vie  Litteraire,  n,  p.  28. 

2  Alfred  Lichtwark,  Exercises  with  a  Class  of  School  Children  in  looking' at 
Works  of  Art  (Dresden),  p.  27. 

*  Emile  Faguet,  "IS Esprit  de  la  nouvelle  Sorbonne"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
April,  1911. 


68  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

gains  readers  for  his  author  himself;  gains  more  readers  for 
him,  and  enables  those  readers  to  read  him  with  more 
admiration."  l  So  Stapfer  compares  the  critic  to  Mercury 
-  "the  gods'  interpreter  to  men."  2 

Chosen  companionship  in  beholding  is  the  corner-stone 
of  an  effective  popular  education  in  fine  art;  a  corner-stone 
as  yet  left  aside  in  our  educational  system.  Its  accredited 
surrogates  are  still,  in  the  main,  instruction  in  the  tech- 
nique and  history  of  art;  plainly  because  of  two  great  prac- 
tical difficulties  in  the  way  of  instruction  in  its  understand- 
ing. The  capacity  of  appreciation  is  limited  in  every  one, 
among  teachers  by  profession  no  less  than  others;  and- 
in  part  for  physiological  reasons  —  narrowly  limited  among 
the  young.  Those  who  instruct  in  the  technique  and  his- 
tory of  art  throughout  the  land  would  be  more  than  human 
could  they  warmly  respond  to  more  than  a  fraction  of  the 
creations  of  the  arts  they  represent.  Again,  works  of  fine 
art  are  the  product  of  brains  full  grown  and  fully  furnished, 
while  the  nerve  centres  of  adolescents  are  but  partly  de- 
veloped, nor  has  experience  of  life  cut  the  nervous  chan- 
nels where  are  stored  the  materials  of  fancy,  and  through 
whose  excitation  alone  the  beholder  becomes  an  alter  ego 
of  the  artist.  The  fire  is  insufficient  in  the  teaching  body 
and  the  materials  to  create  a  blaze  in  the  body  taught.  A 
wide  training  in  the  comprehension  of  fine  art  calls  for 
teachers  far  beyond  the  ranks  of  the  profession;  and  for 
disciples  far  beyond  the  roll  of  our  schools  and  colleges  — 
in  every  age  and  occupation.  To  be  really  popular,  educa- 
tion in  fine  art  must  be  organized  mainly  as  an  addition  to 
our  existing  machinery  of  instruction.  Its  task  will  be  to 
offer  to  the  whole  population,  old  and  young,  the  oppor- 
tunity to  contemplate  works  of  art  in  the  companionship 

1  Preface  to  his  selection  from  the  poems  of  Byron.  So  Henri  Lavedan  in  Le 
Manuel  du  parfait  Critique. 

:  P.  Stapfer,  Shakespeare  et  VAntiquite. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART    69 

of  persons  to  whom  these  particular  creations  make  special 
appeal.  Such  a  system  would  proceed  by  the  formation  of 
groups  for  the  study  of  public  monuments  of  art,  of  the 
works  of  literature  in  our  public  libraries,  of  the  pictures 
and  sculptures  in  our  public  galleries  and  museums  of  art, 
of  current  concert  programmes,  or  operatic  and  dramatic 
performances.  It  would  act  through  a  corps  of  amateurs 
of  art,  in  the  true  and  etymologic  sense,  each  choosing  the 
sphere  of  his  predilection,  and  held  to  no  service  beyond. 
So  organized,  the  whole  available  culture  of  the  nation 
would  be  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  its  own  extension. 

CULTURE 

The  appreciation  of  fine  art  is  what  is  called  "culture"  — Lack  and  need  of 
culture  in  the  United  States  —  Final  ambiguity  in  the  word  education  —  In- 
struction in  culture  does  not  insure  education  in  it  —  Let  patience  have  her  per- 
fect work. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  often-used  and  often-abused 
word  "culture"?  Lord  Rosebery  has  just  called  culture 
"the  intelligent  enjoyment  of  literature,"  or,  as  we  may 
interpret  him,  such  an  enjoyment  as  corresponds  to  the 
intention  of  the  writer. l  He  was  speaking  in  a  university,  or 
would,  we  may  believe,  have  included  fine  art  in  any  of  its 
manifestations.  So  amplified,  the  phrase  would  run," the 
intelligent  enjoyment  of  works  of  the  imagination."  The 
definition  given  by  Matthew  Arnold  implied  a  similar  lim- 
itation and  conveyed  the  like  idea.  Culture  is  "to  know 
the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the  world " ; 2 
not  to  know  it  abstractly,  but  "to  feel  and  enjoy"  it  "as 
deeply  as  ever  we  can";3  tasting  its  sweetness  as  well  as 
opening  our  eyes  to  its  light,  in  the  two  words  of  Swift 
made  famous  by  Arnold  himself  a  generation  ago.  In  cul- 
ture we  cross  the  line  between  the  real  and  the  ideal;  be- 

1  Rectorial  Address  at  the  Quincentenary  of  the  University  of  St.  Andrews, 
Scotland. 

2  Literature  and  Dogma.  *  Introduction  to  Ward's  English  Poets,  p.  xxii. 


70  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

tween  our  fortunes  and  our  preferences.  We  cross  the  line 
also  between  the  formation  of  capacity  and  its  exercise; 
passing  from  preparation  to  fruition,  from  life  for  the  sake 
of  something  else  to  life  for  its  own  sake.  Returning  to 
President  Hadley's  definition  of  education  in  the  broad 
sense  —  "any  activity  which  we  value  not  for  its  direct 
results,  but  for  its  indirect  effects  upon  the  capacity  of 
the  man  who  is  engaged  therein,"  culture  appears  as  its 
complementary  opposite  —  an  activity  which  we  value  not 
for  its  indirect  effects  upon  capacity,  but  for  its  direct  re- 
sults. It  is  the  acceptance  of  an  imaginative  joy  given  us 
for  its  own  sake  by  a  man  endowed  with  the  rare  power  to 
offer  it.  It  is  that  activity  of  the  spirit  which  we  have  here 
learned  to  call  the  ideal  beholding  of  a  work  of  art. 

Of  this  ideal  beholding  some  of  our  latest  visitors  from 
Europe  tell  us  we  of  the  United  States  do  exceedingly 
little.  Concerning  his  American  students  in  French  litera- 
ture Professor  Lanson  writes :  "  Whenever  I  offered  them  a 
subject  of  study,  they  said  to  me  at  once  'What  must  we 
read?'  and  when  I  answered  'The  text  of  your  author'  I 
could  notice  that  they  were  a  little  surprised,  that  the  di- 
rection seemed  meagre  to  them"  —  an  attitude  due,  as 
Professor  Lanson  finds,  at  once  to  "an  unskilful  applica- 
tion of  erudition"  and  a  complete  absence  in  American 
instruction  of  the  exercise  called  in  France  "the  interpreta- 
tion of  texts."1  Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson  writes :  "In  America 
there  is,  broadly  speaking,  no  culture.  There  is  instruc- 
tion; there  is  research;  there  is  technical  and  professional 
training;  there  is  specialism  in  science  and  in  industry; 
there  is  every  possible  application  of  life  to  purposes  and 
ends,  but  there  is  no  life  for  its  own  sake."  2  The  indict- 
ment is  true.  It  is  only  in  speaking  narrowly  and  having 

1  Gustav  Lanson,  Trois  Mois  <T  Enseignement  aux  Etats  Unis,  p.  157. 

2  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  "  Culture,"  The  Cambridge  Review,  no.  18  (1909). 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          71 

regard  to  sporadic  instances,  largely  unacknowledged,  that 
life  in  the  imagination  for  its  own  sake  can  be  said  to  exist 
jn  the  United  States.  Every  day  brings  confirmation.  A 
prominent  artistic  organization  lately  offered  a  large  prize 
for  a  monograph  upon  a  noted  collection  of  art  in  the  ex- 
pressed hope  of  eliciting  "the  standard  work  of  apprecia- 
tion of  the  collection  for  all  time  to  come."  Since  "the 
standard  work  of  appreciation"  of  a  collection  presup- 
poses spiritual  twinship  between  the  critic  and  the  artists 
represented,  a  writer  capable  of  fulfilling  this  hope  would 
unite  in  his  own  soul  those  of  Van  Dyck,  Luca  della 
Robbia,  the  Sung  artists  of  China,  or  others  similar. 
Either  the  proponents  of  this  contest  believed  that  such  an 
intellectual  prodigy  existed  among  us,  or  they  had  no  ade- 
quate conception  of  what  the  appreciation  of  art  involves. 
A  recent  review  of  a  translation  of  Heine's  poems  begins : 
"To  readers  without  some  working  knowledge  of  German, 
Heine  has  always  been  a  mystery  and  —  to  lift  the  veil 
from  another  of  those  facts  of  life  well  known  but  seldom 
mentioned  —  a  disappointment."  It  seems  not  to  have 
occurred  to  the  writer,  despite  his  air  of  kindly  assurance, 
that  a  reader  without  "some  working  knowledge  of  Ger- 
man" never  has  read  Heine  and  is  "disappointed,"  not  by 
the  poet,  but  through  his  own  inability  to  read  him.  As  well 
be  disappointed  with  the  lark  that  one  has  heard  only  in 
captivity.  Two  prominent  newspapers,  one  in  Chicago, 
one  in  Boston,  extol  different  books  in  the  words,  "To  be 
appreciated  this  book  must  be  read"  —  as  one  might  say, 
"To  be  appreciated  this  symphony  must  be  listened  to,  or 
this  picture  must  be  looked  at."  Reluctantly  we  must 
conclude  to  a  notable  lack  of  cultivation  among  instructed 
people  in  America. 

For  what  commonly  passes  for  culture  among  us  is  at 
best  only  instruction;  not  the  activity  of  apprehending  and 


72  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

feeling  ideals,  but  the  activity  of  trying  to  prepare  for  such 
an  apprehension  and  feeling.  Since  it  is  possible  to  try  to 
enjoy  all  types  of  creative  fancy,  though  wholly  impossible 
for  any  one  to  succeed  in  more  than  the  appearance  of  en- 
joying them  all,  a  single  narrow  interest  —  that  of  appear- 
ing interested  in  things  of  the  spirit  —  has  usurped  the 
place  of  the  infinite  variety  of  interests  which  the  spirit  can 
genuinely  nourish.  Instructed,  the  classes  which  repre- 
sent culture  among  us  are;  but  not,  as  classes,  cultivated. 
Lowell  called  the  people  of  this  country  "the  most  com- 
mon-schooled [it  might  now  perhaps  be  added,  the  most 
college-bred]  and  the  least  cultivated  people  in  the  world." 
As  a  people  we  sorely  need  to  realize  that  culture  is  not  a 
making  ready  for  life  in  the  future  but  a  practice  of  life 
in  the  present;  not  work  but  play;  not  tepid  and  supercili- 
ous but  warm  and  gracious;  not  the  issue  of  spiritual  notes 
ostensibly  payable  on  demand,  though  always  in  the  event 
extended,  but  the  payment  of  a  specie  of  the  soul,  as  oc- 
casion calls.  The  world  position  which  the  United  States 
has  assumed  within  recent  years  makes  the  duty  of  an  in- 
ternational culture  —  of  a  penetration  of  the  spirit  of  other 
peoples,  a  recognition  of  their  ideals,  and  as  far  as  may  be  a 
sharing  in  them  —  our  instant  duty.  This  patriotic  obliga- 
tion will  be  sooner  met,  we  shall  sooner  take  our  place  with 
intelligence  and  sympathy  at  the  council  table  of  the  pow- 
ers, if  we  clearly  realize  that  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the  real 
significance  of  the  common  phrase  —  the  appreciation  of 
fine  art. 

A  final  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  overburdened  word 
"education"  brings  the  number  of  its  familiar  meanings 
to  ten.  The  modification  of  personality  either  pure  and 
simple  (the  loose  sense),  by  improvement  (the  broad  sense), 
by  teaching  (the  narrow  sense),  or  by  schooling  (the  nar- 
rowest sense),  either  as  process  or  product,  make  up  eight 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  FINE  ART          73 

meanings;  and  the  processes  of  teaching  and  schooling,  in 
their  two  acceptations  of  the  contribution  of  the  pupil  on 
one  side  and  the  teacher  on  the  other,  complete  the  ten. 
Professor  Gildersleeve  warns  us  that  "Education  is  the 
normal  development  of  the  powers  that  lie  in  man's  na- 
ture, and  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  instruction,  which 
merely  furnishes  the  means  and  appliances  of  educa- 
tion."1 There  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  actual  development 
of  capacity  in  the  taught,  and,  on  the  other,  simply  the 
use  of  means  toward  this  aim,  apart  from  success  or  fail- 
ure. In  the  one  sense  education  means  the  activity  of  learn- 
ing, in  the  other,  the  activity  of  teaching.  The  question 
"Does  education  really  educate?"  signifies  by  the  noun 
the  share  of  the  instructor,  and  by  the  verb  the  share  of 
the  pupil.  The  distinction  has  been  wittily  expressed  in  a 
new  rendering  of  an  old  proverb,  "You  may  send  a  boy  to 
college,  but  you  cannot  make  him  think."  The  sending  of 
our  whole  people  to  a  college  of  culture  added  to  our  pres- 
ent educational  system  might  still  do  little  to  make  them 
think.  Let  it  suffice  us  to  be  assured  that  what  little  it 
should  do  would  be  well  worth  the  pains.  Professor  Nash 
has  said:  "We  men  and  women  of  to-day  are  standing  on 
the  verge  of  a  future  whose  course  it  is  impossible  to  foresee. 
If  we  are  to  play  our  part  through,  if  we  are  to  follow  our 
duty  home,  we  need  both  a  cool  head  and  a  warm  heart. 
The  geologian  deals  with  seons  as  an  oriental  monarch 
with  his  people's  gold.  To  the  impassioned  reformer  a  year 
is  an  age.  The  need  of  our  time  is  a  manhood  that  shall 
gain  a  little  —  just  a  little  —  of  the  geologian's  time- 
sense.' 


"  2 


1  Basil  L.  Gildersleeve,  "The  Limits  of  Culture,"  Essays  and  Studies,  p.  13. 

2  Henry  S.  Nash,  Genesis  of  the  Social  Conscience,  p.  2. 


Ill 

THE  AIMS  OF  MUSEUMS 
THE  IDEAL  OF  CULTURE 


Ill 

THE  AIMS  OF  MUSEUMS 
THE  IDEAL  OF  CULTURE 

I 
DR.  GOODE'S  THESIS  AND  ITS  ANTITHESIS1 

AN  often  quoted  sentence  from  a  paper  by  Dr.  George 
Brown  Goode,  former  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution,  runs  as  follows : 

An  efficient  educational  rriuseum  may  be  described  as  a  col- 
lection of  instructive  labels  each  illustrated  by  a  well-selected 
specimen.2 

Is  this  thesis  applicable  to  museums  indiscriminately? 
In  a  museum  of  fine  art,  are  the  labels  really  more  impor- 
tant than  the  exhibits;  or  are  the  exhibits  more  important 
than  the  labels?  Is  a  museum  of  fine  art  at  bottom  an 
educational  institution  or  an  artistic  institution? 

A  visitor  from  another  planet  might  smile  over  the  ques- 
tion whether  an  institution  dedicated  to  art  ought  to  be 
managed  in  the  interest  of  science.  Yet  adherents  to 
Mother  Earth  may  be  pardoned  for  the  unwillingness  that 
some  of  the  best  among  them  have  shown  to  express  an 
opinion  one  way  or  the  other.  A  decade  ago  an  obituary 
notice  of  Prince  Troubetskoy,  Director  of  the  University 
of  Moscow,  contained  the  news  that  he  had  "risked  all  his 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
vol.  ix  (1915). 

2  Dr.  G.  Brown  Goode:  "Museum  History  and  Museums  of  History,"  a  paper 
read  before  the  American  Historical  Association  in  Washington,  D.C.,  December 
26-28,  1888;  reprinted  in  the  Report   of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  (1897), 
part  ii. 


78  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

popularity  by  a  speech  made  at  a  recent  meeting  of  the 
students  of  the  University,  in  which  he  said  that  study 
should  be  the  primary  purpose  of  the  University  and  that 
political  or  other  agitation  should  be  only  a  secondary 
aim."  The  question  whether  a  museum  of  fine  art  is  at 
bottom  an  educational  or  an  artistic  institution,  despite 
its  Philistine  ring,  is  one  likewise  to  be  treated  seriously.1 
Two  words  in  Dr.  Goode's  formula  should  warn  us 
against  the  grievous  injustice  of  condemning  as  a  Philistine 
a  writer  so  active-minded,  acute,  and  liberal.  His  thesis 
is  expressly  restricted  to  "educational"  museums  whose 
contents  are  "specimens."  Looking  further  through  his 
exposition,  we  come  upon  many  plain  indications  that  he 
grasped,  if  he  did  not  consistently  pursue,  the  idea  of  mu- 
seums non-educational  in  type,  to  whose  contents  the  term 
"specimen"  might  not  apply.  He  writes  of  "fine  art  col- 
lections, best  to  be  arranged  from  an  aesthetic  standpoint, 
by  artists";2  and  again,  of  collections  of  artistic  master- 
pieces as  "shrines"  and  "heirlooms";3  and  again  of 
"many  so-called  museums"  as  in  reality  "permanent  ex- 

1  In  the  Boston  Evening  Transcript  of  October  12  and  28, 1899,  the  writer  con- 
tributed two  letters  to  an  animated  discussion  starting  from  Professor  Gcode's 
thesis.    The  debate  was  reawakened  five  years  later  in  connection  with  the  prep- 
aration of  plans  for  the  present  building  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts.    Careful 
and  acute  arguments  in  defence  of  an  artistic  theory  of  art  museum  management 
were  contributed  by  Professor  Mather  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  ("An  Art  Mu- 
seum for  the  People,"    December,  1907)  and  to  the  New  York  Nation  ("A  Selec- 
tive Art  Museum,"  vol.  82,  p.  422).  The  controversy  was  followed  with  interest 
in  England.  In  writing  from  America  to  the  Burlington  Magazine  of  April,  1906, 
Professor  Mather  accurately  defined  the  issue  as  the  question  whether  the  mu- 
seum of  art  "should  be  primarily  educational  in  intent,  or  whether  in  its  conduct 
the  aesthetic  should  have  preference  over  scholastic  considerations."    An  edi- 
torial article  in  the  Burlington  for  September,  1908,  noted  the  influence  of  the 
cesthetic  theory  upon  museum  arrangement,  and  drew  the  conclusion  that  "to 
something  of  this  nature  it  seems  likely  that  the  larger  world-museums  must 
approximate  when  they  begin  to  be  fully  conscious  of  their  purpose  and  function 
in  the  modern  world." 

2  "Museum  History  and  Museums  of  History,"  Report  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution  (1897),  part  n,  p.  76. 

*  "The  Museums  of  the  Future,"  Report  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  (1897), 
p.  252. 


GOODE'S  THESIS  AND  ITS  ANTITHESIS        79 

hibitions."1  Nor  did  he  offer  even  his  latest  ideas  on 
museum  administration  as  finished  results,  but  expressly  as 
material  for  critical  discussion.  Yet  the  criticism  he  hoped 
for  has  hardly  taken  place.  On  the  contrary,  one  telling 
sentence  of  his  has  been,  as  it  were,  preserved  in  alcohol, 
as  a  final  word  on  the  whole  subject. 

What  is  a  "specimen"?    Has  the  idea  any  opposite? 

We  call  an  object  a  specimen  when  we  think  of  certain 
qualities  in  which  it  resembles  other  things.  We  call  it  on 
the  other  hand  a  unicum  when  we  think  of  qualities  in 
which  it  differs  from  any  other  thing.  Now,  nothing  is 
absolutely  unlike  anything  else;  even  a  hawk  and  a  hand- 
saw are  alike  in  having  teeth.  Nor  is  anything  absolutely 
like  anything  else;  even  two  peas  differ  in  their  strain  on  the 
pod.  Hence  anything  we  please  is  always  both  a  specimen 
and  a  unicum.  It  is  more  or  less  like  other  things,  and 
hence  a  specimen;  and  it  is  always  also  just  itself  and  noth- 
ing else,  and  hence  a  unicum.  But  although  every  object  is 
at  once  specimen  and  unicum,  it  may  be  that  we  value  it  in 
either  way  more  than  we  value  it  in  the  other;  and  this  is 
the  practical  significance  of  the  two  words,  specimen  and 
unicum.  A  specimen  is  a  thing  we  talk  of  and  treat  with 
reference  to  its  resemblances  to  other  things.  Its  value,  as 
we  say,  is  illustrative,  residing  in  its  abstract  bearings.  A 
unicum  is  a  thing  we  talk  of  and  treat  with  reference  to  its 
differences  from  any  other  thing.  Its  value,  as  we  say, 
is  individual,  residing  in  its  concrete  self.  This  is  the  kind 
of  regard  we  feel  for  individuals  par  excellence,  or  persons. 
The  feeling  of  Americans  for  Lincoln  is  not  admiration  for 
a  group  of  qualities  —  for  patience,  acuteness,  strength  of 
purpose,  kindliness,  homely  wit  —  but  for  these  and  count- 
less other  traits  as  they  are  embodied  in  the  individual  life 

"The  Principles  of  Museum  Administration,"  Report  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution  (1897),  p.  198. 


80  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

we  recall  under  that  name.  When  Olivia  catalogued  her 
charms  —  "item,  two  lips,  indifferent  red,  item,  two  grey 
eyes  with  lids  to  them,  item,  one  neck,  one  chin,  and  so 
forth"  —  she  had  already  divined  that  the  Duke  cared  for 
her,  not  as  the  one  woman  in  the  world  for  him,  but  as  a 
specimen  of  womanhood.  Contrariwise,  the  passion  that 
impels  the  artist  is  not  a  passion  for  abstract  qualities  but 
for  a  concrete  object,  limitless  source  of  abstractions,  as  it 
grows  under  his  hand.  There  is  but  one  Venus  of  Melos,  but 
one  Lycidas.  There  is  but  one  Moonlight  Sonata  of  Bee- 
thoven, and  but  one  Three  Trees  of  Rembrandt,  many  as 
are  the  renditions  of  the  one  and  impressions  of  the  other. 
Thus  we  speak  quite  naturally  of  the  friendship  of  fine  art. 
The  feeling  which  the  artist's  other  half  —  the  true  be- 
holder of  his  work  —  feels  for  his  creation  is  in  turn  unique, 
like  the  regard  we  entertain  toward  a  human  being. 

When,  therefore,  we  apply  Dr.  Goode's  formula  to  col- 
lections of  fine  art  we  find  it  talking  nonsense,  just  as  a 
formula  of  mathematics  talks  nonsense  when  applied  to 
facts  it  does  not  fit.  For  a  collection  of  works  of  art  is  not 
a  collection  of  specimens,  but  a  collection  of  their  opposites, 
namely,  unica.  More  precisely,  our  primary  purpose  in 
showing  things  concrete  in  aim  is  itself  concrete  and  not  ab- 
stract. In  speaking  of  museums  of  art  Dr.  Goode's  thesis 
must  be  dropped  and  an  antithesis  substituted.  Their 
essential  nature  is  not  that  of  collections  of  abstractions 
illuminated  for  us  by  examples,  but  that  of  collections  of 
concrete  things  introduced  to  us  by  ideas.  This  is  the 
antithesis  which  is  needed  and  which  had  been  recognized 
from  the  beginning  at  the  museum  where  the  controversy 
started. 

The  distinction  admits  of  many  forms  of  statement. 
Museums  of  science  aim  first  at  abstract  knowledge,  muse- 
ums of  art  at  concrete  satisfaction.  A  museum  of  science 


GOODE'S  THESIS  AND  ITS  ANTITHESIS        81 

is  a  place  of  pleasant  thought;  a  museum  of  art  a  place  of 
thoughtful  pleasure.  A  scientific  museum  is  devoted  to 
observations,  an  art  museum  to  valuations.  A  collection 
of  science  is  gathered  primarily  in  the  interest  of  the  real; 
a  collection  of  art  primarily  in  the  interest  of  the  ideal. 
The  former  is  a  panorama  of  fact,  the  latter  a  paradise  of 
fancy.  In  the  former  we  learn,  in  the  latter  we  admire.  A 
museum  of  science  is  in  essence  a  school;  a  museum  of  art 
in  essence  a  temple.  Minerva  presides  over  the  one,  sacred 
to  the  reason;  Apollo  over  the  other,  sacred  to  the  imagi- 
nation. 

Thesis  and  antithesis  follow  deductively.  An  object  of 
science  being  specimen,  and  an  object  of  art  unicum,  in  a 
museum  of  science  the  accompanying  information  is  more 
important  than  the  objects;  in  a  museum  of  art,  less.  For 
while  both  are  collections  exemplifying  human  creative 
power,  in  the  museum  of  science  the  creation  is  the  general 
law  represented  by  the  description;  in  the  art  museum,  it  is 
the  particular  fact  presented  by  the  object.  Thus,  as  Dr. 
Goode  well  said,  in  a  museum  of  science,  the  object  exists 
for  the  description;  but  as  he  was  not  yet  ready  to  say,  in  a 
museum  of  art  the  relation  is  reversed  —  the  description  ex- 
ists for  the  object.  A  museum  of  science  is  in  truth  a  col- 
lection of  labels  plus  illustrations;  but  a  museum  of  art  a 
collection  of  objects  plus  interpretations. 


n 

THE  TRIPLE  AIM  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART* 

MY  points  are  three:  (1)  to  state  the  aim  of  fine  art;  (2)  to 
give  the  reason  why  art  has  this  aim;  (3)  to  determine  the 
main  purposes  subserved  by  museums  of  fine  art  and  their 
order  of  precedence. 

1.  What  is  the  aim  of  fine  art? 

There  are  two  radically  different  ways  in  which  we  may 
be  said  to  know  anything.  "  Je  connais "  means  "I  know " ; 
"  Je  sais,"  "I  know";  but  the  first  means  acquaintance, 
the  second  information,  two  very  different  things.  To  be 
acquainted  with  anything  means  to  have  experience  of 
it;  to  be  informed  about  it  means  only  that  this  thing  has 
been  an  object  of  our  thought.  Romeo's  exclamation,  "He 
jests  at  scars  who  never  felt  a  wound,"  brings  out  this 
distinction  between  acquaintance  and  information.  The 
topic  of  love  had  occupied  his  comrade's  thought,  more 
perhaps  than  his  own,  but  it  was  his  fate  alone  to  experi- 
ence the  passion.  We  say,  "Practice  what  you  preach," 
meaning  again  that  to  talk  about  a  matter  is  a  very  differ- 
ent affair  from  living  it  through.  "Let  not  him  that  gird- 
eth  on  his  harness  boast  himself  as  he  that  putteth  it  off." 
Why  ?  Because  the  former  boasts  about  an  object  of 
thought,  the  latter  about  a  subject  of  experience. 

This  difference  admitted,  just  wherein  does  it  consist? 
In  this,  that  to  be  acquainted  with  a  thing  is  to  know  the 
thing  itself;  to  be  informed  about  it  is  to  know  its  rela- 
tions to  other  things.  Benvolio  and  Mercutio  knew  love  in 
all  its  bearings,  in  its  causes,  its  signs,  its  results,  but 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
voL  i  (1907). 


TRIPLE  AIM  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART     83 

they  had  not  known  the  thing  itself  that  springs  from  these 
sources,  has  these  manifestations,  and  bears  these  fruits. 
There  is  no  more  fundamental  distinction  known  to  man 
than  that  between  things  and  the  relations  of  things,  and  it 
is  this  deep  difference  that  obtains  between  acquaintance 
and  information.  To  be  acquainted  with  a  thing  is  to  have 
enter  one's  consciousness  the  sensations,  the  thoughts,  the 
feelings,  into  which  that  thing  can  be  analyzed.  The  event 
called  the  battle  of  Waterloo  consisted,  among  a  myriad 
other  matters,  of  the  flash  of  guns,  the  sight  of  reddened 
soil,  and  of  bodies  of  men  in  movement,  the  volleys,  the 
cries,  the  efforts,  the  terrors,  the  rage,  the  despair,  the  un- 
imaginable torture,  the  dumb  approach  of  death;  all  the 
infinite  abyss  of  experiences  that  passed  in  scores  of  thou- 
sands of  souls  a  hundred  years  ago  on  the  Belgian  plain. 
To  be  informed  about  a  thing  is  to  turn  one's  thoughts 
upon  a  complex  of  experiences  of  which  it  is  composed.  To 
know  about  Waterloo  is  to  learn  its  date,  its  theatre,  its 
progress,  its  causes  and  results,  its  place  in  the  lives  of  the 
participants  and  of  the  nations  they  represented;  in  short, 
to  envelop  it  in  any  web  the  thoughts  are  capable  of  weav- 
ing with  reference  to  that  past  event. 

This  distinction  being  admitted  and  being  clear,  my  first 
point  is  that  the  aim  of  art  is  to  impart  knowledge  in  one 
of  these  senses  and  not  in  the  other.  The  aim  of  the  artist 
is  that  we  should  become  acquainted  with  his  product,  not 
that  we  should  be  informed  about  it.  The  thing  itself,  and 
not  its  bearings,  is  what  the  artist  is  interested  in  and  wishes 
us  also  to  admire.  Though  we  master  the  whole  literature 
of  Balzac  criticism,  yet  if  we  never  read  one  of  his  works, 
we  shall  have  wholly  missed  his  aim  in  writing  them.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  artist  is  called  Troirjr^,  the  creator  of  things. 
For  what  is  a  thing,  and  what  is  it  to  create?  A  thing 
philosophically  analyzed  is  a  bundle  of  experiences,  a  cer- 


84  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

tain  combination  of  sensations,  thoughts  and  feelings,  and 
to  create  is  to  bring  into  being  the  permanent  possibility  of 
such  a  complex.  This  is  what  the  artist  does.  The  aim  of 
his  creation  is  that  others  after  him  should  in  contact  with 
his  work  see,  think,  and  feel  with  his  eyes,  brain,  and  heart. 
A  work  of  fine  art  is,  therefore,  a  record  of  experience,  made 
in  order  to  acquaint  others  with  his  experience.  It  is  a 
language  made  to  communicate  this  experience  to  whom 
it  may  concern. 

It  is  true  that  any  bundle  of  experience,  any  thing,  can 
be  reasoned  about,  as  well  as  perceived.  We  can  turn  our 
minds  from  the  thing  itself  —  for  instance,  a  work  of  art 
-  to  its  bearings  upon  other  things.  We  may  not  only  go 
through  an  experience,  we  can  also  weave  a  limitless  web 
of  thought  about  it.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
artist  any  such  web  of  thought  is  a  by-product  of  his  work. 
The  immediate  purpose  of  language,  and  of  fine  art  as  one 
form  of  it,  is  to  communicate  something,  not  to  elicit  a 
response.  The  spectator's  perception  of  a  creator's  achieve- 
ment, his  apprehension  of  all  that  it  was  made  to  be,  —  this 
it  is,  that  completes  an  act  of  creation.  The  Book  of  Gene- 
sis records  the  fulfilment  of  the  creative  purpose  when  after 
each  day's  work  "God  saw  that  it  was  good." 

2.  Yet  a  world  or  a  work  of  art  surely  must  exist  for 
something,  we  may  say.  This  is  my  second  point.  Wliy 
does  art  pursue  the  aim  it  does?  This  aim,  we  may  admit, 
is  to  perpetuate  a  certain  experience,  to  put  it  permanently 
in  the  power  of  others  to  live  over  again  certain  moments 
of  the  artist's  life.  But  what  for?  What  is  the  use  to  the 
many  of  this  vicarious  existence  through  a  few?  Shall  we 
say  to  broaden  our  minds?  The  question  then  recurs,  what 
is  the  use  of  broadening  our  minds?  Not  to  lose  time  in 
thinking  up  further  answers,  let  us  call  this  use,  this  pur- 
pose, whatever  it  is,  C.  Again  the  question  recurs,  —  what 


TRIPLE  AIM  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART     85 

is  the  use  of  C?  Let  us  say  D.  Well,  what  is  the  use  of  D? 
Let  us  say  E.  Evidently  there  is  no  end  to  this  chase,  until 
we  reach  something  valuable  in  itself  and  not  solely  valu- 
able through  an  ulterior  use.  Either  nothing  is  worth  while, 
the  whole  universe  vanity,  life  not  worth  living,  or  some 
things  are  desirable  for  their  own  sake.  Such  things  cer- 
tainly exist.  Virtue  is  one,  unless  the  common  phrase, 
"Virtue  is  its  own  reward,"  is  an  empty  claim.  Happiness, 
another,  for  who  asks  what  use  there  is  in  being  happy? 

We  return,  then,  to  our  starting  point  with  a  new  ques- 
tion. May  not  the  experience  which  an  artist  is  impelled 
to  record  in  a  work  of  fine  art  be  a  valuable  thing  in  itself? 
May  it  not  be  that  the  motive  which  gives  rise  to  what 
we  call  the  fine  arts  is  the  fact  that  certain  of  our  experi- 
ences, capable  of  outward  embodiment,  are  too  precious  in 
themselves  to  lose?  This  is  indeed  the  common  opinion. 
Emerson  repeats  it  in  his  "Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for 
being."1 

These  two  conclusions,  as  to  the  aim  of  fine  art  and  the 
reason  for  this  aim,  may  thus  be  summed  up : 

The  Aim.  To  acquaint  others  with  the  product  of 
our  own  fancy  (not  to  develop  information  about  this 
product). 

1  True  that  works  of  fine  art  have  value  through  their  fruits,  as  well  as  in 
themselves.  They  are  useful,  both  without  the  maker's  intention  and  with  it,  as 
well  as  beautiful.  Their  friendship  forms  spirit  and  style,  and  most  are  expressly 
designed  to  subserve  ends  apart  from  that  of  conveying  their  content  —  the 
painting,  to  fill  a  space  upon  the  court-room  wall  and  rest  the  eyes  and  refresh 
the  minds  of  the  throng  below  —  the  sculptured  group  to  honor  and  protect  the 
dust  it  covers.  Moreover,  the  intended  use  of  a  work  of  art  may  be,  and  often  is, 
the  chief  purpose  of  the  maker,  rather  than  its  beauty.  Like  Demosthenes,  aim- 
ing rather  at  a  march  against  Philip,  than  at  impressive  persuasion,  he  may  be 
artisan,  the  purveyor  of  means,  before  he  is  artist,  the  creator  of  ends.  Still 
further,  the  idea  of  the  intended  use  of  a  thing  may  become  to  us  part  and  parcel 
of  the  thing  itself;  the  ship  may  be  gallant,  the  weapon  cruel.  Beautiful  as  a  use- 
less or  noxious  creation  may  be,  another  at  once  salutary  and  more  beautiful  is 
conceivable,  and,  as  we  may  trust,  actual.  But  it  is  the  idea  only  of  utility  that 
may  thus  contribute  to  beauty;  the  reality  remains  wholly  apart  from  it.  Artistic 
value  and  practical  value  differ  as  the  nature  of  a  thing  from  its  effect;  beauty 
entering  into  the  work,  utility  flowing  from  it. 


86  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

The  Reason.   Because  this  acquaintance  is  itself  worth 
cultivating  (not  because  it  brings  us  ulterior  advantages). 
Here  we  have  two  distinctions: 

(1)  Between  acquaintance  with,  and  information  about, 
works  of  art. 

(2)  Between  the  good  they  are  (exemplified  in  their 
beauty);  and  the  good  they  do  (their  utility). 

Fine  art  is  concerned  with  the  first  member  of  each  of 
these  alternatives.  The  creative  artist  aims  that  beholders 
should  be  acquainted  with  a  fancy  whose  inherent  worth  has 
inspired  its  perpetuation. 

3.  Upon  this  understanding  of  the  aim  of  fine  art  and  the 
reason  for  its  pursuit,  what  are  the  main  purposes  of  a  mu- 
seum of  fine  art  and  what  the  order  of  their  precedence? 

Returning  to  the  two  alternatives  just  stated,  the  second 
and  extra-artistic  member  of  each  still  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered. We  may,  first,  not  only  acquaint  ourselves  with 
works  of  fine  art  as  the  artist  intends,  but  inform  ourselves 
about  them;  and,  second,  not  only  enjoy  their  beauty, 
which  is  also  his  intention,  but  profit  by  their  utility. 
Hence  out  of  these  two  distinctions  there  emerge  finally 
three  possible  attitudes  toward  a  work  of  fine  art : 

(1)  The  artistic;  the  attitude  of  the  seeker  after  apprecia- 
tive acquaintance  with  the  work,  in  accordance  with  the 
artist's  intention. 

(2)  The  scientific :  the  attitude  of  the  seeker  after  informa- 
tion about  the  work,  independent  of  the  artist's  intention. 

(3)  The  practical ;  the  attitude  of  the  seeker  after  results 
from  the  work,  also  independent  of  the  artist's  intention. 

The  influence  of  any  permanent  public  exhibition  of 
fine  art,  any  art  museum  as  it  is  called,  is  exerted  upon 
persons  taking  each  of  these  three  attitudes.  They  are 
represented  respectively  by  three  clearly  distinguished,  but 
not  mutually  exclusive,  classes  of  visitors. 


TRIPLE  AIM  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART     87 

The  artistic  attitude  is  that  of  the  whole  public.  The 
one  aim  common  to  every  visitor  is  that  of  appreciative 
acquaintance  (with  the  objects  shown). 

The  scientific  attitude  is  that  of  students  of  history. 
Their  aim  is  information  (about  the  object  shown). 

The  practical  attitude  is  that  of  craftsmen  (comprising 
artists,  artisans,  and  art  students).  Their  aim  is  guidance 
(by  the  objects  shown).1 

The  question  of  precedence  among  these  purposes  ad- 
mits of  but  one  answer.  In  a  treasury  of  creative  genius 
the  creative  aim  is  paramount.  A  museum  of  fine  art  should 
seek  first  the  spread  of  that  appreciative  acquaintance 
which  is  the  goal  of  fine  art.  Subject  to  this  prior  duty  it 
should  administer  its  possessions  both  for  purposes  of  his- 
torical study  and  purposes  of  professional  utility,  both  as 
scientific  specimens  and  as  technical  aids.  It  is  the  peo- 
ple at  large,  whose  contemplative  attitude  toward  a  work 
of  fine  art  fulfils  more  or  less  adequately  the  creative  aim  of 
the  artist,  for  whom  a  museum  of  fine  art  primarily  exists. 
The  archseologist  and  the  craftsman,  whose  attitudes  of 
investigation  and  emulation  respond  to  no  intention  on 
the  artist's  part,  have  a  secondary,  although  indefeasible, 
standing  therein. 

This  aim  of  appreciative  acquaintance  is  what  a  museum 
of  fine  art  exists  for.  The  raison  d'etre,  or  reason  for  the 
existence  of  anything,  is  its  distinctive  purpose;  and  this  is 
also  its  paramount  purpose.  When  a  man  sets  his  hand 

1  Two  words  of  comment  on  these  aims:  Both  historical  and  professional  study 
may  aid  appreciative  acquaintance,  although  neither  is  indispensable,  still  less 
suffices  to  ensure  it.  Both  sharpen  observation,  but  five  teachers  —  the  eyes,  life, 
travel,  the  historic  sense,  and  art  itself  —  are  more  helpful  than  science;  while 
skill,  if  it  divert  the  mind  from  achievement  to  method,  may  even  be  a  handicap. 
Again:  no  others  than  technical  students  take  the  utilitarian  point  of  view  inde- 
pendently; for  the  spiritual  uses  of  works  of  art  are  realized  through  appreciative 
acquaintance  with  them,  and  their  material  uses  are  obsolete  in  the  artificial 
environment  of  a  museum,  where  the  sword  no  longer  defends,  nor  the  cup  re- 
freshes. 


88  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

to  making  anything,  it  is  because  nothing  exists  availably 
which  exactly  fulfils  the  purpose  he  has  in  mind.  Were 
there  such  a  thing,  the  work  of  his  hand  would  have  no 
raison  d'etre.  But  the  thing  he  makes  may  subserve  many 
other  ends  than  that  which  is  its  raison  d'etre.  These  pur- 
poses which  it  meets  in  common  with  other  things,  must 
yield  in  any  conflict  on  equal  terms  to  its  distinctive  use, 
its  raison  d'etre.  Else  we  are  preferring  what  can  to  what 
cannot  be  attained  by  other  means,  the  less  valuable  to  the 
more  valuable. 

It  is  therefore  a  misuse  of  language  to  speak  of  anything 
as  existing  secondarily  for  its  subordinate  ends.  Noth- 
ing exists  secondarily  for  anything.  What  it  exists  for, 
its  raison  d'etre,  its  distinctive  purpose,  is  by  implication 
its  primary  purpose.  Its  secondary  and  shared  purposes 
it  accomplishes  without  existing  for  them. 


m 

ON  THE  DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  AET1 
CAPITAL  stress  has  in  recent  years  been  laid  upon  the 
educational  functions  of  public  museums,  collections  of 
fine  art  either  included  without  argument  or  excepted 
without  clearly  expressed  conviction.  The  purpose  of  the 
following  pages  is  to  question  the  right,  thus  assumed  in 
fact  or  in  effect,  to  conceive  and  manage  a  public  treasury 
of  art  as  if  primarily  an  agency  of  popular  instruction. 
According  to  the  Areopagitica,  who  kills  a  good  book  kills 
reason  itself.  No  less  the  precious  lifeblood  of  a  master 
spirit,  who  kills  good  painting  or  good  sculpture  kills  imag- 
ination itself;  and  neither  truly  lives  where  its  designed 
artistic  effect  is  held  permanently  subordinate  to  an  ad- 
ventitious educational  end.  To  preserve  and  display 
masterpieces  of  art,  while  preferring  to  the  imaginative 
purpose  of  the  artist  an  ulterior  aim  with  which  the  imag- 
ination has  nothing  to  do,  is  to  betray  the  cause  of  art  in- 
stead of  serving  it.  There  is  imposed  upon  museums  of  the 
fine  arts  by  the  nature  of  their  contents  an  obligation  para- 
mount to  the  duty  of  public  instruction  incumbent  on  all 
museums,  the  obligation,  namely,  to  promote  public  ap- 
preciation of  certain  visible  and  tangible  creations  through 
which  the  fancy  of  man  has  bidden  his  senses  follow  its 
flight. 

The  argument  here  offered  in  support  of  this  thesis  may 
thus  be  summarized.  A  fundamental  distinction  is  drawn 
between  the  aesthetic,  or  intrinsic,  and  the  practical,  or 
borrowed,  worth  of  things;  and  it  is  claimed  that  their 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Museums  Journal,  Sheffield,  England  (vol.  in,  no.  7, 
January,  1904),  and  from  Communications  to  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston,  vol.  i  (March,  1904). 


90  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

artistic  quality  is  a  species  of  the  former,  and  their  educa- 
tional value  of  the  latter.  Museums  are  defined  as  per- 
manent exhibitions  of  objects  gathered  because  possessing 
either  artistic  quality  (museums  of  fine  art)  or  educational 
value  (museums  of  science  or  the  useful  arts) .  From  these 
two  propositions  it  follows  apodictically  that  museums  of 
art  and  museums  of  other  kinds  differ  radically  as  institu- 
tions of  aesthetic,  or  appreciative,  and  practical,  or  in- 
structive aim  respectively.  Four  ways  in  which  fine  art, 
while  aiming  at  appreciation,  may  result  in  instruction,  are 
then  examined;  and  in  closing,  three  reasons  are  given  why 
its  educational  by-product  should  in  many  minds  over- 
shadow its  proper  artistic  yield. 

It  is  here  sought,  in  a  word,  to  establish  a  conception  of 
the  essential  functions  of  public  museums  which  shall  duly 
recognize  the  fundamental  distinction  between  art  and  sci- 
ence—  the  purpose  to  present  and  the  purpose  to  inform; 
between  concrete  and  abstract,  imagination  and  reason. 

Anything  we  have  to  do  with  may  either  be  to  us  or 
bring  to  us  a  valuable  experience;  may  have  worth  either 
by  its  nature  or  its  issue.  We  plant  flowers  for  their  own 
sake;  grain  for  a  harvest.  In  the  first  case  a  thing  has  value 
in  itself ;  it  is  an  end.  In  the  second  case  it  has  value  through 
other  things,  to  which  it  is  the  means.  In  speaking  of  things 
perceived  by  the  senses,  we  may,  by  interpreting  the  two 
words  aesthetic  and  practical  according  to  their  etymologi- 
cal meaning  (ala-ddvo^ai,  to  perceive  by  the  senses,  and 
TTpda-a-o),  to  bring  about)  call  the  former  aesthetic,  the  latter 
practical  value.  An  aesthetic  object,  in  this  sense,  is  one 
which  needs,  to  justify  its  existence,  only  adequate  ap- 
prehension; a  practical  thing  is  one  which  approves  itself 
through  some  valuable  outcome. 

Of  the  two  fundamental  forms  of  value,  a  work  of  fine 
art  may  have  both;  but  the  one  casually,  the  other  es- 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  91 

sentially.  The  distinction  between  fine  and  useful  art  rests 
upon  the  possession  by  the  former  of  aesthetic  qualities; 
that  is,  qualities  which  give  a  thing  worth  simply  as  an 
object  for  our  perceptive  faculties.  The  value  of  a  work  of 
fine  art  as  end  and  not  as  means,  its  immediate,  underiva- 
tive  worth  as  mere  incorporate  vision,  pure  object  of  con- 
templation, is  that  by  which  it  came  to  be,  that  to  seize  and 
perpetuate  which  its  maker  created  it.  To  be  seen  in  its 
perfection  is  the  whole  of  what  a  work  of  art  as  a  work  of 
art  was  made  for.  It  was  brought  forth  to  transfer  a  cer- 
tain perceptive  and  emotional  content,  often  more  than  is 
consciously  apprehended  by  the  maker,  to  the  soul  of  a 
beholder  through  his  senses.  The  constitutive  aim  of  every 
work  of  fine  art,  beyond  which  as  an  art- work  it  has  none, 
is  worthily  to  occupy  the  powers  of  apprehension;  to  bring 
before  other  eyes,  to  transplant  into  other  minds  and  hearts 
what  was,  before  the  work  existed,  the  passionate  secret  of 
the  creative  faculties  of  a  single  man  of  talent.  The  ulti- 
mate end  of  every  art  work  is  to  be  beheld  and  felt  as  it  was 
wrought,  and  this  end  it  fulfils  whenever  any  one  stands  be- 
fore it  and  perceives  in  it  the  artistic  content  it  was  made  to 
convey,  enters  into  the  soul  of  the  artist  through  the  gate- 
way of  his  work.  Creation  and  appreciation,  formation  in 
one  spirit  and  reconstruction  in  another,  are  the  two  poles 
between  which  lies  the  whole  sphere  of  art.  The  whole  life 
history  of  an  art  work  is  summed  up  in  its  birth  in  the 
imagination  of  an  artist,  and  its  rebirth  through  the  senses 
of  a  beholder.  Art  is  of  the  nature  of  an  open  communica- 
tion, not  of  abstract  notions  but  of  concrete  fancies,  from 
the  artist  to  all  others  whom  it  may  concern.  When  an 
art  work  has  said  its  say,  its  mission  as  an  art  work  is  ac- 
complished, save  as  it  forever  repeats  the  same  message. 
However  many  and  important  the  external  ends  it  may 
subserve,  it  was  brought  forth  for  none  of  them,  but  to 


92  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

mirror  itself  in  new  minds  endlessly.  The  spread  of  a 
friendship  with  itself  is  its  aim;  the  useful  results  of  that 
friendship,  however  worthy  they  may  be,  form  no  part  of 
its  essential  purpose.  Fine  art  responds  to  the  needs,  not 
of  our  active  existence,  but  of  the  contemplative  life. 

Any  collection  of  objects  permanently  preserved  for 
the  observation  of  spectators  forms  a  museum.  Objects 
may  be  collected  and  exhibited  either  on  account  of  their 
aesthetic  or  their  practical  value.  A  collection  restricted  to 
works  of  art  is  one  in  which  the  criterion  of  selection  is 
aesthetic  quality,  higher  or  lower.  Any  object  that  has 
none  is  not  a  work  of  art.  In  a  collection  of  scientific  speci- 
mens or  technical  appliances  it  is  a  practical  quality  that 
is  the  basis  of  choice.  Unless  an  object  possess  some  in- 
structive value  it  has  no  place  in  a  museum  of  science  or 
industry.  The  fundamental  distinction  between  these  two 
principles  of  selection  defines  two  radically  different  types 
of  the  permanent  public  exhibitions  we  call  museums.  The 
limiting  purpose  of  the  one  is  aesthetic,  and  in  particu- 
lar artistic;  that  of  the  other  practical,  and  in  particular 
didactic.  An  art  museum  is  a  selection  of  objects  adapted 
to  impress;  a  scientific  or  technical  museum  is  a  selection 
of  objects  adapted  to  instruct. 

By  no  liberality  in  the  definition  of  the  word  educa- 
tion can  we  reduce  these  two  purposes,  the  artistic  and  the 
didactic,  to  one.  They  are  mutually  exclusive  in  scope,  as 
they  are  distinct  in  value. 

They  are  mutually  exclusive  in  scope;  for  education, 
according  to  received  usage,  is  "the  imparting  of  knowl- 
edge or  skill";  in  other  words,  the  inculcation  of  habits  of 
thought  or  action;  or,  still  more  briefly,  the  moulding  of 
personality.  The  term  refers  to  the  spiritual  or  bodily 
effect  of  a  course  of  experience,  be  its  nature  what  it  may. 
It  means  that  a  certain  chosen  character  is  impressed  upon 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  93 

us;  that  we  are  approximated  to  an  ideal  of  personality, 
shaped  to  a  model,  formed  as  in  a  mould.  Artistic  compre- 
hension, on  the  other  hand,  is  the  pure  use  of  the  percep- 
tive faculties  upon  an  object  of  human  creation;  it  is  the 
seeing  of  a  thing  as  its  maker  saw  it,  in  a  measure  it  may  be 
unknown  to  himself.  The  term  refers  to  the  nature  of  our 
experiences,  be  their  effect  upon  us  what  it  may.  It  means 
that  the  mind  rests  in  its  object,  simply  and  fully  behold- 
ing it,  without  deserting  it  for  any  other  interest  whatever. 
The  nature  of  anything  and  the  effect  of  anything  being 
two  wholly  different  matters,  the  two  aims,  that  of  artis- 
tic comprehension  and  that  of  instruction,  exclude  one  an- 
other. The  former  seeks  to  give  us  experiences  of  a  certain 
kind ;  the  latter  to  give  us  experiences  having  a  certain  re- 
sult. The  esthetic  purpose,  the  aim  of  art,  is  to  engage  the 
powers;  the  didactic  purpose,  the  aim  of  education,  is  to 
modify  them.  Where  the  sphere  of  education  begins,  the 
sphere  of  art  ends. 

Again,  the  exercise  of  artistic  comprehension  has  a  value 
wholly  distinct  from  any  educational  worth  it  may  possess. 
It  is  the  contemplation  of  an  object  worthy  to  be  contem- 
plated; the  seeing  of  it  as  its  maker  saw  it  when  he  found 
it  good.  An  artistic  thing  has  value  for  perceptive  purposes 
pure  and  simple,  independently  of  any  others,  whether 
instructive  or  not.  Its  worth  differs  from  that  of  an  in- 
structive object  in  that  it  is  immediate  instead  of  prospec- 
tive. The  educative  worth  of  our  experiences  is  hypothet- 
ical, being  dependent  on  a  future  exercise  of  the  powers 
they  shape;  their  aesthetic  value  is  actual  and  not  hypothet- 
ical, being  that  of  the  present  exercise  of  the  powers  they 
employ.  Art  is  an  end,  education  a  means  to  an  end.  The 
office  of  an  art  museum  is  one  which  is  warranted  in  itself; 
that  of  an  educational  museum  is  one  whose  fruits  are  its 
warrant. 


94  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

* 

Thus  neither  in  scope  nor  in  value  is  the  purpose  of  an 
art  museum  a  pedagogic  one.  An  institution  devoted  to 
the  preservation  and  exhibition  of  works  of  the  fine  arts  is 
not  an  educational  institution,  either  in  essence  or  in  its 
claims  to  consideration.  While  museums  of  science  or  of 
useful  art  are  a  part  of  our  educational  system,  institutions 
auxiliary  to  our  schools,  our  colleges  and  our  universities, 
aiming  at  the  diffusion  of  information  about  the  sciences 
and  arts  to  which  they  relate,  museums  of  fine  art  are  a 
part  of  our  artistic  life,  serving  the  cause,  not  of  any  utility, 
pedagogic  or  other,  but  of  art  itself.  They  are  institutions 
auxiliary  to  that  public  display  of  creative  genius  in  the 
construction  and  adornment  of  public  buildings  and  other 
monuments,  which  is  the  first  duty  of  living  art  to  the 
place  of  its  birth.  In  their  chief  function,  it  is  theirs  to 
gather  up  the  art  of  the  past,  whose  public  no  longer  exists, 
and  offer  hospitality  to  the  art  of  foreign  lands,  whose 
public  is  another  than  ours.  They  are  instrumentalities 
by  which  civilization  provides  that  neither  shall  antique 
art  be  lost,  nor  exotic  art  be  non-existent  to  us.  The  dis- 
tinctive purpose  of  an  art  museum  may  be  precisely  de- 
fined as  the  aim  to  bring  about  that  perfect  contemplation 
of  the  works  of  art  it  preserves  which  is  implied  in  their 
production  and  forms  their  consummation. 

But  while  this  sesthetic  office,  proper  to  a  collection  of 
works  of  fine  art,  is  fundamentally  different  from  the 
didactic  function  for  which  other  museums  exist,  there  are 
still  three  ways  in  which  the  former  attains  or  may  be  ap- 
plied to  pedagogical  ends,  as  well  as  a  fourth  in  which  it 
can  aid  its  own  artistic  aims  by  educational  means. 

In  the  first  place,  the  appreciation  of  art  is  itself  an  edu- 
cational influence.  It  should  be  noted  that  this  is  not  be- 
cause, like  all  other  experiences  of  life,  those  of  an  sesthetic 
kind  must  be  supposed  to  leave  the  personality  in  some 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  95 

degree  other  than  they  found  it.  Experience  is  not  on  this 
account  didactic.  To  be  didactic  it  must  not  simply  alter 
the  personality,  it  must  shape  it  to  some  model.  Apart 
from  the  belief  that  life  is  all  a  school,  a  peasant  is  not  as 
fully  educated  as  a  prince,  although  the  former  is  subjected 
to  a  whole  lifetime  of  trace-leaving  experiences,  and  the 
latter  to  no  more.  For  many  more  ideals,  many  more 
shaping  purposes,  have  worked  through  the  experiences  of 
the  prince  than  through  those  of  the  peasant.  Likewise  art 
is  educative  only  in  so  far  as  there  exist  ideals  of  personality 
which  work  upon  us  through  its  creations.  But  since  they 
are  the  product  of  the  happier  moods  of  more  gifted  peo- 
ple, it  is  fair  to  assume  that  in  their  assimilation  we  shall 
tend  to  be  made  over  in  the  likeness  of  what  is  best  in  hu- 
man endowment.  In  this  view  of  art  it  is  one  of  the  ways 
in  which  the  good  word  is  passed  among  the  children  of 
men.  It  is  one  of  the  means  by  which  the  more  fortunate 
few  can  permanently  impress  upon  the  less  fortunate  many 
some  of  their  own  excellencies.  It  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which 
character  teaches  by  example.  Artistic  insight  is  a  form 
of  the  inter-action  of  personality  to  which  moral  feeling 
offers  the  complement;  since  by  appreciation  we  enter  into 
the  joy  of  another,  as  by  sympathy  into  his  pain.  In  art, 
the  material  of  man's  experience  is  re-wrought  nearer  to 
his  heart's  desire.  It  is  a  new  world,  of  preferences,  satis- 
factions, and  ideals,  set  beside  the  old  indifferent  or  sor- 
rowful reality.  From  its  contemplation  we  come  as  from 
a  respite,  strengthened  for  that  from  which  it  has  brought 
relief;  and  endowed,  moreover,  with  new  patterns  in  the 
mind  to  which  to  approximate  the  life.  The  paradise  of 
artistic  creation  is  not  hung  in  the  heavens  like  an  Olympus 
detached  from  earth,  whose  divinities  have  no  thought  for 
human  kind.  It  has  its  consoling  and  inspiring  outlook 
also,  upon  every-day  reality. 


96  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

True.  But  while  artistic  appreciation  may  thus  be  form- 
ative in  effect,  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  artistic  cre- 
ation is  nevertheless  not  formative  in  aim.  For  art  has  a 
functional,  not  an  organic  purpose.  Its  object  is  not  medi- 
ate, but  direct.  It  aims  at  a  use  of  the  powers,  and  not  at 
their  development.  It  seeks  not  to  prepare  us  for  life,  but 
to  make  us  live.  While  didactic  results  flow  abundantly 
from  aesthetic  purposes,  they  are  a  thing  apart  from  those 
purposes,  not  an  element  in  them.  To  seek  instruction 
from  works  of  art  is  not  to  accept  them  as  aesthetic  prod- 
ucts, but  to  defeat  their  artistic  aim  in  the  measure  in 
which  our  minds  are  divided  between  what  they  are  and 
what  we  can  gain  from  them.  The  value  to  which  they  owe 
their  being  is  their  own  proper  value  as  episodes  in  a  life 
in  the  ideal.  The  artistic  impulse  is  not  one  which  seeks  to 
apply  the  salutary,  but  one  which  aims  to  embody  the 
perfect;  and  it  is  in  the  completest  fulfilment  of  this  aim,  if 
we  may  so  far  vary  a  dictum  of  high  authority,  that  art 
comes  to  move  among  ideas  of  noble  and  profound  ap- 
plicability to  life. 

In  the  second  and  third  places,  works  of  art  have  a 
function  both  in  the  promotion  of  historical  learning  and 
the  development  of  technical  skill.  They  are  facts  and 
bases  of  inference  in  the  study  of  man  and  his  past;  and 
their  scrutiny  and  imitation  are  means  of  instruction  to 
those  who  are  seeking  command  of  the  like  instruments  of 
aesthetic  expression.  To  students  both  of  the  humanities 
and  the  practice  of  art,  the  study  of  works  of  art  is  an 
indispensable  aid. 

True.  But  while  it  is  both  possible  and  desirable  to  apply 
the  contents  of  an  art  museum  to  educational  ends,  and 
while  it  may  often  be  that  a  given  art  work  has  more  in- 
structive than  artistic  value,  it  is  not  its  instructive  value 
that  makes  of  an  object  a  work  of  art.  Thus  to  use  art 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  97 

works  is  again  not  to  use  them  as  they  were  created  to  be 
used,  but  for  another  than  their  native  purpose.  Not  the 
investigator,  not  the  craftsman,  but  the  beholder  —  the 
sight-seer,  in  the  strict  and  full  acceptation  of  that  word 
—  is  he  for  whose  benefit  art  in  its  totality  exists.  To  be 
appreciated  is  its  whqle  end  and  aim,  the  fruition  of  all 
artistic  effort;  and  neither  the  moulding  of  character,  the 
furtherance  of  historical  knowledge,  nor  the  advancement 
of  technical  skill.  As  a  work  of  the  art  of  poetry,  the 
Divina  Commedia  was  not  written  to  promote  the  inter- 
ests either  of  religion,  or  scholarship,  or  literature,  but  to 
endow  the  world  with  immortal  visions.  As  a  pedagogical 
appliance,  an  exercise  in  Latin  prose  composition  is  not 
devised  to  fill  the  mind  and  heart  with  its  message,  but 
to  be  studied  and  manipulated  grammatically  and  rhetor- 
ically. To  peruse  the  exercise  as  a  romance  of  Caius  and 
Balbus,  or  to  parse  and  critically  and  philosophically  ana- 
lyze the  Commedia,  is  to  use  neither  in  the  way  it  was 
meant  to  be  used;  and  the  like  principle  holds  of  material 
creations.  While  in  a  museum  of  science  or  of  industry  the 
student  and  not  the  sight-seer  is  the  personage  of  first 
importance,  in  an  exhibition  of  fine  art  the  scholar  of 
whatever  name,  indefeasible  as  his  rights  are,  must  in  the 
last  analysis  yield  precedence  to  the  visitor  pure  and 
simple. 

In  the  fourth  place,  an  art  museum  can,  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact  must,  to  fulfil  its  own  proper  purpose  as  a  treasure- 
house  of  the  art  of  bygone  times  and  far-off  peoples,  per- 
form a  special  educational  work.  While  it  is  far  from  being 
able  to  do  all  that  is  necessary  to  enable  its  visitors  to  take 
the  point  of  view  of  other  civilizations,  it  can  still  do  much 
to  this  end,  and  what  it  can  do  it  should  do.  It  is  true 
that  the  capacity  to  comprehend  works  of  art  is  in  no 
small  degree  a  matter  of  native  endowment.  Yet  in  its 


98  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

measure  it  both  needs  and  admits  of  aid.  The  right  kind  of 
instruction  will  almost  always  augment  the  power  of  a  given 
person  to  see  what  the  maker  of  a  given  work  meant  by  it; 
although  no  amount  of  training  will  enable  some  persons  to 
see  what  others  can  see  without  training  at  all.  Without 
overestimating  the  degree  in  which  the  information  of  the 
public  will  render  it  more  accessible  to  an  artistic  message, 
the  principle  is  evident  that  a  liberal  use  of  educational 
means  is  indispensable  to  the  proper  sesthetic  purpose  of  any 
collection  of  artistic  objects,  and  is  therefore  to  be  included 
among  its  duties. 

True.  But  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  this  conclusion 
gives  to  any  didactic  machinery  but  an  auxiliary  place  in 
such  a  collection.  The  label,  the  catalogue  description,  the 
spoken  interpretation  of  a  museum  object  are  not  the  su- 
periors of  the  work  they  refer  to;  they  are  its  servitors, 
whose  whole  function  is  accomplished  when  they  usher  the 
visitor  into  a  royal  presence.  It  is  to  the  permanent  dis- 
play of  things  existing  by  the  divine  right  of  their  immedi- 
ate and  inherent  worth  that  a  museum  of  art  is  devoted; 
and  under  its  auspices  the  aim  of  instruction  remains 
essentially  subordinate  to  that  of  sesthetic  comprehension. 
In  so  far  as  the  frequenters  of  an  art  museum  are  in  this 
fourth  way  its  pupils,  it  is  to  the  ultimate  end  of  becoming 
better  visitors  therein. 

The  conclusions  of  this  discussion  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  statement  that  while  museums  of  other  kinds  are  at 
bottom  educational  institutions,  a  museum  of  fine  art  is 
not  didactic  but  sesthetic  in  primary  purpose,  although 
formative  in  its  influence,  and  both  admitting  of  and 
profiting  by  a  secondary  pedagogical  use.  The  true  con- 
ception of  an  art  museum  is  not  that  of  an  educational  in- 
stitution having  art  for  its  teaching  material,  but  that  of  an 
artistic  institution  with  educational  uses  and  demands, 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  99 

This  thoroughgoing  distinction  between  the  two  kinds 
of  museums,  artistic  and  educational,  a  distinction  based 
on  the  two  types  of  value,  sesthetic  and  practical,  char- 
acteristic of  their  contents  respectively,  is  apt,  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  countries  at  least,  to  pass  unrecognized.  We  are  apt 
to  think  and  to  speak  of  all  museums  indiscriminately 
as  educational  in  their  controlling  purpose;  a  fundamental 
error  which  may  be  ascribed  to  at  least  three  causes : 

First:  To  the  manifest  importance  of  the  educational 
uses  and  demands  of  public  exhibitions  of  fine  art. 

4  Beyond  question,  the  friendship  of  fine  art  is  in  the 
noblest  sense  a  liberal  training;  undoubtedly,  works  of  the 
art  of  the  past  are  object  lessons  in  antiquity,  and  master- 
pieces models  for  the  formation  of  style.  Yet  to  conceive 
of  fine  art  as  model,  or  lesson,  or  training  is  not  only  to 
ignore  its  essential  nature,  but  to  contribute  to  the  per- 
petuation of  that  ignorance.  For  under  this  misappre- 
hension, effort  after  an  acquaintance  with  art,  though  it 
may  be  active  in  formative  years,  when  the  content  of  art 
works  cannot  be  fully  grasped,  will  be  apt  to  relax  in  the 
period  of  maturity  to  which  alone  art  is  addressed.  Early 
familiarity  with  fine  art  is  never  its  comprehension;  that 
which  is  the  expression  of  vigorous  intelligences  in  the  ful- 
ness of  their  powers  can  be  understood  only  by  minds  of 
corresponding  development  aided  by  an  experience  equally 
ripe.  What  art  really  is,  what  exhibitions  of  art  are  really 
for,  can  be  but  imperfectly  realized  where  the  study  of  art 
works  is  left  to  adolescents  and  regarded  as  an  occupation 
for  immature  years. 

On  the  other  hand,  through  the  realization  of  this  very 
truth,  the  importance  of  an  adequate  preparation  for  the 
comprehension  of  fine  art  may  come  to  overshadow  in  our 
minds  that  of  the  comprehension  itself  for  which  it  exists. 
No  less  evident  than  the  educational  use  of  art  is  the  im- 


100  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

perative  demand  for  some  interpretation  of  art  works, 
especially  those  antique  or  exotic  in  origin,  in  order  to 
make  them  tell  upon  the  public.  Originally  gathered  for 
private  pleasure,  it  is  only  since  the  eighteenth  century 
that  collections  of  fine  art  have  developed  into  the  founda- 
tions for  public  benefit  we  know  as  museums ;  and  it  is  very 
much  more  recently  that  the  old  habitudes  of  their  man- 
agement for  the  advantage  of  the  expert  have  given  place 
(as  in  the  case  of  public  libraries)  to  the  serious  study  of 
how  best  they  may  be  utilized  for  the  people  generally.  To 
this  new  end  all  possible  means  of  public  information  are 
an  evident  essential,  since,  unless  by  rare  exception,  it  is 
only  those  in  whom  native  taste  has  been  reinforced  by 
more  or  less  instruction  who  can  hope  even  approximately 
to  realize  in  themselves  what  the  art  works  of  far-off  lands 
and  bygone  times  have  been  to  the  race  from  which  they 
sprang.  In  our  zeal  for  such  instruction  we  forget  and  per- 
haps deny  that  this  realization  is  its  final  warrant  in  a 
museum  of  art. 

Second:  The  immensely  increased  dependence  of  civi- 
lized nations  upon  communication  by  reading  and  writing 
has  in  modern  times  acted  to  weaken  their  powers  of  specif- 
ically artistic  comprehension.  Art  in  itself  is  apt  to  in- 
terest the  educated  of  the  present  day  less  than  learning 
about  it;  and  hence  the  promotion  of  the  latter  easily  ap- 
pears the  more  valuable  end  of  the  exhibition  of  art  works. 
For  in  truth,  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  and  their 
derivatives,  speak  only  to  those  not  bound  to  the  abstract 
content  of  the  conventional  symbols  of  language,  but  free 
to  feed  their  minds  upon  concrete  objects  of  sense.  In 
science,  the  history  of  instruction  during  the  past  genera- 
tion has  been  a  sharp  struggle  to  overthrow  the  domi- 
nance of  book  learning  in  the  curriculum,  to  substitute  the 
methods  of  the  laboratory  for  the  reliance  of  our  foregoers 


DISTINCTIVE  PURPOSE  101 

upon  the  printed  page.  In  matters  of  art,  likewise,  the 
instinct  of  the  modern  literate  public  has  been  to  believe 
that  what  cannot  be  written  in  a  book,  or  told  in  a  talk, 
either  does  not  exist  or  need  not  be  seriously  considered. 
Hence  a  tendency  to  rate  the  scientific  investigation  or 
literary  interpretation  of  art  as  at  least  the  sufficient  sur- 
rogate of  appreciation,  if  not  its  higher  end;  hence  a  blind- 
ness to  that  really  unspeakable  element  in  works  of  fine 
art  which  constitutes  their  core  and  essence,  which  is  all 
that  led  their  makers  to  take  up  the  brush  and  the  chisel 
rather  than  the  pen.  For  the  full  public  realization  of  the 
specific  province  of  art,  there  is  still  demanded  a  move- 
ment away  from  books  on  art,  and  toward  the  facts  of  art 
like  that  just  accomplished  in  science. 

Third:  Most  of  those  who  begin  to  theorize  upon  fine 
art  at  all,  especially  among  our  own  race,  tend  to  regard  it 
as  didactic  rather  than  sesthetic,  both  in  nature  and  in 
value;  nor  is  it  difficult  to  give  reasons  for  the  fact.  Ours 
is  preeminently  a  practical  time  and  practical  race.  We 
are  not  inclined  to  rest  in  anything;  we  tend  to  judge  things 
wholly  by  their  outcome.  The  good  which  a  thing  pos- 
sesses in  itself,  its  sesthetic  quality,  its  actual  value,  is 
habitually,  by  the  twentieth  century,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
consciousness,  subordinated  to  the  good  it  promises,  its 
practical  importance,  its  possible  value,  in  knowledge, 
skill,  personal  consideration,  money  or  whatever  else 
of  worth  it  may  bring.  "Qu'est  ce  que  cela  prouve  ?"  said 
even  the  French  mathematician,  after  reading  Racine's 
"Iphigenie";1  like  Leigh  Hunt's 

"  Crabbed  Scot  that  once  upon  a  time 
Asked  what  a  poem  proved,  and  just  had  wit 
To  prove  himself  a  fool  by  asking  it."  2 

1  The  story  is  quoted  by  Schopenhauer,  Wille  und  Vorstellung,  book  in. 

2  Alter  el  Idem. 


102  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

"Except  in  so  far  as  it  is  formative  or  directive,  of  what 
good  can  art  possibly  be?"  we  ask;  all  alike  judgments  by 
their  extrinsic  value,  of  things  created  for  their  intrinsic 
worth.  But  the  difficulty  with  the  aesthetic  view  of  art 
has  a  deeper  source  than  this,  in  a  widely  human  indisposi- 
tion to  pure  contemplation.  "Man  never  is,  but  always 
to  be  blest";  or  as  Pascal  wrote  a  century  before  Pope, 
"This  world  is  so  full  of  disquietude  that  we  almost  never 
dwell  upon  our  actual  existence,  upon  the  moment  in 
which  we  are  now  living,  but  upon  that  in  which  we  are 
going  to  live;  so  that  we  are  forever  preparing  for  life  in  the 
future,  but  are  never  ready  to  live  now."1  Art  aims  to  offer 
us,  even  here  on  this  unsatisfactory  earth,  sights  that  are 
really  satisfying,  moments  that  we  would  wish  to  delay, 
things  that  are  worthy  for  the  mind  to  rest  in;  but  the 
imperative  necessities  of  practical  life  have  so  ingrained 
within  us  habitudes  of  thinking  and  striving  for  the  mor- 
row, that  the  best  of  us  are  often  unable  to  accept  the  gift. 

1  Penstes,  part  n,  xvn,  29. 


IV 

THE  DIDACTIC  BIAS  IN  MUSEUM  MANAGEMENT 

WHAT  Jeremy  Bentham  called  "question-begging  epi- 
thets" not  only  mean  but  demean  what  they  signify. 
"Bias"  applied  to  states  of  mind  is  such  an  epithet.  It 
denotes  one-sidedness  where  one-sidedness  is  out  of  place; 
that  is,  in  the  judgment.  In  the  cut  of  clothing  bias  may 
be  quite  in  place.  The  use  of  the  term  in  the  title  of  an 
essay  announces  condemnatory  writing  —  that  humbler 
but  sometimes  useful  type  of  literature  to  which  polemics 
and  philippics  belong. 

By  the  didactic  bias  is  here  meant  the  belief  that  the 
value  of  everything  and  in  particular  the  value  of  fine  art, 
is  chiefly  its  instructive  value.  Let  us  first  escape  Ben- 
tham's  criticism  by  seeking  to  prove  this  belief,  in  the  case 
of  fine  art,  a  one-sidedness  of  judgment;  and  then  point  out 
its  untoward  influence  upon  museum  management. 

The  educational  theory  of  the  value  of  fine  art  is  the 
outcome  of  two  deep-seated  and  allied  spiritual  faults,  one 
organic,  one  functional.  The  organic  fault  is  an  undue 
preponderance  of  the  active  over  the  affective  nature;  the 
functional  fault  an  ascription  to  means  of  the  honor  due 
ends. 

1.  The  organic  fault  is  the  defect  of  a  quality  in  the 
English-speaking  peoples.  Atrophy  of  perception  and 
hypertrophy  of  reaction  produce  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  spirit 
a  comparative  aversion  to  pleasure  and  absorption  in 
effort.  This  trait  gives  its  point  to  Heine's  taunt  that 
in  old  England  "the  machines  behave  like  men,  and  men 
like  machines,"1  and  to  Lowell's  that  in  New  England  we 

1  L.  Borne,  book  n. 


104  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

"Kerry  a  holiday  ef  we  set  out 
Ez  stiddily  ez  though  't  was  a  redoubt."1 

Confronted  by  an  object  which,  like  a  work  of  art,  has  a 
double  appeal,  may  be  taken  either  as  a  source  of  delight 
or  stimulus  to  curiosity,  most  of  us  instinctively  choose  the 
active  alternative.  Over-familiar  with  enjoyment  in  the 
shallow  and  ill-regulated  forms  open  to  undeveloped  affec- 
tive natures,  we  are  too  apt  to  fill  our  laborious  days  with 
an  ignorant  scorn  of  delights  accessible  to  others.  Fine 
Art  is  the  precipitate  of  happy  moments,  and  in  this  its 
essential  nature  we  as  hustlers  —  on  the  way  but  mostly 
ignorant  of  where  we  are  going  —  tend  to  despise  it  as  a 
weak  affair,  a  matter  for  women,  children,  and  emasculate 
men,  reserving  our  approval  for  its  accidental  role  as  meat 
for  school  drill  and  the  investigator's  toil. 

This  is  a  good  efferent  belief,  felt  from  our  marrow,  no 
less  strong  because  seldom  articulate.  We  have  an  ances- 
tral contempt  for  artists  and  connoisseurs,  as  for  any  man 
who  sings,  overflows  in  baying  at  the  moon  or  elsewhither. 
Ruddy  and  healthy  as  it  is,  the  fruit,  with  a  clear  skin  and 
shining  eyes,  of  active  digestion  and  dreamless  sleep,  this 
belief  is,  alas,  also  stupid.  The  sentiment  that  it  is  only  as  a 
matter  of  learned  discipline  that  fine  art  has  serious  value, 
and  that  public  interest  in  art  as  an  object  of  enjoyment 
simply  is  an  essentially  light  and  trifling  affair,  rests  first 
on  a  false  antithesis  between  the  serious  and  the  pleasant, 
and  second  on  a  false  synthesis  between  knowledge  and  the 
serious.  Pleasure  is  not  something  essentially  trivial;  nor 
is  knowledge  something  essentially  important.  The  more 
vivid  and  overwhelming  pleasure  becomes  the  more  ab- 
solutely serious  a  thing  it  is;  while  there  is  nothing  more 
frivolous  than  the  didactic  trifler  known  as  the  pedant. 

Delusion  the  first  springs  from  an  identification  of  the 

1  Biglow  Papers,  no.  vi:  "Sunthin'  in  the  Pastoral  Line." 


DIDACTIC  BIAS  IN  MUSEUM  MANAGEMENT    105 

enjoyable  with  the  comic.  "Three  hours  of  laughter"  is 
on  American  theatre-posters  synonymous  with  an  eve- 
ning of  enjoyment.  Serious  and  comic  being  opposites,  the 
serious  becomes,  to  the  nai've  intelligence,  equivalent  to 
the  joyless.  The  truth,  which  the  naive  intelligence  does 
not  suspect,  is  that  the  pleasure  a  work  of  art  can  give  is 
too  intense  and  too  voluminous  not  to  be  serious.  Poe 
writes  of  "Days  when  mirth  was  a  word  unknown,  so 
solemnly  deep-toned  was  happiness."1 

Delusion  the  second  evidences,  by  its  overestimate  of  the 
importance  of  knowledge,  the  American  lack  of  it.  "  Omne 
ignotum  pro  magnifico"  Compare  the  infectious  awe  which 
a  book  and  he  who  can  read  it  inspires  among  Ariosto's 
athletes  with  the  scant  reverence  which  modern  literati 
pay  printed  matter.2  Not  all  inquiry  is  important  for  every 
one,  and  in  particular  historical  inquiry  into  art,  apart  from 
the  aid  it  may  give  in  the  enjoyment  of  art  works,  has  no 
serious  importance  except  for  specialists.  Intrinsically  the 
history  of  art  has  no  more  claim  upon  the  attention  of  the 
intelligent  public  than  has  the  history  of  religion  or  of  sci- 
ence, or  of  government,  or  of  any  other  special  element  of 
civilization.  By  itself  considered  it  is  one  of  the  least  of 
human  concerns.  But  the  commerce  of  art  works  is  one  of 
the  greatest.  The  knowledge  of  art  history  bears  much  the 
same  relation  of  importance  to  the  friendship  of  art  itself 
that  a  knowledge  of  the  Diophantine  Analysis  has  to  the 
ability  to  cipher  correctly,  or  the  perusal  of  Lecky  has  to 
keeping  one's  word  to  one's  neighbor  and  one's  hands  off 
his  property. 

1  Colloquy  of  Monos  and  Una. 

8  Orlando  Furioso,  rv,  17;  also  xv,  19: 

".  .  .  un  libro,  ondefacea 
Nascer,  leggendo,  I  'alta  maraviglia." 

"A  book  out  of  which,  in  reading, 
He  made  deep  marvels  come." 


106  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

2.  The  functional  fault  expressed  in  the  didactic  bias  is 
a  common  human  failing.  Absorption  in  means  to  the 
neglect  of  ends  has  been  a  matter  for  moralists  in  all  ages. 
"  Et  propter  vitam,  vivendi  perdere  causas"1  People  do  not 
like  to  think  about  ends  at  all.  The  very  idea  of  an  "end  in 
itself "  is  caviare  to  the  general  public.  Even  the  syllable 
"end"  has  a  hollow,  tomb-like  resonance.  "Man  always 
wants  a  something  beyond,"  as  George  Eliot  remarks. 
We  cannot  rest  without  an  ;eye  to  the  future.  Shake- 
speare's 

"Trip  no  further,  pretty  sweeting, 
Journeys  end  in  lovers'  meeting," 

fails  with  most  of  us  to  awaken  a  responsive  chord.  This 
looking  for  the  future  is  ingrained  into  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, although  we  may  believe  the  mood  to  have  been  alien 
to  the  Greek  mind,  and  although  the  Gospel  petition  is 
plain:  "Thy  Kingdom  come  on  earth" 

Hence  it  arises,  very  naturally,  however  unreasonably, 
that  our  highest  praise  for  anything  is  the  epithet  "educa- 
tional." By  this  even  careful  speakers  often  mean  only 
that  the  thing  talked  of  is  a  good  thing,  an  element  of 
model  living,  something  that  we  include  in  our  ideal  of 
human  condition.  But  the  habit  of  speech  is  bad.  "Edu- 
cational" has  a  definite  meaning,  namely  "formative"; 
and  it  darkens  counsel  to  use  it  as  a  mere  vocable  of  bene- 
diction, a  simple  synonym  for  "good."  The  case  is  clear 
against  the  practice.  If  a  preparatory  thing  and  a  good 
thing  are  synonymous,  it  results  that  the  thing  prepared 
for  is  worth  nothing.  But  the  preparation  for  a  worthless 
thing  is  itself  not  worth  while;  and  thus  we  find  ourselves 
damning  what  we  have  just  blessed.  This  is  a  pitiable 
condition  for  thinking  beings.  Why  long  for  the  morning 
if  we  fear  to  see  it  break?  Only  in  a  mental  fog  does  educa- 

1  Juvenal,  Sat.,  vin. 


1 


DIDACTIC  BIAS  IN  MUSEUM  MANAGEMENT    107 

tion  or  betterment  in  general  seem  the  controlling  interest 
in  life.  The  controlling  interest  in  life  is  happiness  for 
one's  self  and  for  others.  Pleasure  and  virtue  are  the  goal, 
knowledge  the  guide.  As  Poe  wrote  in  his  "Letter  to  Mr. 
B. ":"...  it  is  a  truism  that  the  end  of  our  existence  is 
happiness;  .  .  .  Therefore  the  end  of  instruction  should  be 
happiness;  and  happiness  is  another  name  for  pleasure; 
.  .  .  and  pleasure  is  the  end  already  obtained  which  in- 
struction is  merely  the  means  of  obtaining." 

While,  therefore,  this  educational  enthusiasm  is  com- 
prehensible, to  wit,  as  the  tribute  of  the  Present  to  the 
Future,  it  is  of  def ormative  and  stultifying  tendency  unless 
firmly  controlled,  and  gives  occasion  for  a  note  of  warning. 
Unless  the  Future  is  some  day  and  for  some  one  to  become 
the  Present,  the  less  we  think  of  it  the  better.  That  this 
note  should  be  raised  from  Boston  seems  wholly  appro- 
priate. If  teaching  is  the  power  for  human  enlightenment 
we  all  believe  it,  a  didactic  metropolis  should  be  the  first 
to  waken  from  the  intoxication  of  the  worship  of  education 
as  an  end  and  give  it  the  sober  regard  befitting  its  status  as 
means. 

In  the  concerns  of  a  museum  of  fine  art  the  over- 
emphasis of  education,  and  in  particular  of  instruction,  may 
be  deprecated  both  on  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  grounds. 

1.  A  priori:  because  either  an  absurdity  of  logic  or  de- 
rogatory to  art. 

It  is  irrational  because  in  restricting  the  collection  of  a 
museum  to  objects  of  fine  art  the  principle  of  exclusion  is  in 
contradiction  with  the  assumed  educational  purpose.  The 
regulative  principle  of  an  institution  should  be. consistent 
with  its  constitutive  principle.  Other  things  than  works  of 
art  would  contribute  to  education  whether  moral,  historic, 
or  technical;  and  in  shutting  them  out  that  purpose  is 
implicitly  denied.  The  wear  of  Michel  Angelo's  chisel  or 


108  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

that  of  a  volume  from  his  library  might  throw  a  ray  of  light 
on  his  art  shed  by  no  work  of  his;  and  the  tool  or  the  book 
could  not  consistently  be  excluded  from  any  museum 
whose  purpose  was  primarily  educational.  Yet  a  museum 
of  fine  art  would  exclude  it,  and  hence  though  it  said  Yes 
to  the  didactic  theory  would  still  do  No,  which  is  absurd. 

By  no  means,  it  will  be  answered;  correctly  expressed, 
the  purpose  of  collecting  and  exhibiting  the  best  attainable 
works  of  genius  and  skill  is  to  educate  through  art,  which 
is  itself  educational  in  essential  nature.  This  assertion  is 
lese  majeste.  The  essential  nature  of  fine  art  is  not  educa- 
tional but  fruitional,  not  formative  but  creative.  Art  is  the 
Gracious  Message  pure  and  simple,  without  arriere  pensee, 
the  Santa  Conversazione  of  iconography.  This  latter  —  a 
sympathetic  entrance  into  gifted  minds  by  the  contempla- 
tion of  material  products  through  which  these  minds  have 
spoken  —  is  one  of  the  ends  of  existence.  Education  is  one 
of  its  means.  In  simplest  terms,  education  —  the  moulding 
of  thought,  word  and  deed  —  is  preparation  for  the  per- 
fect life;  but  art  —  the  marriage  of  creation  and  apprecia- 
tion —  is  integral  to  the  perfect  life.  In  the  mouths  of  those 
responsible  for  an  art  museum,  a  didactic  theory  of  its 
purposes  is  worse  than  a  slight;  it  is  a  betrayal;  for  thereby 
the  guardians  of  a  diamond  maintain  before  the  world  that 
it  is  really  a  pebble. 

2.  A  posteriori. 

The  interests  of  enjoyment  and  instruction  in  an  art 
museum  may  openly  conflict.  The  accumulation,  by  a 
museum,  of  objects  historically  or  technically  interesting 
(e.g.,  reproductions)  may  prevent  acquisitions  of  artistic 
quality ;  and  the  powers  of  a  staff  may  be  so  engaged  in  the 
initiation  of  the  few  into  the  science  of  their  subject  as  to 
unfit  them  from  representing  its  religion  to  the  many.  An 
arrangement  of  exhibits  which  will  save  the  comparative 


DIDACTIC  BIAS  IN  MUSEUM  MANAGEMENT    109 

student  most  steps  and  distraction  of  mind  may  be  in- 
harmonious and  wearisome  to  the  seeker  after  a  compre- 
hension of  the  works  installed.  The  use  of  galleries  for 
viva  voce  instruction  may  become  a  disturbance  of  the 
public  peace  for  him  who  would  give  ear  to  the  silent  voices 
therein.  A  monopoly  of  the  space  before  great  works  of  art 
by  copyists  may  become  a  museum  abuse.  These  and  many 
other  possible  conflicts  call  for  a  settlement  between  the 
point  of  view  of  the  masters  who  have  wrought  on  canvas 
and  in  stone  that  we  might  enter  into  their  labors ;  and  that 
of  those  their  servants  who  hold  the  theory  of  the  essen- 
tially educational  purpose  of  collections  of  their  achieve- 
ments. 
? 

But  such  a  theory  cannot,  as  argued  a  priori,  be  main- 
tained at  all;  both  because  a  collection  of  works  of  fine  art 
exists  by  hypothesis  for  fine  art  and  because  in  so  doing  it 
fulfils  a  purpose  outranking  education. 


V 

CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE:  A  MEDITATION  ON 
SKIMMING  SUGAR  WITH  A  WARMING-PAN 

TIMOTHY  DEXTER  was  a  singular  character  of  Revolu- 
tionary times  in  New  England  who,  having  become  sud- 
denly rich,  assumed  the  title  of  "Lord"  and  built  in  New- 
buryport  a  stately  mansion,  adorning  the  grounds  with 
statues  of  himself  among  those  of  great  men  and  mytho- 
logical beings.  He  is  remembered  for  many  other  conspicu- 
ous whims,  chief  among  them  the  despatch  to  the  West 
Indies  of  an  invoice  of  warming-pans,  which  he  sold  there 
at  a  profit  for  sugar-skimmers,  when  for  their  original  pur- 
pose they  proved  a  drug  in  a  tropical  market.  The  story 
is  told  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  trader  as  an  instance 
of  push  and  resource  triumphant  over  incorrigible  oddity. 
It  may  also  serve,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  purchaser, 
as  an  instance  of  the  successful  diversion  of  a  work  of 
man's  hand  to  a  purpose  wholly  other  than  that  for  which 
it  was  made.  It  becomes  thus  a  parable  of  the  frequent 
fate  of  objects  of  fine  art  of  every  kind,  from  pictures  to 
poetry.  For  a  West  Indian  of  Lord  Timothy  Dexter's  time, 
deciding  upon  the  best  use  of  certain  newly  imported  hard- 
ware, could  not  have  disregarded  the  true  nature  of  that 
famous  invoice  more  completely  than  many  of  the  most 
sensible  people  at  all  times,  dominated  either  by  their 
emotions  or  their  thirst  for  knowledge,  ignore  the  true  na- 
ture of  a  work  of  art.  "How  convenient  the  long  handle  at 
the  sugar ing-off!"  we  can  fancy  the  planter  saying;  "How 
neat  the  receptacle,  and  easily  cleaned!"  "What  a  piquant 
taste  it  gives  the  product!"  And  yet  Lord  Timothy  Dex- 
ter's ventures  were  made,  not  to  skim  sugar,  but  to  warm 


CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE  111 

beds ;  as  works  of  fine  art  are  made,  not  to  skim  the  sweets  of 
emotion  or  knowledge,  but  to  warm  the  couch  of  fancy  at 
the  fires  of  genius.  This  truth  the  dilettante  overlooks,  and 
the  connoisseur  recognizes. 

Etymologically,  a  connoisseur  is  one  who  knows  fine 
art;  a  dilettante  one  who  delights  in  it.  But  connoisseur- 
ship  implies  taste.  Hence  a  connoisseur  is  one  who  de- 
lights in  it  too.  Evidently  etymology  throws  us  off  the 
track;  the  distinction  must  lie  between  enjoyment  en- 
lightened and  enjoyment  unenlightened.  There  are  two 
ways  of  enjoying  a  work  of  art.  One  may  enjoy  the  artist 
in  it;  or  one's  self  over  it.  The  connoisseur  enjoys  the  artist, 
the  dilettante  himself. 

What  is  it  to  enjoy  an  artist  in  his  work?  It  is  to  gain 
from  the  work  just  the  particular  kind  of  spiritual  harvest 
that  it  yielded  him.  It  is  to  see  it  with  his  eyes  or  hear  it 
with  his  ears,  to  grasp  it  with  his  mind,  to  feel  it  with  his 
heart.  It  is  to  make  it  mean  to  us  what  it  meant  to  him. 
This  is  to  apply  the  work  to  the  artist's  own  purpose  in 
creating  it.  His  artistic  intention  becomes  our  own. 

What  is  it  to  enjoy  ourselves  over  a  work  of  art?  It  is  to 
gain  from  it  another  than  the  spiritual  harvest  it  yielded 
its  maker.  It  is  to  see  or  hear  in  it  what  he  did  not  put 
there,  to  contemplate  it  with  other  thoughts  and  other 
feelings  than  his.  It  is  to  make  it  mean  to  us  what  it  never 
meant  to  him.  This  is  to  apply  the  work  to  purposes  of  our 
own  choice  in  contemplating  it.  Our  own  non-artistic 
intention  supplants  that  of  its  maker. 

This  mis-  or  afr-use  of  an  artistic  object  is  possible  in 
three  ways;  and  there  are  accordingly  three  varieties  of 
dilettanteism.  We  may  allow  a  work  of  art  to  waken  in  us 
any  feeling  it  will,  without  any  effort  to  read  it  as  a  mes« 
sage  from  another  soul.  We  may  seek  in  it  only  our  own 
interests,  without  penetrating  by  its  means  into  the  artist's 


112  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

interests.  This  is  emotional  dilettanteism.  Or,  we  may 
make  an  artist's  work  serve  our  thirst  for  theoretical  or 
practical  knowledge.  Instead  of  trying  to  assimilate  the 
work  itself,  we  may  strive  to  learn  about  it.  Our  aim  may 
be,  not  to  perceive  it,  not  to  take  it  in  as  the  artist  intended, 
but  to  make  the  work  and  its  methods  the  subject  of  in- 
vestigation, as  the  artist  never  intended.  This  is  intellec- 
tual dilettanteism,  in  its  two  forms,  scientific  and  technical. 

Despite  the  aroma  of  disesteem  —  even  of  disgust  — 
that  clings  in  our  latitude  and  time  about  the  word  senti- 
ment, emotional  dilettanteism  may  be  quite  as  respectable 
a  form  of  egotism  as  its  intellectual  fellows.  All  three  are 
a  practical  denial  of  the  artist's  right  to  exist  for  his  own 
purposes.  All  three  are  selfish  in  the  presence  of  an  op- 
portunity for  unselfishness.  But  even  a  mis-use  in  the 
strict  sense  may  not  be  wholly  an  a6-use  in  the  bad  sense, 
as  Lord  Timothy  Dexter's  West  Indians  proved. 

Emotional  dilettanteism  in  its  commonest  form  is  the 
love  of  money  in  disguise.  Le  Raphael  d'un  Million  was  the 
title  given  by  Parisians  a  generation  ago  to  an  altar-piece 
since  sold  at  a  much  higher  price  in  America:  "The  mil- 
lion-franc Raphael."  Even  in  France,  the  nation  of  cul- 
ture, popular  interest  in  the  picture  was  largely  fed  from 
its  glamour  of  cost.  Yet  what  had  Raphael  to  do  with  a 
million  francs?  Did  he  aim  to  communicate  to  us  in  the 
canvas  the  pay  that  he  got  for  it?  All  the  emotions  of 
cupidity  that  have  since  swarmed  about  the  painting  were 
feelings  totally  foreign  to  the  mass  of  line  and  light  and 
color  that  he  wrought  to  carry  its  high  religious  meaning. 
In  our  own  beloved  land,  bent  upon  making  a  magnificent 
living,  the  glamour  of  cost  is  still  greater.  Where  political 
authority  is  equal  and  social  privilege  forbidden,  money  is 
the  sole  power  with  a  leverage  on  every  one;  and  the  dollar 
becomes  —  at  least  for  rhetorical  purposes  —  almighty. 


CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE  113 

Ours  is  the  country  of  five  thousand  dollar  banquets,  mil- 
lion dollar  hotels,  ten  million  dollar  babies;  and  nothing 
so  recommends  to  us  a  work  of  art  as  an  exceptional  price. 
Commercial  dilettanteism  is  to  many  an  idle  spectator  his 
only  avenue  of  access  to  fine  art.  We  buy  best  sellers,  we 
throng  prize  plays,  we  crowd  before  the  Rembrandt  that 
cost  a  king's  ransom. 

In  the  collector  himself,  emotional  dilettanteism  takes 
other  forms.  Dr.  La  Caze,  true  beholder  of  the  works  of 
art  he  gathered  to  bequeath  to  the  French  people,  divided 
collectors  into  three  species.  The  first  collects  things  in 
order  to  have  them;  the  second  in  order  that  others  shall 
not  have  them;  the  third  in  order  to  enjoy  them.  The  first 
is  dominated  by  the  emotion  of  possession.  His  gallery 
hospitality  is  the  "tour  du  proprio" —  the  excursion  of  the 
proud  possessor.  The  taste  of  the  second  consists,  as  has 
been  wittily  said,  in  an  unerring  instinct  for  that  which 
others  will  want  when  they  see  it  in  his  possession.  Of  this 
emotional  frame  many  a  famous  collection  of  fine  art  was 
born,  and  by  it  is  increased.  The  pride  of  exclusive  owner- 
ship explains  numbered  copies,  destroyed  plates  —  purely 
non-artistic  devices,  and  as  far  from  the  heaven  of  the 
imagination  as  earth  can  well  descend.  To  this  envious 
preoccupation  the  word  "dilettante"  owes  no  little  of  its 
unenviable  flavor.  The  third  species  embraces  the  con- 
noisseurs. These  are  they  who  collect  in  order  to  think 
over  again  the  happy  thoughts  of  which  their  possessions 
were  born. 

Emotional  dilettanteism  in  a  much  higher  form  is  ac- 
customed to  make  of  fine  art  a  running  accompaniment 
to  the  habitual  current  of  the  thoughts.  For  the  amateur 
in  this  sense  ideal  contemplation  consists  in  fluctuations  of 
attention  as  occasion  offers  between  the  fancies  of  others 
and  his  own  reverie  or  his  own  affairs.  Its  role  is  that  of  a 


114  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

series  of  momentary  interludes  in  his  preoccupation  with 
his  proper  life  —  glances  elsewhere,  fragments  of  talk  on 
other  things.  Such  is  the  habit  of  the  opera  balconies.  This 
is  the  tired-business-man  theory  of  artistic  appreciation. 
It  assumes  that  what  the  mind  can  take  in  when  supine 
and  distraught  is  the  real  meat  in  works  of  fancy.  Flaccid 
and  disjointed  apprehension  is  that  which  best  assimilates 
artistic  beauty.  Yet  there  was  one  person  —  namely,  the 
artist  —  whose  attention  to  the  work  of  his  hand  was 
neither  supine  nor  distraught,  flaccid  nor  disjointed.  Can 
recumbent  and  interrupted  beholding  win  from  it  what  it 
won  from  him?  Verily  not.  The  tired  business  man  must 
submit  to  learn  that  his  is  but  an  outside  view  of  what  he 
beholds,  that  immense  penetralia  await  another  mental 
attitude,  incompatible  alike  with  somnolence  and  with 
distraction.  "M.  Mozart,"  said  the  Emperor  after  the 
opera,  "there  are  a  great  many  notes  in  your  piece." 
"Not  one  too  many,"  replied  Mozart.  This  vital  fact  had 
passed  quite  unperceived  by  the  imperial  ignoramus  as  by 
his  court  of  tired  business  men. 

The  highest  type  of  emotional  dilettanteism  blends 
insensibly  into  connoisseurship.  We  can  easily  imagine 
Carl  Maria  von  Weber  looking  down  with  indulgence  upon 
the  gray-haired  doctor  of  law  whose  self-imposed  duty  it 
has  always  been  to  hear  "Der  Freischuetz"  whenever  it  is 
given,  in  pious  memory  of  the  happy  times  —  "  Die  war  en 
gluckliche  Zeiten" — when  an  Agathe  of  long  ago  was  the 
heroine  of  his  own  romance.  For  "Der  Freischuetz,"  too, 
is  a  story  of  love,  and  the  passions  which  warm  the  old 
veins  are  essential  elements  in  the  effects  the  composer 
sought.  Punch's  matron,  remarking  before  the  Venus  of 
Melos, "  Lawk !  it 's  hexact  like  hour  Hemma ! "  was  plainly, 
by  the  happy  fortune  of  her  close  relationship  to  Hemma, 
no  total  stranger  to  the  artist's  ideal.  William  James's 


CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE  115 

good  old  couple  in  ecstasies  over  the  expressions  of  humil- 
ity, of  passionate  faith,  of  ineffable  adoration,  in  the  faces 
of  some  of  Titian's  figures,  although,  as  Dr.  James  inti- 
mates, their  talk  would  have  made  Titian's  blood  run  cold, 
yet  found  in  the  picture  psychic  data  which  might  have 
lain  within  the  artist's  intention.  Indeed,  they  properly 
form  a  part  of  the  artistic  content  of  an  altar-piece.  We 
make  no  mistake  in  looking  upon  Giotto's  frescoes  in 
the  Lower  Church  at  Assisi  with  the  eyes  of  Christian 
faith.  The  sacred  poem  we  love  for  the  lips  that  once 
uttered,  or  the  occasion  that  once  hallowed  it,  was  made 
for  such  lips  and  such  occasions,  and  we  do  not  wander  far 
from  it  in  remembering  them. 

Intellectual  dilettanteism  of  both  kinds  is  divided  from 
connoisseurship  by  a  sharper  line,  but  in  the  technical 
form  has  also  its  bond  of  connection  with  the  artist.  The 
line  is  sharp  because  it  is  the  line  that  separates  perceiving 
a  work  of  art  from  reflecting  upon  it,  the  thing  itself  from 
our  thoughts  about  it,  the  question  What  ?  from  the  ques- 
tions How  ?  and  Why  ?  The  connection  exists  because 
the  technical  dilettante  applies  the  questions  How  ?  and 
Why  ?  to  the  artist  at  work. 

The  scientific  dilettante,  if  a  historian  of  art,  seeks  to 
date  the  work  before  him,  to  trace  the  influences  it  be- 
trays or  has  exercised;  if  a  historian  of  civilization,  to  re- 
constitute by  its  aid  the  habits  of  thought,  the  ways  of 
living,  the  persons  and  events  of  its  time  and  place;  if  a 
theorist,  to  establish  the  principles  that  govern  the  artistic 
impulse.  The  technical  dilettante  studies  the  artist's 
methods  as  the  work  reveals  them.  But  what  part  of  all 
these  ambitions  entered  the  artist's  mind  as  he  worked  and 
became  the  purpose  of  his  painting,  his  carving,  his  music, 
his  verse?  Not  an  atom.  The  artist  wrought  in  order  to 
share  with  us  a  certain  complex  of  sensation,  thought  and 


116  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

feeling;  and  its  date,  its  causes  and  effects,  its  implications 
and  significance  are  not  his  work  but  ours.  If  we  are  con- 
noisseurs, we  share  in  what  the  artist  offers,  we  do  not  add 
thereto. 

Thus  each  of  the  three  kinds  of  dilettante,  emotional, 
scientific,  and  technical,  has  his  own  way  —  and  a  way  not 
to  be  despised  —  of  ignoring  the  true  nature  of  what  he 
delights  in.  The  emotional  dilettante,  who  "knows  what 
he  likes,"  though  he  "knows  nothing  about  art,"  all 
unknowingly  fulfils  in  minor,  or  perhaps  major,  degree 
the  artist's  purpose  in  the  object  of  his  liking.  He  has  the 
root  of  the  matter  in  him;  for  the  root  of  the  matter  is 
joy  —  though  it  be  the  tragic  joy  of  a  morning  such  as 
breaks  for  Achilles'  death  over  the  ^Egean  in  Regnault's 
Automedon.  The  scientific  dilettante,  although  his  pur- 
pose and  achievement  lie  wholly  outside  the  purpose  and 
achievement  of  the  artist,  yet  by  the  way  and  even  in  the 
end  may  have  to  do  with  the  proper  content  of  what  he 
studies.  "To  the  student  of  art  the  most  precious  result 
of  his  labor  is  the  full  pure  enjoyment  of  the  work  of  art."1 
So  the  archaeologist  Furtwangler  wrote,  not  forgetting 
that  the  way  we  may  come  by  a  thing  is  not  the  thing  we 
come  by.  So  our  own  Professor  Gildersleeve  confesses, 
"it  is  to  the  conviction  that  philology  is  not  all  science,  it 
is  to  the  quest  of  art  through  science,  that  I  owe  the  joy 
of  life  in  my  vocation."2  Moreover,  it  is  for  no  individual 
end  that  the  historian  or  the  sesthetician  transforms  to 
a  datum  of  inquiry  the  object  of  admiration  a  work  of  art 
was  meant  to  be,  but  in  the  service  of  a  science  and  there- 
fore of  the  world.  The  technical  dilettante,  finally,  enters 
the  artist's  mind  as  the  emotional  dilettante  also  may; 
yet  not  to  share,  if  remotely,  in  his  purpose,  as  the  other 

1  Kunstsammlungen  aus  alter  und  neuer  Zeit.    (Munich,  1899.) 

2  Oscillations  and  Nutations  of  Philological  Studies,  Johns  Hopkins  University 
Circular.  (April,  1901.) 


CONNOISSEUR  AND  DILETTANTE  117 

does,  but  to  study  his  methods;  and,  for  the  most  part, 
against  the  artist's  will.  A  picture  was  still  incomplete 
in  Whistler's  eyes  if  it  lent  itself  to  like  inquiries.  "In- 
dustry in  art  is  a  necessity  —  not  a  virtue  —  and  any 
evidence  of  the  same  in  the  production  is  a  blemish." 

The  more  honorable  part  in  the  service  of  fancy  re- 
mains with  the  connoisseur.  For  the  civil  thing  to  do  when 
a  man  speaks  to  us  is  to  listen  to  what  he  says,  and  neither 
to  let  our  wits  go  wool-gathering,  discuss  his  lineage  and 
breeding,  nor  criticise  his  rhetoric  and  delivery;  as  the 
sensible  thing  to  do  with  a  warming-pan  is  to  use  it  neither 
in  skimming  sugar  nor  in  any  other  process  save  the  proc- 
ess of  warming  beds  for  which  it  was  made. 


PART  II.  METHOD 

I.  GROWTH 
II.  CONSTRUCTION 
m.  INSTALLATION 

IV.  EXEGESIS 
V.  GOVERNMENT 


I 

GROWTH 


I 

GROWTH 
ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS 

WHEN  we  speak  of  "promoting  the  cause  of  fine  art," 
just  what  do  we  mean?  A  cause  is  some  state  of  affairs  that 
somebody  wants  to  bring  about.  Fine  art  consists  of 
things  created  to  be  enjoyed  —  for  the  purposes  of  this 
book,  tangible  things,  excluding  music,  literature  and  their 
allies.  To  promote  the  cause  of  fine  art  thus  understood 
is  to  see  to  it  that  architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  and 
their  minor  derivatives  shall  be  abundantly  and  worthily 
created  and  widely  and  rightly  enjoyed,  or  both. 

People  may  combine  to  promote  the  cause  of  the  tangi- 
ble imagination  in  at  least  four  ways.  Artists  may  com- 
bine in  guilds  to  help  each  other  to  recognition,  or  in 
schools  to  hand  on  their  processes  to  the  next  generation. 
Amateurs  in  the  best  sense  —  those  who  love  beautiful 
buildings,  statues,  pictures  and  the  like  —  may  combine 
either  to  make  it  possible  for  artists  to  create  these  things, 
as  clubs,  churches,  cities  and  other  bodies  do;  or  to  put 
those  already  created  into  a  position  to  be  enjoyed.  Artists 
promote  the  cause  of  fine  art  collectively  by  Association 
and  Instruction;  amateurs,  by  Patronage  and  Exhibition. 

Museums  of  fine  art  as  we  have  hitherto  known  them  are 
cooperative  enterprises  with  the  purpose  last  mentioned. 
They  are  one  of  two  ways  in  which  amateurs  combine  to 
get  artists  a  hearing  —  or  more  exactly  a  seeing.  Their 
way  is  to  gather  together  in  a  special  building  the  things 
they  want  to  have  seen.  The  other  way  is  to  make  known 
the  things  in  situ;  and  this  is  the  way  taken  by  the  gov- 


124  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ernmental  and  private  organizations,  long  established  in 
the  Old  World,  and  just  beginning  in  the  New,  which  are 
devoted  to  inventorying  artistic  treasures  within  specified 
territory.  Museums,  on  the  contrary,  are  collections.  They 
grow  by  bringing  objects  together  in  one  place.  The  two 
methods  notably  differ  in  that  architecture  falls  within  the 
scope  of  inventories,  and  almost  wholly  outside  the  scope 
of  collections.  Buildings  cannot  in  general  be  removed  and 
set  up  together.  Hence  architecture  contributes  to  the 
contents  of  museums  chiefly  in  the  form  of  sculptured 
ornament. 

Collecting  for  museums  consists  in  acquiring  sculptures, 
elements  of  architecture,  pictures,  or  objects  of  minor  art, 
for  the  purpose  of  placing  them  on  permanent  show  in 
a  place  apart.  To  be  good  collecting,  the  process  of  ac- 
quisition must  serve  and  not  disserve  the  cause  of  art. 
Unless  it  helps  on  either  artistic  enjoyment  or  artistic 
creation,  it  defeats  its  own  ultimate  purpose.  What  shall 
museums  collect  to  meet  these  conditions? 

As  to  artistic  enjoyment.  A  question  not  to  be  avoided 
regarding  any  proposed  museum  acquisition  is  "Will  the 
object  be  better  off  in  a  gallery?  Will  it  be  seen  to  better 
advantage,  enjoy  a  longer  lease  of  life,  meet  a  more  re- 
sponsive public?" 

Plainly,  yes,  in  the  case  of  objects  brought  from  isolated 
or  unsuspected  places,  the  finds  of  explorers  and  excava- 
tors. So  with  objects  in  places  grown  obscure  or  dangerous, 
either  no  longer  visible  as  they  were  meant  to  be,  or  doomed 
by  smoke  or  dust  or  glare  or  frost  or  damp  or  fire  or  neglect 
or  other  source  of  decay.  So  with  objects  already  exiled 
from  the  places  they  were  made  to  occupy,  bereft  of  the 
function  they  once  fulfilled,  liable  to  fall  into  weak  or 
ignorant  hands,  like  much  of  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  artis- 
tic market.  But  as  plainly,  no,  in  the  case  of  objects  still 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  125 

safe  where  they  were  meant  to  be,  still  capable  of  fulfilling 
an  intended  function,  still  appealing  to  a  public  like  that 
for  which  they  were  fashioned.  To  gather  such  things  into 
collections  is  not  to  promote  but  hinder  the  cause  of  art. 
They  give  less  artistic  enjoyment  in  a  gallery  on  two 
accounts.  They  become  fragments,  unsupported  by  the 
environment  of  place  and  event  for  which  the  artist  reck- 
oned them.  They  are  cheek  by  jowl  with  other  fragments, 
more  or  less  alien.  The  museum  affords  an  asylum  for  the 
flotsam  and  jetsam  of  art,  its  waifs  and  strays.  It  re- 
stores their  threatened  or  suspended  animation,  but  only 
by  offering  an  institutional  surrogate  for  normal  life.  From 
their  niches  in  an  Italian  villa,  the  statues  asked  Mignon, 
"My  poor  child,  what  have  they  done  to  thee?"  and  the 
timeless  beauty  of  every  untouched  work  of  art  presses 
this  question  upon  every  beholder;  but  in  a  museum  it  is 
the  beholder  that  is  tempted  to  ask  it  of  all  he  sees.  The 
statue  or  relief  once  deepened  the  impressiveness  of  a 
temple  now  ruined  or  a  tomb  now  buried,  was  a  rallying 
point  in  a  forgotten  market-place,  or  the  genius  of  a  grove 
now  felled.  The  bit  of  fresco,  the  historical  canvas,  the 
likeness  of  a  noted  man,  was  made  to  catch  wandering 
eyes  in  an  assembly  hall.  The  family  portrait  hallowed  the 
walls  of  a  home,  the  landscape  or  the  genre  picture  brighf- 
ened  them,  the  cassone  or  the  carven  table  saw  them  fur- 
nished and  dismantled.  The  altar-piece  guided  the  thoughts 
of  far-away  worshippers,  the  rug  was  their  place  of  prayer. 
The  tapestry  helped  to  make  sumptuous  a  palace  now  a 
memory.  The  coin  passed  from  buyer  to  seller  within  a 
vanished  body  politic.  The  armor  can  no  longer  shine  at 
any  tournament,  nor  turn  a  hostile  blow  on  any  battle- 
field. The  porcelain  held  flowers  of  the  antipodes,  toasts 
were  drunk  from  the  bowl,  the  urn  has  been  emptied  of 
beloved  ashes,  the  vial  of  passionate  tears.  The  miniature 


126  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

hid  between  the  leaves  of  books  now  scattered.  The  mirror 
framed  the  image  of  a  fair  face,  the  jewels  flashed  on  beau- 
tiful shoulders.  To  gather  up  these  fragments  from  the  past 
is  an  imperative  duty  of  artistic  piety.  When  the  New 
Zealander  has  finished  sketching  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's 
from  the  broken  arches  of  London  Bridge,  he  may  carry 
away  Landseer's  bronze  lions  to  be  the  pride  of  a  South  Sea 
museum:  but  while  the  central  roar  of  a  metropolis  still 
beats  upon  them,  the  cause  of  art  is  best  advanced  if  they 
keep  their  watch  about  the  foot  of  Nelson's  column  in 
Trafalgar  Square. 

As  to  artistic  creation.  What  method  of  collecting  for 
museums  will  help  it?  Obviously,  direct  purchases  from 
artists.  Acquisitions  from  the  studio  or  the  exhibition  will 
nourish  producers  and  the  distinction  of  the  sales  will  stim- 
ulate production.  But  to  include  this  kind  of  collecting  for 
museums,  the  definition  just  given  of  the  type  of  institu- 
tion to  which  they  belong  needs  to  be  enlarged.  They  be- 
come one  of  the  ways  in  which  amateurs  can  combine  to 
get  things  made,  as  well  as  to  get  them  seen.  A  museum 
that  buys  from  artists  is  not  simply  an  exhibition  place  for 
our  inheritance  from  the  artistic  patronage  of  a  former 
day:  it  becomes  a  patron  on  its  own  account.  This  second 
role  is  at  once  new,  and  important. 

It  is  new.  Museums  of  fine  art  themselves  are  a  com- 
paratively new  thing.  The  French  Revolutionists  may  be 
said  to  have  founded  the  first  one  when  in  1793  they  took 
possession,  in  the  name  of  the  people,  of  the  collections  of 
fine  art  in  the  royal  palaces  of  France,  and  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  Louvre.  The  museums  founded  in  Europe 
during  the  generations  immediately  following  were  also  the 
result  of  the  nationalization  of  private  cabinets,  princely  or 
royal.  Museums  of  art  were  from  the  beginning  the  second 
abode  of  their  contents,  dedicated  to  the  past  and  not  to 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  127 

the  present.  The  greatest  still  remain  wholly  devoted  to 
the  cause  of  artistic  enjoyment,  not  artistic  creation.  Per- 
haps the  Crystal  Palace  of  1851  marks  the  date  when 
works  of  fine  art  began  to  be  bought  from  their  makers  for 
permanent  public  show.  Museums  of;  art  in  America  owe 
their  origin  to  this  exhibition,  and  to  our  own  world's  fairs, 
to  which  it  gave  the  impulse.  With  us  the  motive  of 
artistic  piety  had  not  the  compelling  force  it  possessed  in 
the  Old  World.  Our  short  pioneer  history  had  afforded  the 
tangible  imagination  comparatively  little  scope:  and  our 
hardly  interrupted  prosperity  had  left  much  of  its  prod- 
uct still  in  the  public  places  and  private  hands  where  it 
was  intended  to  be.  A  share  in  the  salvage  of  exotic  art 
was  open  to  our  museums;  and  American  public  spirit  has 
liberally  provided  the  necessary  money.  But  time  is  also 
necessary.  Opportunities  must  offer,  and  the  capacity  to 
seize  them  ripen.  Patronage,  on  the  contrary,  can  be  im- 
mediate; and  patronage  of  home  talent  appeals  to  local 
pride.  Hence  our  art  museums  have  tended  from  the  first 
to  supplement  their  importations  by  works  of  art  fresh 
from  the  maker's  hand.  They  have  ceased  to  be  simply  the 
asylum  of  creations  of  the  material  arts,  and  have  become 
in  a  measure  their  intended  home. 

The  new  role  is  also  important.  It  implies  a  radical 
change  in  the  attitude  toward  the  material  arts  hitherto 
maintained  by  artist  and  amateur  alike.  In  all  ages,  work- 
ers with  the  brush,  the  chisel,  the  mould  or  the  loom,  have 
for  the  most  part  sought  to  beautify  objects  of  use;  and 
their  patrons  have  demanded  the  continual  companionship 
of  their  creations.  In  working  with  an  eye  to  installation 
in  a  museum,  artists  aim  to  beautify  nothing;  and  the 
occasional  companionship  of  their  work  is  all  that  ama- 
teurs obtain. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  in  the  event  both  creation 


128  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

and  enjoyment  would  suffer.  The  guidance  and  constraint 
of  a  non-artistic  aim  is  by  general  admission  a  well-nigh 
indispensable  condition  of  the  highest  achievement  in  any 
material  art.  If  this  is  true,  museum-made  art  is  con- 
demned in  advance  to  inferiority.  So  the  authorities  agree. 
The  artists  cannot  be  depended  on  to  do  their  best  at  it. 
Nor  can  amateurs  get  the  most  from  it.  Museum-made  art 
accepts  in  advance  the  position  of  a  recourse  for  hours  of 
freedom,  resigning  that  of  the  possible  inspiration  of  any 
hour.  A  rudimentary  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  teaches 
that  this  position  is  inferior  in  quality  as  in  quantity.  One's 
moods  may  not  coincide  with  one's  leisure;  and  to  make 
the  most  of  them  we  must  live  amid  the  beauty  which  they 
crave.  The  inference  is  unequivocal.  Should  museums 
take  up  the  patronage  of  art  as  a  permanent  function 
they  would  usurp  a  role  that  true  fidelity  to  its  cause  de- 
mands should  be  left  to  the  public.  Museum  patronage 
would  tend  eventually  to  lame  the  worker  and  disadvan- 
tage his  work.  In  the  long  run  the  nourishment  and  stimu- 
lus it  gives  artists  would  not  pay.  The  ideally  best  col- 
lecting for  museums  consists  in  acquiring  from  the  user, 
not  the  maker.  To  be  first-class,  a  collection  of  fine  art 
must,  unless  by  exception,  be  second-hand.1 

1  If  we  love  art,  we  must  rejoice  in  proportion  as  museums  are  unnecessary; 
and  look  upon  its  conservation  therein  as  the  Greeks  looked  upon  existence  in  the 
underworld,  all  of  whose  years  were  not  in  their  minds  worth  a  single  day  of  warm 
and  breathing  life. 

In  his  Elements  et  Theorie  de  I' Architecture  (Paris,  1890,  vol.  n,  p.  316)  Pro- 
fessor Guadet  writes: 

"In  all  epochs  really  creative  artistically,  museums  have  been  unknown:  least 
of  all  would  those  times  have  comprehended  an  artist's  producing  a  work  for  im- 
mediate interment  in  such  a  domain  of  death.  Painting  was  then  principally 
intended  as  architectural  decoration  and  for  public  instruction,  the  spiritual 
elevation  of  the  people.  Every  painting  had  its  predetermined  place,  its  des- 
tination, its  setting;  it  was  part  of  a  whole,  in  harmony  with  the  other  elements. 
Mural  painting  came  first,  but  even  the  later  easel  pictures  had  their  situation, 
their  surroundings,  their  calculated  lighting.  Nor  can  we  pronounce  the  word 
sculpture  without  the  thought  of  immortal  masterpieces,  conceived  and  executed 
for  a  monument,  for  a  certain  spot,  whether  it  be  the  work  of  Phidias,  the  carv- 
ings of  cathedrals,  or  the  Medici  tombs. 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  129 

Nevertheless,  there  may  be  ample  temporary  justifica- 
tion for  the  assumption  by  museums  of  the  patron's  r61e: 
just  as  there  is  temporary  justification  for  the  union  of  art 

"As  for  those  works  of  art  which  survived  their  time,  like  the  antiques  dis- 
covered by  excavation  —  those  works  which  necessarily  had  no  modern  ap- 
plicability —  these  were  at  first  collected  by  private  individuals,  or,  we  should 
rather  say  private  individuals,  real  amateurs,  lived  with  them,  gave  them  a  place 
in  their  intimacy,  arranging  them  in  their  drawing  rooms,  their  library,  their 
dining  rooms,  the  vestibules  or  porticos  of  their  villa.  But  as  their  number  has 
increased  and  princely  wealth  decreased,  a  shelter  has  become  necessary  for 
such  remains  of  the  past.  For  them  the  museum  is  legitimate,  since  it  is  their 
means  of  preservation,  a  token  of  respectful  piety  toward  that  which  without 
this  refuge  would  be  an  objectless  waif. 

"Yes;  asylum,  Campo  Santo,  cemetery,  whatever  one  may  call  it:  a  museum 
is  a  kingdom  of  the  past,  a  place  for  the  preservation  of  that  which  is  no  longer 
living.  Even  masterworks,  if  no  other  abiding  place  is  open  to  them,  will  come 
and  bury  themselves  here.  Though  stripped  of  all  that  constituted  their  environ- 
ment, their  significance,  their  raison  d'etre,  here  they  will  at  least  be  protected, 
and  if  seen  imperfectly  and  judged  wrongly,  still  they  will  be  seen  and  their 
meaning  can  be  divined. 

"But  the  curious  notion  has  arisen  of  late  that  to  be  inscribed  in  a  museum 
catalogue  is  the  happiest  fortune  to  which  a  work  of  art  can  attain.  We  see  in  the 
Louvre  —  and  it  is  a  monstrous  thing  —  sculptures  whose  place  at  Versailles  and 
Fontainebleau  is  empty.  The  beautiful  chimney  piece  at  Fontainebleau  is  de- 
spoiled of  the  equestrian  bas  relief  of  Henry  IV  by  Jacquet  de  Grenoble,  and  there 
are  even  fanatics  who  propose  to  rob  the  Arc  de  1'Etoile  of  Rude's  bas-relief 
(Aux  Armes)  for  the  benefit  of  a  museum  gallery!  Stranger  still,  we  have  muse- 
ums of  living  artists! 

"And  what  happens  then?  A  museum  of  living  artists  calls  for  works  made  for 
a  museum,  that  is,  works  without  purpose,  without  significance,  without  reason 
for  existence!  An  art  of  virtuosi,  perhaps,  of  clever  people,  but  a  sterile  art  all 
the  same,  and  at  all  events  inferior;  for  there  is  no  truly  great  art  but  such  as 
consecrates  itself  to  a  higher  and  disinterested  mission." 

In  Kunstsammlungen  aus  alter  und  neuer  Zeit  (1899,  p.  29)  Professor  Adolf 
Furtwangler  writes: 

"There  is  a  third  kind  of  art  museum  which  I  have  not  thus  far  mentioned: 
those,  namely,  devoted  to  living  art.  These  I  hope  will  in  the  coming  century  dis- 
appear; and  I  wish  this,  not  from  antipathy  to  living  art,  but  out  of  regard  for  it. 
It  is  solely  those  conditions  in  our  time  which  have  been  hostile  to  art  that  have 
brought  forth  these  collections.  Real  museums  are  the  home  of  art  that  has 
passed  away,  of  dead  art,  into  whose  remains  we  have  to  live  ourselves  labori- 
ously. What  hangs  on  museum  walls  is  there  mainly  as  an  object  of  exacting 
study  to  whose  understanding  we  must  pave  our  way  by  investigation  of  the  past. 
Far  be  it  from  modern  art  to  wish  while  alive  to  be  treated  like  the  art  of  antiq- 
uity! 

"We  gather  the  remains  of  the  past  into  the  conglomerations  we  call  museums 
because  we  must;  but  that  which  is  modern  and  alive  should  scatter  itself  where- 
ever  modern  life  is  found.  Let  as  many  temporary  expositions  as  possible  of 
modern  work  be  arranged  on  private  or  governmental  initiative.  But  in  monu- 
mental museums,  conservators  of  ancient  things,  the  modern  do  not  belong;  they 
have  but  strayed  in  thither  as  into  the  only  asylum  for  art  in  a  time  ignorant  of 


130  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

museum  and  art  school  well-nigh  universal  in  this  country. 
As  in  undertaking  technical  instruction,  so  in  the  purchase 
of  prize  painting  and  prize  sculpture,  the  American  mu- 
seum of  the  present  acts  as  a  nursery  for  future  independ- 
ent agencies.  The  educational  and  commercial  activities 
of  our  museums  of  art  bespeak  at  once  the  vigor  and  the 
youth  of  our  civilization.  Maturity  brings  differentia- 
tion; and  in  due  time  these  forms  of  organized  effort  in 
the  cause  of  art  will  be  performed  apart  from  museums, 
education  by  academies  of  art,  patronage  by  societies, 
institutions  and  political  units  of  all  kinds. 

To  the  question  thus  far  discussed  —  What  ought  mu- 
seums of  art  to  collect?  —  the  answer  is,  old  things  needing 
shelter.  Any  work  of  art  worth  permanent  publicity,  and 
likely  otherwise  to  be  deprived  of  it,  is  a  proper  acquisi- 
tion for  museums  of  art. 

How  may  this  duty  be  more  closely  defined?  Artistic 
qualities  being  the  purposed  characteristics  of  a  thing  that 
make  it  pleasing  in  itself,  these  qualities  may  either  have 
been  purposed  in  advance  or  ex  post  facto:  either  sought  for 
by  the  artist  or  simply  accepted  by  him;  they  may  be  the 
fruit,  to  use  the  customary  words,  either  of  skill  or  of 
genius.  A  museum  should  aim  to  preserve  objects  which 
exhibit  either  to  its  own  judgment  or  a  judgment  which  it 
regards  as  wiser,  the  highest  qualities  of  both  kinds.  In  a 
phrase  happily  coined  in  the  course  of  an  official  document, 

how  to  make  practical  use  of  it.  The  contemporary  theory  of  its  purposelessness 
helped;  but  of  this  the  healthy  taste  of  classic  times  knew  nothing,  creating  all 
its  art  works  for  definite  purposes.  May  such  tasks  fall  again  to  our  artists!  And 
may  city  and  nation  aid  living  art,  not  by  buying  its  creations  and  immuring 
them  among  the  dead,  but  by  the  offer  of  living  tasks!  Of  these  there  will  be  no 
lack  if  they  are  more  widely  sought.  Why  are  not  our  churches,  our  cemeteries, 
the  corridors  and  foyers  of  our  theatres,  our  concert  halls,  the  waiting-rooms  of 
stations,  our  reading-rooms  and  public  baths,  our  halls  of  justice,  —  why  are  not 
all  these  full  of  new  works  of  art?  Works  that  from  time  to  time  might  be  varied 
and  exchanged,  to  arrest  attention  continually?  Our  future  watchword  should  be 

—  Joy  in  fresh  and  living  art  and  immediate  and  multifarious  employment  for  it 

—  Reverence,  loving  understanding,  and  protection  for  the  works  of  the  past." 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  131 

museums  of  art  should  seek  to  acquire  "the  best  obtain- 
able works  of  genius  and  skill/'1  The  museum  of  art  ex- 
ists that  the  world  shall  not  lose  the  best  things.  Whether 
the  best  obtainable  is  of  wider  or  narrower  appeal  is  a  ques- 
tion before  a  museum  only  when  other  things  are  equal  - 
ceteris  paribus.  The  point  always  at  issue  is  not  whether 
more  or  fewer  people  will  approve,  but  whether  the  object 
is  more  or  less  worth  approval.  We  may,  indeed,  believe 
that  many  of  the  things  which  are  best  worth  approval  will 
prove  the  things  also  of  widest  appeal.  In  the  words  of 
Renan,  quoted  by  Matthew  Arnold,  "  Glory  is  after  all  the 
thing  which  has  the  best  chance  of  not  being  altogether 
vanity."  But  we  may,  and  indeed  must,  also  believe  that 
the  best  exists  in  countless  other  forms  —  the  best  for  me, 
not  being  the  best  for  you.  We  may  believe  that  all  have 
an  equivalent,  because  an  infinite,  share  in  it  without  be- 
lieving that  all  have  the  same  share.  The  duty  of  the  col- 
lector for  a  museum  is  to  follow  his  own  carefully  exercised 
judgment  unaffected  by  the  judgment  of  others,  unless  he 
see  valid  reason  to  prefer  it. 

One  consideration  narrows  and  one  broadens  his  choice. 
By  the  phrase  worth  permanent  publicity  we  mean  at  least 
to  exclude  blundering  workmanship.  The  artist  must  have 
said  his  say,  been  able  to  express  himself.  There  must  have 
been  an  intention  behind  what  he  has  left  us;  else  it  is  not 
a  creation  but  material  unformed.  Mastery  must  be  the 
watchword  of  good  collecting  for  museums.  Shall  this  be 
the  only  watchword,  or  shall  we  hold  that  the  question 
What  an  artist  says,  as  well  as  the  question  Whether  he  says 
it  must  be  answered  also?  It  will  hardly  be  disputed  that 
the  exclusion  of  unintended  performance  and  the  inclusion 
only  of  work  showing  a  command  over  means  of  expres- 

1  Special  report  of  the  Committee  of  the  Museum  on  the  Increase  of  the  Col- 
lections: included  in  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  for 
the  year  1883. 


132  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

sion,  although  for  practical  purposes  a  sufficient  rule,  is 
not  in  theory  all-sufficient.  It  is  possible,  though  not 
likely,  that  a  worthless  or  evil  message  may  be  well  deliv- 
ered. Reserve  and  charity  should  govern  here.  Let  us  be 
very  sure  that  in  our  own  estimation  the  intention  of  the 
artist  is  actually  worthless  or  evil;  and  if  ourselves  con- 
vinced, let  us  still  leave  a  large  margin  for  the  possible 
revision  of  our  judgment  by  others  wiser.  Let  us  err  by 
including  rather  than  by  excluding  too  much.  If  the  watch- 
word Mastery,  relating  to  the  artist's  ability,  needs  a 
complement  in  a  watchword  relating  to  the  collector's 
taste,  let  Catholicity  be  the  word  chosen. 

It  remains  to  ask  —  How  does  a  museum  obtain  its  collec- 
tions ?  In  three  ways :  by  discovery,  by  gift,  and  by  purchase. 

Discovery,  the  work  of  the  explorer  into  buried  civiliza- 
tions, merits  the  first  rank  among  avenues  of  growth. 
Its  results  are  so  many  additions  to  the  world's  riches,  not 
simply  transfers  of  ownership,  as  are  gifts  and  purchases. 
But  discovery  is  also  a  difficult  and  limited  source.  Asia, 
the  Levant,  and  in  a  minor  way,  the  Americas,  still  possess 
forgotten  riches;  but  knowledge  and  skill  of  the  rarest  type 
is  demanded  to  find  them,  and  the  time  seems  in  sight 
when  there  will  be  no  more  to  find.  Meanwhile,  and  until 
museums  have  fulfilled  to  the  utmost  possible  their  posi- 
tive r6le  of  discovery,  it  should  be  their  pride  not  to  resign 
themselves  wholly  to  their  negative  role  of  salvage. 

Gifts  have  a  valid  title  to  the  second  place  among  ways 
of  acquisition.  Their  value  may  be  greater  than  the  value 
of  purchases  ever  can  be.  Acquisitions  by  purchase  are 
limited  by  what  is  purchasable  and  by  what  the  museum 
has  to  purchase  with.  Acquisitions  by  gift  have  no  limits 
but  the  possessions  and  the  generosity  of  other  owners. 
Again,  time  is  more  likely  to  justify  the  decision  to  accept 
than  the  decision  to  purchase.  The  gift  has  survived  tw< 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  133 

tests;  the  judgment  of  the  giver  and  his  advisers  at  the 
time  it  was  acquired,  and  the  judgment  of  the  museum  and 
its  advisers  at  the  time  it  was  accepted.  A  purchase  under- 
goes but  one.  It  need  satisfy  only  the  authorities  of  the 
museum.  Hence  the  probability  that  an  acquisition  will 
not  be  repented  of  is  higher  in  the  case  of  gifts.  On  the 
other  hand,  gifts  are  seldom  the  unconstrained  choice  of 
the  recipient.  Some  obligation,  tacit  or  explicit,  gene- 
rally accompanies  them,  either  augmenting  the  value  of 
things  otherwise  unacceptable,  or  decreasing  the  value 
of  things  otherwise  welcome.  Mr.  Dooley's  phrase  " defence- 
less museems"  indicates  that  the  burden  which  gifts  may 
impose  upon  museums  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge. 
The  two  explicit  obligations  most  commonly  attached 
to  gifts  are  that  they  should  be  always  kept,  and,  if  a  num- 
ber of  objects,  always  kept  together.  Of  these  two  condi- 
tions, the  first,  —  that  the  gift  shall  be  held  in  perpetuity, 
—  imposes  on  a  museum  no  less  a  responsibility  than  that 
of  deciding  whether  a  given  work  of  art  is  immortal;  for, 
unless  it  be  thought  so,  no  museum  ought  to  agree  to  keep 
it  forever.  The  more  enlightened  and  responsible  a  museum 
management,  the  more  reluctant  it  will  be  to  make  this 
hazardous  affirmation,  and  the  more  frequently  will  works 
of  art  so  conditioned  be  declined  when  otherwise  they  might 
gladly  have  been  given  an  honorable  place  in  public  view. 
It  is  true  that  without  this  condition  there  is  always  the 
possibility  that  the  gift  may  be  disposed  of  by  some  future 
management.  But  the  higher  its  quality  and  the  broader 
their  taste,  the  less  is  this  event  to  be  anticipated;  and  to 
provide  against  it  signifies  mistrust  of  one  or  other.  Better 
to  leave  the  gift  to  the  judgment  of  the  future,  which  if  it 
reverse  that  of  the  present,  will  at  least  preserve  the  name 
of  the  giver  from  identification  with  a  work  from  which  the 
world  has  grown  away. 


134  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

The  condition  of  permanent  ownership  would  in  most 
cases  be  fulfilled  without  any  promise;  but  the  second 
condition,  that  works  given  together  should  always  be 
shown  together,  would  in  the  absence  of  express  agree- 
ment, almost  invariably  be  violated.  They  would  be  shown 
apart  because  so  shown  to  the  best  advantage.  The 
effect  of  the  individual  pieces  of  a  private  collection  will 
almost  always  be  heightened  in  settings  arranged  for  them 
from  other  exhibits  of  a  museum.  Almost  always,  there- 
fore, the  provision  maintaining  a  collection  as  an  insoluble 
group  works  against  the  common  aim  of  both  the  condi- 
tions mentioned;  for  by  its  operation  the  giver  comes  to 
be  remembered  with  less  honor  than  his  gifts  warrant. 

The  common  aim  of  the  two  conditions  is  the  desire  that 
the  gift  should  fitly  and  enduringly  recall  the  personality 
in  whose  name  it  is  offered.  Every  museum  owes  scrupu- 
lous regard  to  this  legitimate  and  praiseworthy  desire,  and 
should  accept  without  hesitation  the  obligation  it  imposes. 
Permanence  of  recognition  is  of  the  essence  of  this  obliga- 
tion. Hence,  if  the  gift  is  parted  with  in  part  or  wholly, 
the  name  should  be  kept  by  transfer  to  other  objects  of  equal 
rank.  If  a  collection  is  distributed  through  various  galler- 
ies, the  name  should  be  distributed  with  it.  The  interests 
of  a  museum  and  of  those  who  seek  commemoration  for 
themselves  or  others  within  its  walls  are  identical.  Names 
attached  to  acquisitions  of  the  museum  both  recall  past 
benefactors  and  inspire  future  benefactions.  Freedom  to 
dispose  of  a  gift  gives  it  a  public  position  under  the  giver's 
name  whenever,  but  only  so  long  as,  it  is  an  adornment  to 
both.  Freedom  to  disperse  a  collection  among  surround- 
ings that  enhance  each  piece  fulfills  not  only  the  museum's 
purpose  to  make  each  possession  tell  to  the  utmost,  but  the 
desire  of  the  giver  for  remembrance  with  distinction.1 

1  Maxime  Maufra,  Le  Musie  (January,  1907),  pp.  16,  17. 


ON  COLLECTING  FOR  MUSEUMS  135 

Acquisitions  by  purchase  have  at  all  times  been  the 
smallest  source  of  museum  growth;  and  doubtless  will 
remain  the  smallest.  However  the  purchasing  funds  of 
museums  increase,  they  are  not  likely  to  equal  those  which 
future  collectors  may  have  at  their  command.  In  its  turn, 
a  permanent  public  institution  commands  a  superior  type 
of  professional  skill  and  information,  with  a  wider  out- 
look on  artistic  history.  Museums  are  in  a  position  to  be 
snappers-up  of  unconsidered  trifles  that  time  will  prove 
treasures.  Their  special  province  as  purchasers  is  that  of 
passing  opportunities  insufficiently  appealing  to  current 
taste.  There  may  often  be  fortunate  chances  also  which 
warrant  their  competing  with  current  taste;  and  of  these 
they  will  be  in  a  position  to  take  advantage  in  the  measure 
in  which  contributors  to  their  funds  come  to  value  disin- 
terestedness, refinement,  and  scholarship  in  matters  of 
artistic  judgment. 


II 

CONSTRUCTION 

THE  IDEALS  OF  DIAGONAL  LIGHTING 
AND  RADIAL  EXPANSION 


II 

CONSTRUCTION 

THE  IDEALS  OF  DIAGONAL  LIGHTING  AND 
RADIAL  EXPANSION 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 


FIGUBE  1.   SCHEME  OF  ELEVATION 

1.  The  skylight.  A  roof,  not  walls,  constitutes  a  house. 
Sun  and  rain,  not  wind  and  cold,  have  forced  men  to  build. 
Overhead  protection  alone  may  give  all  necessary  shelter. 
The  fact  is  registered  in  the  free  treatment  of  walls  con- 
spicuous in  the  architecture  of  the  Far  East.  In  Oceania 
they  are  absent.  In  Japan  they  are  removable.2  In  China 
the  pagoda  derives  from  superposed  umbrellas.  Series  of 
eaves  arranged  to  give  lateral  protection  appear  in  the 
blinds  of  our  Western  houses.  But  no  human  shelters  in 
any  time  or  country  lack  a  roof.  Without  an  opaque  and 
impervious  covering  an  enclosure  is  not  an  interior  but  an 
exterior  space,  not  a  room  but  a  court.  Unless  designed  as 

1  Reprinted  from  Museumskunde,  Band  vn  (1911),  Heft.  4. 

2  The  word  "roof"  (yane)  in  Japanese  means  "house-root"  (E.  S.  Morse, 
"Japanese  Homes  and  their  Surroundings,"  New  York,  1889,  p.  107):  i.e.  as  we 
may  infer,  the  constitutive  part  of  a  house. 


140 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


a  meeting-place  and  not  as  a  dwelling-place,  its  effect  will 
have  the  flavor  of  mediocrity  that  betrays  latent  unreason. 

Apartments  treated 
as  interiors  while 
lighted  from  above 
are  a  faux  genre  in 
architecture. 

2.    The   clerestory. 


FIGURE  2.  STANDARD  MUSEUM  ARRANGEMENT 


FIGURE  3.    MUSEO  NAZIONALE,  NAPLES,  1586 


The  vrai  genre  of  in- 
ternal apartment  — 
or  chamber  surrounded  by  others^ —  appeared  in  the  de- 
sign of  Roman  basil- 
icas and  their  suc- 
cessors, Christian 
churches.  The  court 
which  the  basilicas 
inherited  from  ear- 
lier architecture  was 
made  a  room  by  rais- 
ing its  walls,  roofing  them,  and  providing  them  with  win- 
dows. It  became  an 
audience  hall,  or 
nave,  receiving  high, 
oblique  light  from 
the  raised  walls,  or 
clerestory:  and  the 
neighboring  spaces 
served  for  with- 
drawal, or  passage, 
as  bays  or  aisles. 

3.  The  standard 
museum  arrange- 
ment. The  clerestory  principle  is  immediately  applicable 
to  a  type  of  museum  plan  whose  frequent  use  approves 


FIGURE  4 

DESIGN  FOR  FIRST  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS, 
BOSTON,  1871 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 


141 


*1 


FIGURE  5 

KUNSTHISTORISCHES  HoFMTTSEUM,  VlENNA, 

1872-81 


it  for  museum  ends,  although  it  was  originally  designed 
for  others.  This  plan  provides  exhibition  space  about  two 
large  areas  separated 
by  a  structure  con- 
taining the  main  en- 
trance and  stairway 
of  the  building  (Fig- 
ure 2).  More  muse- 
ums adhere  to  such 
a  general  arrange- 
ment than  to  any  other.  The  exhibition  space  is  mainly 

a  single  suite  in  the 
Old  Museum,  Ber- 
lin (1825-28),  the 
New  Museum,  Ber- 
lin (1848-45),  the 
National  Museum, 
Stockholm  (1866), 
the  Pennsylvania 
Museum,  Philadel- 
phia (1876),  the 
Ryksmuseum,  Am- 
sterdam (1877-85),  and  several  other  large  museum  build- 
ings. It  is  mainly  a 
double  suite  in  five 
others  whose  plans 
are  here  reproduced. 
In  the  Naples  Mu- 
seum, built  (1586) 
for  a  cavalry  bar- 
rack, the  spaces  in  FIGURE  7 
the  double  row  are  NEW  MusEUM  OF  ^  AHTS'  BoSTON'  1909 
of  nearly  equal  size,  and  the  stairway  is  at  the  opposite  end 
of  the  central  block  from  the  entrance  (Figure  3).  In  the 


FIGURE  6.  ART  INSTITUTE,  CHICAGO,  1893 


142  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

design  for  the  first  building  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts, 
Boston  (1871) ,  of  which  but  half  was  ever  executed,  the  main 
stairway  adjoins  the  central  block  (Figure  4) .  In  the  Kunst- 
historisches  Hof museum,  Vienna  (1872),  the  inner  suite  on 
the  ground  floor  (the  outer  on  the  main  floor)  consists  of 
cabinets  (Figure  5).  In  the  Art  Institute,  Chicago  (1893), 
the  cabinets  have  become  corridors  and  the  courts  contain 
top-lighted  rooms  (Figure  6) :  and  a  similar  development 
of  the  standard  arrangement  appears  as  a  fraction  of  a 
scheme  devised  to  meet  special  needs  and  opportunities  in 
the  ground  floor  of  the  central  block  of  the  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts  at  Boston  (1909:  Figure  7). 

4.  The  clerestory  development  of  the  standard  arrangement. 
The  arrangement  now  consists  of  two  large,  top-lighted 
apartments,  separated  by  a  top-lighted  stairway  hall,  and 
completely  surrounded  by  passages  giving  access  to  ex- 
terior rooms.    Applying  the  clerestory  principle  to  this 
arrangement,  the  walls  of  the  two  large  interior  spaces  are 
raised  and  pierced,  forming  two  naves  which  receive  their 
light  from  windows  above  the  surrounding  roofs,  and  lend  it 
to  the  corridors  about  them :  and  a  lantern  is  added  over  the 
stairway  hall  joining  the  naves.    The  present  scheme  of  a 
museum  without  skylights  is  the  outcome  (Figures  1  and  8). 

5.  Purpose  of  the  sketches.    The  sketches  in  which  this 
scheme  is  here  presented  are  not  from  a  professional  hand, 
and  have  no  professional  purpose.    They  are  diagrams, 
aiming  first  to  express  a  certain  disposition,  proportion  and 
assignment  of  spaces  more  perfectly,  easily,  and  quickly 
than  would  be  possible  by  a  verbal  description:  and  second 
to  indicate  to  the  eye  that  the  structural  scheme  proposed 
might  not  be  impossible  architecturally.    To  have  gone 
further,  and  have  attempted  to  correct  and  perfect  the 
sketches  technically  would  have  been  a  task  alike  impossi- 
ble to  the  writer  and  unfruitful  to  the  reader. 


144  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

6.  The  problem  of  the  roof.  An  important  practical  bene- 
fit and  an  important  sesthetic  advantage  result  to  the 
standard  museum  arrangement  from  the  application  of 
the  clerestory  principle.   Replacing  a  quasi-court  by  a  true 
nave  replaces  a  re-entrant  roof,  leaky  in  rain  and  darkened 
by  snow,  with  a  salient  combination  of  slopes  and  window 
walls.  Replacing  the  skylight  over  the  main  stairway  by  a 
lantern  gives  the  exterior  a  crowning  central  feature. 

7.  The  problem  of  access.    It  proves,  further,  that  this 
radical  solution  of  the  problem  of  lighting  a  museum 
lends  itself  to  an  equally  radical  solution  of  the  problem  of 
access  therein.    As  a  theatre  is  designed  for  spectators, 
or  a  throng  seated  to  see:  an  auditorium  for  auditors,  or 
a  throng  seated  to  hear :  a  bridge  for  crossers,  or  throngs 
passing  and  repassing  over  an  obstacle:  so  a  museum  is 
designed  for  visitors,  that  is,  for  throngs  moving  from  any 
one  of  certain  spaces  to  any  other,  to  see  the  contents. 
Apart  from  well-designed  light  openings,  spaces  freely  com- 
municating are  the  prime  requisite  in  a  museum  plan.  This 
requisite  the  present  sketches  meet  by  giving  independent 
access  to  every  room.1 

8.  Independent  use  and  free  combination  of  galleries.  Two 
important  advantages  in  museum  economy  result.    By 
closing  the  doors  of  communication  shown  in  Figure  8  be- 
tween rooms,  and  opening  the  doors  of  entrance  to  other 
rooms  from  passages,  any  one  or  more  rooms  may  be  shut 
off  without  hindering  access  to  any  other.    Again  by  the 
same  process,  the  exhibition  space  of  the  building  may  be 
subdivided  into  groups  of  galleries  in  various  ways.    The 
value  of  the  first  freedom  will  be  appreciated  by  every 
museum  administrator.    In  most  museums,  whenever  a 
gallery  is  rearranged,  redecorated,  or  otherwise  withdrawn 

1  In  "  Aims  and  Principles  "  (see  Appendix),  the  principle  called  "  Segregation  " 
demands  independent  access  to  each  suite  of  galleries  assigned  to  cognate  exhibits. 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS  145 

from  public  use,  either  the  passage  of  visitors  through  a 
whole  section  of  the  museum  is  blocked,  or  the  parapher- 
nalia and  personnel  of  museum  work  is  exposed  to  public 
view  and  interference.  Moreover,  objects  in  transit  must 
be  brought  through  other  galleries.  The  second  freedom  — 
that  of  recombining  galleries  into  new  department  groups 
—  is  of  prime  importance  in  every  growing  museum.  Only 
collections  approximately  finished,  or  whose  extension  can 
be  approximately  foreseen,  can  afford  to  dispense  with  it. 
In  the  present  scheme,  any  department  could  annex  a 
neighboring  room,  and  still  remain  —  and  leave  every 
other  —  a  connected  and  independent  suite. 

9.  Selective  exhibition.    Resting  places.    Beside  offering 
I  solutions  of  the  problems  of  lighting  and  access,  the  present 

scheme  provides  for  two  other  recognized  desiderata  of 
museum  administration :  the  division  of  collections  into  a 
Show  and  a  Study  series,  and  the  forestalling  of  museum 
fatigue.  For  the  immediate  accessibility  of  both  floors 
from  the  Entrance  Hall  permits  the  independent  use  of  the 
lower,  including  the  naves,  for  secondary  purposes :  and  the 
extensive  passageways  of  the  plan  afford  the  visitor  ample 
opportunity  for  diversion  of  mind  and  relaxation  of  body.1 

10.  Chief  results.   These  are  the  main  claims  of  the  de- 
sign. Originating  in  the  wish  to  escape  a  traditional  archi- 
tectural solecism,  a  clerestory  development  of  the  standard 
arrangement  promises  within  its  limits  of  exhibition  capac- 

ty,  a  happy  response  to  four  principal  demands  of  museum 
administration :  light t  access,  division  of  the  collections  and 
provision  for  recreation. 

The  adaptation  of  the  structure  to  further  museum  needs 
may  be  passed  in  review  by  approaching  and  traversing  it 
in  imagination. 

1  "Aims  and  Principles"  demands  provision  for  rest  in  stating  the  principle 
of  Segregation:  and  proposes  the  division  of  collections  under  the  title  of  "Dual 
Installation." 


146 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


11.  Minimum  shadowing  of  windows.   From  a  museum 
standpoint  the  most  striking  external  novelty  of  the  build- 
ing is  the  free  exposure  of  all  its  important  windows.   In 
most  large  edifices  projecting  structures  conceal  part  of 
the  sky  from  spaces  which  nevertheless  need  all  the  illumi- 
nation practicable.   The  familiar  subdued  or  gloomy  im- 
pression of  rooms  at  the  corners  of  courts,  at  the  junction 
of  wings,  or  under  the  shadow  of  roofs,  is  the  result.  In  the 
present  building  this  impression  would  be  practically  un- 
known.  Re-entrant  angles  occur  at  but  two  points  in  the 
design,  and  at  neither  affect  the  lighting  of  primary  exhibi- 
tion space.    The  corridors  to  the  wings  shadow  only  the 
adjacent  ground  floor  windows:  and  the  transverse  block 
shadows  only  a  small  portion  of  the  clerestory,  at  this 
point  reenforced  by  the  lantern.   A  museum  is  an  institu- 
tion devoted  to  the  use  of  the  eyes,  and  it  is  a  marked 
advantage  of  the  present  scheme  as  a  museum  plan  that  it 
obviates  the  retrenchment  of  any  important  source  of 
light. 

12.  The  grounds.  It  is  assumed  that  the  building  will  not 
be  shadowed  by  others.  To  this  end  free  space  of  eighty 

or  a  hundred  feet  is 
needed  about  it,  as 
shown  in  the  diagram 
(Figure  9).  With  a 
boundary  at  this  dis- 
tance, the  plot  oc- 
cupied by  the  main 
building  measures  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  by  six 
hundred  feet  and  covers  an  area  of  about  five  acres:  the 
wings  adding  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet  at  each 
end,  and  enlarging  the  plot  to  nine  acres. 

13.  The  entrances.  Of  the  long  sides  of  the  structure  one 
is  determined  as  the  cot6  cour  by  the  main  entrance:  the 


« IJ6'- 


FIGURE  9.   SCHEME  OF  GROUNDS 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 


147 


other  as  the  cotejardin  by  the  external  stairway.  The  busi- 
ness entrance  is  as  far  as  possible  from  either,  on  a  short 
side,  accessible  from  a  transverse  street. 

14.  Architectural  type.   The  main  building  shows  a  light 
superstructure  on  a  heavy  base  —  as  it  were  a  Sainte- 


FIGURE  10.    CENTRAL  BLOCK  :  GROUND  FLOOR 

Chapelle  over  a  Palais  de  Justice  —  and  to  the  lay  mind 
would  appear  to  offer  a  good  subject  for  architectural 
treatment.  Romanesque  forms  have  been  employed  in 
Figure  1  because  best  suited  to  the  writer's  powers  as  a 
draughtsman. 

15.  Ingress  and  egress;  cloak-rooms  and  sales-office.  Fig- 
ure 10  shows  the  ground-floor  plan  of  the  central  block.  The 
Entrance  Hall  is  flanked  on  the  right  by  a  cloak-room  of 
which  a  counter  is  directly  opposite  the  entrance  turnstile : 


148  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

and  on  the  left  by  an  office  for  the  sale  of  publications  and 
photographs,  of  which  the  door  is  directly  opposite  the  exit 
turnstile.  Passage  forward  into  the  Entrance  Hall  is  pre- 
vented by  a  hinged  barrier  folding  back  against  the  turn- 
stiles to  give  an  unobstructed  exit  sixteen  feet  wide  to 
crowds.  The  side  passages,  where  those  waiting  for  wraps, 
or  to  make  purchases  can  stand  outside  the  main  stream 
of  passers,  add  twenty  feet  to  this  exit  width.  The  two 
counters  of  the  cloak-room,  together  twelve  feet  in  length, 
insure  rapid  checking  and  delivery  on  ordinary  occasions. 
To  meet  the  extra  demands  of  bad  weather  and  great 
crowds,  the  room  beyond  might  to  advantage  be  reserved 
as  an  auxiliary  cloak-room,  communicating  with  the  first 
and  with  a  delivery  counter  thirty-five  feet  long  opening 
in,  or  reached  from,  the  transverse  corridor.  The  opposite 
office  consists  of  a  sales  bureau,  eight  by  ten  feet,  with  a 
counter  and  cabinets,  and  a  waiting  room,  ten  by  twelve 
feet,  with  table,  desk,  and  chairs  for  the  inspection  of  photo- 
graphs at  ease  under  a  good  light. 

16.  The  Entrance  Hall.    The  Entrance  Hall  itself  is 
planned  as  a  vaulted  apartment  thirty  by  forty-six  feet  an 
sixteen  feet  high.  A  few  steps  lead  to  an  arched  corridor  o 
the  level  of  the  rest  of  the  ground  floor,  nine  feet  wide 
tween  pilasters,  and  fourteen  feet  high.  This  corridor  runs 
around  the  naves,  and  is  lighted  from  the  rooms  outside  by 
lunettes  at  ten  feet  from  the  floor.    Figure  11  shows  that 
from  the  centre  of  the  Entrance  Hall,  looking  across  the 
corridor,  an  arched  opening  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway 
frames  in  the  landing,  conceived  as  panelled  in  masonry 
and  the  row  of  low  arches  on  the  main  floor  above,  openi 
into  the  corridor  and  the  Garden  Gallery  beyond. 

17.  Hall  seats;  bulletin  board;  drinking -fountain;  elevator; 
telephone.  The  niches,  eight  feet  long,  on  either  side  the  En- 
trance Hall,  just  before  reaching  the  steps  to  the  corridor, 


— «/ 
7, 

" 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 


149 


would  be  available  for  seats :  and  those  in  the  corridor,  on 
either  side  the  stairway  entrance,  for  the  posting  of  notices. 
The  first  niches  in  the  corridors  along  the  stairway  might 


FIGURE  11.  CENTRAL  BLOCK  :  SECTION 

contain  drinking-fountains.  A  passenger  elevator,  nine  by 
ten  feet,  running  from  the  basement  to  the  upper  floor 
opens  opposite  the  right-hand  stairway  corridor,  and  a 
public  telephone  booth  of  like  size  opposite  the  corridor 
on  the  left. 

18.  The  basement.    From  these  corridors  stairs  lead  to 
the  basement,  planned  with  an  interior  height  of  eleven 
feet,  half  below  ground.    Its  corridors,  duplicating  those 
shown  in  Figure  8,  are  lighted  in  the  same  way  from  the 
external  rooms,  and  would  need  artificial  light  only  under 
the  central  block.    The  spaces  under  the  naves  would  be 
available  for  dark  storage  and  for  heating  and  ventilating 
chambers.    That  under  the  Entrance  Hall  might  be  used 
for  vaults  accessible  on  either  side,  from  rooms  devoted  to 
departments,  or  to  the  administration  of  the  museum. 

19.  The  lavatories.  The  stairway  corridors  on  the  ground 
floor  end  in  the  transverse  rear  corridor,  giving  access  on 


150  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  one  hand  to  department  rooms,  and  on  the  other,  by  a 
lobby,  to  the  public  lavatories  and  retiring  rooms.  The 
public  lavatories  of  a  building  used  daily  by  hundreds  and 
sometimes  thousands  of  persons  should  occupy  two  en- 
tirely independent  and  easily  distinguishable  localities, 
both  near  the  entrance  and  easily  found  therefrom.  They 
should  be  inconspicuous  and  impossible  to  oversee  from 
any  thoroughfare,  and  their  immediate  approach  should 
not  need  to  be  entered  for  any  other  purpose.  The  locations 
here  assigned  them  meet  these  requirements.  The  direc- 
tion given  in  the  Entrance  Hall  need  only  be  "Down  the 
right  (or  left)  hand  corridor."  At  the  end  the  lobby  of 
the  lavatory,  leading  from  a  short  corridor  of  two  bays, 
ending  in  a  locked  service  door,  would  be  identified  by  a 
sign.  No  sign  would  be  needed  in  the  corridor  outside.  The 
doorway  of  the  lavatory  would  not  be  seen  from  the  stair- 
way corridor,  and  opens,  not  into  the  room  itself,  but  into 
a  vestibule.  The  room  is  lighted  by  high  windows  over- 
looking the  fountain.  The  adjacent  retiring  room  for  cases 
of  illness  is  independently  accessible  and  has  its  own 
lavatory. 

20.  Service  closets.    The  three  adjacent  closets  marked 
"Service"  are  designed  as  storage  space  for  implements  of 
cleaning,  stepladders,  and  other  apparatus  used  by  em- 
ployees. One  should  be  fitted  as  a  wash  closet.  The  reser- 
vation of  convenient  space  for  these  purposes  is  indispen- 
sable for  the  proper  housekeeping  of  a  museum  building. 

21.  Offices  and  reserve  collections.   The  rooms  reached  in 
the  other  direction  along  the  rear  corridor  are  planned  as 
department  offices  and  for  the  compact  installation  of 
collections  in  reserve.    They  are  twenty-eight  feet  deep 
and  lighted  by  windows  with  sills  at  the  customary  height. 
In  rooms  devoted  to  inspection  rather  than  exhibition  it 
should  be  possible  to  bring  objects  near  the  light. 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS  151 

22.  The  naves.   Midway  in  each  stairway  corridor  three 
doorways  open  upon  one  of  the  naves  of  the  building,  con- 
ceived as  a  vaulted  apartment  forty-four  feet  wide,  one 
hundred  and  two  long,  and  eighty-eight  high,  ending  in  a 
half  octagon,  and  opening  by  arches  eighteen  feet  wide  on 
centres,  under  a  clerestory,  into  the  main  floor  corridors  as 
into  the  triforium  of  a  cathedral.   On  the  oblique  faces  of 
the  octagon  the  arches,  and  in  part  the  windows  of  the 
clerestory,  are  replaced  by  openings  showing  the  ascent 
of  the  spiral  stairways  indicated  in  Figure  8,  which  connect 
all  the  floors  of  the  building  and  terminate  in  an  external 
ambulatory  over  the  corridors  and  triforium  at  the  base  of 
the  clerestory.   For  sixteen  feet  from  the  floor  of  the  nave 
its  walls  are  unbroken  except  by  the  piers  (if  these  are 
carried  to  the  floor)  and  by  an  occasional  door  of  communi- 
cation with  the  corridor :  and  afford  in  each  of  ten  bays  a 
wall-space  fourteen  to  eighteen  feet  wide  and  as  high  as 
pictures  can  generally  be  hung,  or  as  statues  commonly 
reach,  lighted  advantageously  for  exhibition  purposes  from 
the  clerestory.  This  space  is  framed  above  by  the  parapets 
in  the  bays  of  the  main  floor  corridors,  overlooking  the 
nave. 

23.  Nave  divisions.   Were  deep  metal  sockets  buried  in 
the  masonry  of  the  nave  floor,  opposite  to  and  eighteen  feet 
from  each  pier,  standards  and  connecting  panelling  could 
be  used  to  divide  one  or  both  naves  for  temporary  purposes 
into  a  central  thoroughfare  eight  feet  wide,  and  side  cab- 
inets eighteen  feet  deep  and  multiples  of  eighteen  feet  in 
length.  At  the  octagon  the  standards  and  panelling  might 
be  adapted  to  form  a  small  stage  with  an  opening  eighteen 
feet  wide  and  sixteen  feet  high  and  exits  upon  the  stairways. 
Since  such  divisions  would  follow  the  structural  lines  of 
the  nave,  both  perpendicular  and  horizontal,  they  would  in 
whatever  combination  form  a  harmonious  addition  to  the 


152  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

architectural  composition  of  the  interior.  They  might  be 
of  permanent  construction,  fitted  once  for  all  and  stored 
in  the  basement  when  not  in  use. 

24.  Nave  vista.    Seen  from  the  apse  the  nave  is  termi- 
nated by  the  entrance  wall  with  its  triple  portal,  and  by 
the  colonnade  crossing  upon  it  like  the  jube  of  a  cathe- 
dral.   Above  appears  the  opening  of  the  lantern,  and  be- 
yond, the  vaulting  of  the  other  nave. 

25.  The  main  stairway.    From  the  Entrance  Hall  the 
main  stairway  ascends  by  a  broken  flight  to  a  landing 
twelve  by  forty-four  feet  with  space  for  seats,  from  which 
further  broken  flights  ascend  backward  on  either  hand  to 
the  main  floor.    The  lantern  rises  overhead  between  the 
two  double  colonnades  crowned  with  parapets,  over  the 
stairway  corridors.    Figure  11  shows  that  between  the 
colonnades  and  over  the  lower  arches  opening  into  the  rear 
corridor  the  wall  of  the  library  stack  fills  an  arch  like  that 
of  the  naves,  pierced  with  small  windows  and  surmounting 
a  narrow  balcony  immediately  over  the  arches.    Opposite, 
a  similar  balcony  opens  into  the  Orchestra  Gallery,  the 
space  above  being  available  for  an  organ. 

26.  The  Reception  Gallery.   Across  the  corridor  from  the 
top  of  either  flight  of  the  main  stairway  an  arch  opens  into 
the  room  called  on  Figures  8  and  1 1  the  Reception  Gallery, 
thirty  by  forty-six  feet,  like  the  Entrance  Hall  below. 
Since  the  main  stairway  brings  every  one  to  this  point,  here 
might  be  displayed  recent  acquisitions  of  the  museum,  or 
any  other  objects  to  which  it  is  desired  to  call  temporary 
attention.    On  occasion,  heavy  timber  screens  might  be 
erected  eight  feet  away  from  the  doors  at  each  end,  leaving 
an  intermediate  space  thirty  feet  square  for  the  undisturbed 
inspection  of  pictures  hung  on  the  screens,  or  of  pieces  of 
sculpture,  or  case  objects,  displayed  within  the  area. 

27.  The  circuits.    The  end  doorways  lead  toward  the 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS  153 

suites  of  galleries  forming  the  primary  exhibition  space  of 
the  museum.  Apart  from  the  wings,  the  whole  museum  is 
visited  by  simply  keeping  on  from  this  start.  Nevertheless, 
the  visitor  is  not  forced  to  go  on,  but  may  cut  his  visit 
short  and  return  to  the  main  entrance,  without  retracing 
his  steps,  at  the  two  points  where  he  crosses  the  corridors 
to  the  wings,  and  again  in  the  Garden  Gallery,  as  well  as 
in  any  gallery  where  the  door  to  the  corridor  provided  in 
each  is  open.  Hence  the  scheme,  while  putting  no  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  visitors  who  wish  to  see  the  whole  museum, 
invites  also  the  more  rewarding  habit  of  confining  a  visit 
to  a  single  branch  of  the  collections.  However  these  are 
outlined,  whether  by  the  four  suites  of  which  the  floor  is 
composed,  or  by  doors  closed  in  the  course  of  the  suites, 
the  tour  of  any  department  will  bring  the  visitor  upon  one 
of  the  corridors.  The  scheme  even  admits  of  realizing  the 
ideal  in  which  each  gallery  becomes  the  quiet  home  of  its 
contents,  disconnected  from  every  other  and  opening  only 
on  a  common  passageway.  Closing  all  the  doors  of  commu- 
nication shown  in  Figure  8  and  opening  all  the  doors  of  en- 
trance, each  gallery  would  become  a  separate  department, 
entered  only  for  its  own  sake,  and  through  which  there 
would  be  no  passing  whatever.  The  union  of  any  number 
of  the  galleries  into  one  department  likewise  encounters  no 
obstacle.  The  axial  corridors  —  narrow  lobbies  gained  and 
left  through  opposite  doors  —  would  be  no  serious  inter- 
ruption to  the  impression  of  the  rooms  they  separate,  and 
would  lead  no  one  astray:  and  the  Garden  Gallery  might 
be  installed  like  the  others.  Any  half,  or  three  quarters, 
or  the  whole  of  the  galleries  of  the  main  building  might 
thus  be  devoted  to  one  sequence  of  exhibits. 

28.  The  corridors.  The  corridors  themselves  are  admi- 
rably lighted  for  exhibition  purposes  from  the  clerestory. 
An  exhibit  on  the  wall  and  a  desk  case  in  the  opposite  bal- 


154  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

cony  would  not  interfere  with  passage,  nor  would  their 
appeal  obtrude  upon  the  visitor  bound  for  another  branch 
of  the  collections.  These  exhibits  might  either  be  associ- 
ated each  with  that  of  the  neighboring  gallery,  or  form 
together  an  independent  class. 

29.  The  lobbies.   From  both  the  Reception  Gallery  and 
the  Garden  Gallery  access  is  gained  to  the  adjacent  exhibi- 
tion galleries  through  lobbies.  The  elevators  have  doors  on 
the  lobbies  giving  direct  access  to  small  cabinets  available 
as  private  cloak-rooms  on  special  occasions.   The  lobbies 
opposite  contain  stairways  to  the  floor  above  and  service 
closets  like  those  on  the  floor  below. 

30.  The  exhibition  galleries.  The  rooms  on  the  main  floor 
are  all  twenty-eight  feet  wide  and  are  represented  in  Fig- 
ure 8  as  of  varying  lengths.    They  are  twenty-four  feet 
high  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  Garden  Gallery,  are 
lighted  by  windows  with  sills  at  half  this  height1  from  the 
floor  and  running  to  the  ceiling.   This  method  of  illumina- 
tion is  proposed  for  three  reasons :  to  give  the  exhibits  the 
advantage  of  high  oblique  light:  to  keep  the  source  of  light 
out  of  the  visitor's  eyes :  to  permit  the  use  of  the  lower  part 
of  the  window  wall  for  the  installation  of  objects  not  re- 
quiring to  be  seen  at  a  great  distance.2  Reflected  rays  from 
the  upper  part  of  the  other  walls,  perhaps  also  from  the 
ceiling,  would  admirably  light  the  lower  part  of  the  window 
wall  for  any  one  standing  near  enough  to  escape  seeing  the 
windows  above.     It  is  assumed  that  ceilings  generally 
throughout  the  building  will  have  visible  means  of  support, 
either  vaulting  or  beams  on  corbels. 

1  Preferably  two  thirds  or  more.   "The  general  conclusion  was  that  side  light 
must  be  high,  beginning  at  a  height  at  least  two  thirds  of  the  width,  extending  to 
a  height  equal  to  width."    From  a  notebook  of  observations  abroad  by  two 
architects. 

2  Leonardo  advises  sketching  when  objects  cast  shadows  equal  to  their  height 
(Libra  della  Pittura,  cap.  85) .    These  windows  should  be  so  treated  architecturally 
that  the  sills  of  any  could  be  lowered  when  needed  for  special  collections. 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS 


155 


31.  The  spiral  stairs.    The  building  has  been  planned 
with  the  idea  of  dividing  the  space  devoted  to  each  branch 
of  the  collections  between  two  floors,  the  lower  assigned 
to  the  offices  and  reserve  collections  of  that  branch,  and 
the  upper  to  its  exhibition  galleries.    Each  department  is 
thereby  equipped  for  both  the  purposes  for  which  objects 
of  art  are  preserved  —  public  exhibition  and  private  study : 
and  a  convenient  means  of  communication,  for  both  the 
museum  personnel  and  visitors,  between  the  spaces  de- 
voted to  the  two  purposes  becomes  necessary.   This  is  the 
function  of  the  spiral  stairways  at  the  ends  of  the  four  cor- 
ridors.   They  would  serve  instead  of  the  main  stairs  for 
department  uses,  and  in  general  would  save  steps.  As  they 
continue  to  the  basement  they  afford  independent  access 
also  to  the  storage  and  ad- 
ministration rooms  of  the 

museum. 

32.  The  Lecture  Hall. 
The  stairway  from  the  Re- 
ception Gallery  leads  to 
the  Lecture  Hall  (Figure 
12)   likewise   thirty   by 
forty-six  feet,  with  a  height 
of    twenty-one    feet    and 
seating  about   two   hun- 
dred persons .  The  rostrum 
at  the  opposite  end  from 
the  entrance  is  flanked  on 
one  hand  by  the  doorway 
of  the  elevator,  and  on  the 

other  by  a  door  to  a  cabinet  for  the  speaker,  communicat- 
ing by  a  passage  with  a  private  lavatory  and  with  the 
elevator.  The  cabinet  of  like  size  at  the  opposite  end  of 
the  room  would  be  available  for  private  conferences.  The 


o     8  '  w   M    n 
ICALC  of  rut 


FIGURE  12 
CENTRAL  BLOCK:  SECOND  FLOOR 


156  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

windows  of  the  room  being  on  the  side,  the  light  is  not  in 
the  eyes  of  either  the  lecturer  or  the  audience. 

33.  Ambulatories.  34.  Restaurant;  Orchestra  Gallery; 
organ.  Two  small  exits  at  the  end  of  the  opposite  wall  lead 
to  lobbies  with  stairways  up  to  doors  upon  the  ambula- 
tories, or  promenades,  which  surmount  and  express  exter- 
nally the  corridors  about  the  naves.  The  stairway  by  the 
elevator  goes  no  further,  the  space  above  being  available 
for  part  of  the  organ.  The  elevator  and  the  other  stairway 
run  to  the  top  of  the  building,  giving  access  to  the  restau- 
rant over  the  Lecture  Hall  and  the  kitchen  in  the  gable. 
These  positions  are  chosen  to  separate  these  rooms  wholly 
from  the  rest  of  the  museum,  and  to  prevent  the  escape  of 
the  odor  of  cooking  into  the  galleries.  Supplies  would  be 
brought  from  the  basement  in  a  closed  compartment  under- 
neath the  floor  of  the  elevator.  A  low  passage  on  the  level 
of  the  Lecture  Hall  and  running  under  the  ambulatories 
would  permit  employees  to  use  one  of  the  spiral  stairways 
to  the  basement  when  necessary.  In  this  passage  and  in 
the  corresponding  one  opposite  there  should  be  two  small 
public  lavatories  (for  women  on  the  elevator  side,  for  men 
on  the  other) .  The  small  stairway  next  the  main  entrance 
to  the  Lecture  Hall  leads  also  to  a  gallery  opening  on  the 
Hall,  from  which  the  lantern  would  be  operated  when 
illustrated  lectures  were  given.  The  small  exits  from  the 
Hall  open  also  into  the  Orchestra  Gallery  with  space  for 
thirty  or  more  musicians.  From  the  lobbies  doors  under 
the  small  stairways  open  upon  the  cross  promenades  on 
top  of  the  colonnades  overlooking  the  naves. 

35.  The  Garden  Gallery.  On  the  main  floor  the  Garden 
Gallery  is  the  only  room  in  which  the  windows  are  at  the 
usual  height  and  afford  a  view  out.  Central  doorways  open 
on  the  external  steps  descending  about  the  fountain  to  that 
side  of  the  museum  property  which  is  supposed  to  be  laid 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS  157 

out  as  a  pleasure  ground.  Any  overflow  of  new  exhibits 
or  other  objects  of  special  claim  might  be  shown  in  the 
Garden  Gallery.  Apart  from  any  use  for  exhibition  the 
prospect  on  the  garden  would  give  the  room  an  interest 
of  its  own. 

36.  The  Reading -Room ;  the  Copying-  and  Photograph- 
Room.  The  stairway  in  the  adjoining  lobby  leads  to  the 
Reading-Room  overhead,  likewise  twenty-eight  by  forty- 
six  feet,  and  twenty-one  feet  high.  A  cabinet  for  the  libra- 
rian, nine  by  eleven  feet,  adjoins  the  entrance.  The  attend- 
ant's desk  on  the  opposite  side  is  flanked  on  one  side  by  the 
doorway  of  the  elevator,  and  on  the  other  by  the  door  to 
the  Catalogue-Room,  eleven  by  eighteen  feet,  and  having 
a  small  door  on  the  elevator,  for  the  receipt  and  delivery 
of  books.  The  wall  opposite  the  windows  is  wholly  occu- 
pied by  stacks  in  three  tiers,  forming  alcoves  directed 
toward  the  windows  and  hence  well  lighted,  and  having 
also  windows  giving  upon  the  lantern.  The  alcoves  above 
the  floor  communicate  by  doorways  in  the  stacks.  A  book- 
lift  occupies  the  end  of  the  central  stack  toward  the  room. 
The  end  alcoves  open  into  lobbies  with  small  stairways  like 
those  adjoining  the  Lecture  Hall,  and  also  by  a  few  steps 
down,  upon  a  narrow  balcony  opposite  the  Orchestra  bal- 
cony. Passages  from  these  lobbies  under  the  ambulatories, 
similar  to  those  across  the  nave,  should  also  contain  small 
public  lavatories,  for  the  use  of  readers.  The  small  stair- 
way in  the  lobby  on  the  entrance  side,  like  that  across  the 
nave,  runs  only  to  the  ambulatory  and  to  the  space  over 
the  entrance  stairway  and  librarian's  cabinet.  This  space 
would  be  available  for  general  library  purposes.  The  other 
small  stairway  and  the  elevator,  run  to  the  top  of  the  build- 
ing, like  those  across  the  nave,  giving  access  to  the  Copy- 
ing- and  Photograph-Room  above,  planned  in  the  main  like 
the  Reading-Room.  The  stack  space  of  the  two  forms  a 


158  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

unit  served  by  one  central  booklift.  Without  the  indicated 
expansion  into  the  gable  above,  it  would  accommodate 
thirty  thousand  books  and  one  hundred  thousand  photo- 
graphs, a  large  library  of  fine  art.  The  tables  indicated  are 
small,  each  giving  space  for  at  most  four  readers. 

37.  Recreation  space.   The  ambulatories  about  the  base 
of  the  clerestory  complete  the  provisions  of  the  building 
against  museum  fatigue.   The  plan  provides  three  recrea- 
tion spaces :  one  indoors,  for  all  weathers,  consisting  of  the 
square  of  corridors  about  the  stairway  on  the  main  floor, 
together  with  the  Garden  Gallery:  two  outdoors,  for  fine 
weather,  one  on  the  ground,  consisting  of  the  garden  with 
its  stairway  approach,  the  other  on  the  roof,  consisting  of 
the  ambulatories  reached  by  the  four  spiral  stairways  and 
also  by  the  lobbies  just  mentioned.    Since  but  a  short 
flight  in  one  of  these  lobbies  separates  the  restaurant  from 
the  southwestern  ambulatory,  doubtless  this  would  come 
to  be  used  as  an  open-air  lunch-room. 

38.  The  colonnades.    The  focus  of  the  museum,  at  its 
centre  both  in  plan  and  elevation,  is  the  corridor  space 
about  the  stairway  on  the  main  floor.   From  this  point  its 
life  is  open  to  the  gaze  in  every  direction.  Visitors  entering 
are  seen  as  they  mount  the  stairs  or  pause  on  the  landing. 
Through  pillars  and  arches  appear  the  Reception  Gallery, 
where  those  just  arrived  delay  to  choose  their  way,  and  the 
Garden  Gallery,  where  others  midway  in  their  visit  halt  for 
the  prospect  from  the  windows,  or  for  a  turn  in  the  garden. 
The  naves  open  below,  and  about  them,  on  the  level  of  the 
eye,  appear  the  bays  forming  their  triforium.   A  door  here 
and  there  may  even  give  a  glimpse  into  the  exhibition  gal- 
leries beyond,  but  otherwise  visitors  to  the  collections  are 
withdrawn  from  the  central  life  of  the  building.   Through 
the  triforium  arch  of  the  middle  bay  of  the  half  octagon  at 
the  end  of  each  nave  the  view  extends  two  hundred  feet  to 


A  MUSEUM  WITHOUT  SKYLIGHTS  159 

the  limit  of  the  structure :  and  if  there  are  wings,  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  farther  to  and  into  them  through  the 
connecting  corridors.  Were  these  corridors  constructed  of 
glass  and  used  as  conservatories,  each  vista  would  end  in 
a  mass  of  plants  and  flowers  under  outdoor  light.  Finally, 
the  view  from  this  point  extends  also  upward  between  the 
arches  of  the  crossing  past  the  windows  of  the  lantern  to 
its  apex. 

39.  The  uses  of  the  naves.  The  museum  uses  of  the  larg- 
est and  most  ambitiously  designed  spaces  in  the  building 
remain  to  be  determined.  The  naves  should  subserve  other 
purposes  than  that  of  giving  architectural  validity  to  an 
approved  museum  arrangement.    It  is  here  proposed  to 
devote  them  to  four  factors  in  museum  economy  demand- 
ing space  apart  from  the  regular  galleries:  first,  monu- 
mental fragments:  second,  temporary  exhibitions:  third, 
the  display  of  designs :  fourth,  assemblies. 

40.  Monumental  fragments.   In  the  exercise  of  its  fun- 
damental function  of  the  salvage  of  things  worth  keeping, 
a  museum  may  at  any  time  be  called  upon  to  give  asylum 
to  objects  of  greater  size  than  can  be  shown  in  galleries 
fitted  for  general  use  —  as  remains  of  architecture  might 
be.   Without  some  large  spaces  like  the  naves  at  its  com- 
mand a  museum  would  on  such  occasions  fail  perforce  in 
its  duty.  They  would  seldom  occur,  but  a  museum  is  dedi- 
cated to  perpetuity.     Meanwhile  there  is  another  class  of 
objects  —  namely,  plaster  reproductions  of  sculpture  else- 
where —  which  a  museum  is  often  called  upon  to  show, 
and  which  demand  exceptional  space.    This  space  should 
be  wholly  apart  from  that  devoted  by  the  museum  to  its 
works  of  art.  The  mingled  exhibition  of  mediate  and  direct 
utterances  of  gifted  men  disenchantsVhere  it  does  not  mis- 
inform.  To  install  casts  of  sculpture  separately  from,  and 
literally  on  a  lower  level  than,  works  of  art  is  to  give  a 


160  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

salutary  object  lesson  in  the  incommensurable  value  of 
reality  and  reproduction. 

41.  Temporary  exhibitions.    In  a  museum  dividing  its 
collections  into  exhibits  and  reserves   the  exhibition  of 
any  given  object  is  liable  to  be  intermittent.    But  the 
risks  of  mounting  and  dismounting,  and  the  right  of  the 
public  to  see  masterpieces  at  all  times  set  limits  to  the 
practicable  changes  of  exhibition,   and  the  freedom  to 
show  selected  objects  without  disturbing  those  already  in 
place  may  be  a  valuable  one  —  as  in  the  case  of  notable 
acquisitions,   or   opportunities    for    illustrative    exhibits. 
Again,  the  museum  could  offer  the  naves  for  temporary 
exhibitions  from  outside  sources  —  wandering  collections, 
or  other  loans  —  without  interfering  in  any  way  with  the 
regular  administration  of  its  own  resources.    It  could  be 
hospitable  without  suffering  for  it. 

42.  The  display  of  designs.  Another  class  of  exhibits  — 
both  temporary  and  of  large  size  —  for  whose  display 
the  naves  would  be  available,  are  not  yet  to  be  called 
works  of  art.   The  public  museum  of  a  city  may  appro- 
priately be  the  place  where  sketches  and  models  of  pro- 
jected  monuments  and   schemes  of  city  adornment  are 
submitted  to  the  judgment  of  those  in  authority  and  the 
inspection  of  others   interested.    The   conditions  offered 
by  the  naves  might  even  be  more  advantageous  than 
those  which  would  surround  the  monument  when  exe- 
cuted.   The  light  would  be  reliable,  the  space  doubtless 
in  most  cases  ample,  and  large  models  of  sculpture  or 
architecture  could  be  examined  not  only  from  the  ground 
but  from  the  triforium  bays.   Beside  ensuring  these  fav- 
orable conditions,  exhibition  at  the  museum  would  call 
in  advance  to  the  attention  of  all,  works  of  art  designed 
for  the  eventual  enjoyment  of  all. 

43.  Receptions  ;  concerts  ;  plays  ;  readings  ;  pageants.  For 


A  MUSEUM   WITHOUT   SKYLIGHTS          161 

another  purpose,  large  spaces  apart  from  the  rooms  de- 
voted to  collections,  and  independently  accessible,  have 
become  an  acknowledged  desideratum  of  museum  plan- 
ning. It  is  recognized  that  a  building  full  of  artistic  mem- 
ories and  expressing  in  stately  form  a  pious  regard  for 
them  presents  an  appropriate  setting  for  gatherings  more 
or  less  directly  related  to  the  life  of  the  imagination.  Peo- 
ple may  wish  to  come  together  socially  to  congratulate 
each  other  over  the  treasures  acquired.  They  may  wish 
to  see  drama,  or  hear  literature  from,  or  relating  to,  the 
past,  in  the  atmosphere  produced  by  tangible  objects  that 
gave  another  expression  to  the  same  instinct  of  creation. 
They  may  wish  to  listen  to  music  under  the  spell  of  other 
arts.  They  may  wish  to  join  in  a  work  of  cooperative  art 
—  ceremony  or  spectacle  —  under  the  same  spell.  To 
oppose  these  wishes  would  be  to  deny  to  the  works  of 
art  preserved  in  museum  galleries  the  right  to  share  as 
fragments  in  solemnities  and  gayeties  such  as  they  were 
made  to  adorn  intact. . 

44.  The  two  museum  ideals.  The  picture  of  a  possible 
museum  which  the  imaginary  journey  now  at  an  end 
leaves  in  the  mind  differs  radically  from  that  presented  by 
most  real  museums.  It  is  not  that  of  an  institution  where 
things  too  precious  to  throw  away  have  little  by  little 
been  gathered  and  are  now  preserved  in  more  or  less  hap- 
hazard fashion  for  such  pilgrims  as  may  come  to  worship 
them.  The  present  plans  speak  everywhere  of  a  resolute 
purpose  to  make  the  most  in  every  way  and  for  every 
one  of  everything  the  building  may  come  to  contain.  We 
may  regret  the  passive  ideal,  and  wonder  whether  after 
all  it  may  not  bear  richer  fruit :  but  the  active  ideal  is  still 
untried,  and  it  is  too  soon  as  yet  to  draw  the  comparison. 


n 

GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 
THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  FACTOR  IN   THE  LIGHTING  PROBLEM1 

ATTIC  LIGHT  VERSUS  SIDE  OR  TOP  LIGHT 
IN  the  present  day  of  voluminous  scientific  publication 
there  is  risk  in  claiming  that  any  large  factor  in  an  im- 
portant question  has  hitherto  mainly  escaped  considera- 
tion. In  regard  to  the  problem  of  the  lighting  of  build- 
ings, whether  artificially  or  naturally,  the  claim  has 
nevertheless  just  been  made  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
lighting  engineer;  and  it  is  substantiated  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  museum  official.  Professor  Ferree  writes: 
"Up  to  the  present  time  the  work  on  the  problem  of  light- 
ing has  been  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  source  of  light. 
The  goal  of  the  lighting  engineer  has  been  to  get  the  maxi- 
mum output  of  light  for  a  given  expenditure  of  energy. 
Until  recent  years  little  attention  has  been  given  to  the 
problem  in  its  relation  to  the  eye." 2  In  like  manner  the 
goal  of  the  museum  architect  has  been  to  get  the  maxi- 
mum of  light  upon  walls  and  cases  within  general  limits 
of  construction.  This  is  the  end  principally  sought  by 
Professor  Magnus  and  Professor  Tiede,  whose  rules  have 
been  the  chief  contributions  of  the  past  generation  to  the 
theory  of  lighting  picture  galleries;  and  the  same  direc- 
tion of  inquiry  has  been  followed  in  the  demonstration 
of  lines  of  equal  illumination  in  a  picture  zone  given  by 
Professor  Wagner.3  To  the  problem  of  museum  lighting 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Architectural  Record  (New  York),  August  and  September, 
1915. 

2  "The  Problem  of  Lighting  in  its  Relation  to  the  Efficiency  of  the  Eye." 
Paper  read  before  the  American  Philosophical  Society  of  Philadelphia,  April  4, 
1913.   Science,  July  17,  1914  (N.S.),  vol.  XL,  no.  1020. 

8  Dunn's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4  (Leipzig,  1893),  p.  223 /. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  163 

in  its  relation  to  the  eye  but  incidental  attention  has  been 
devoted. 

Yet  in  museums  the  psychological  element  is  more  than 
half  of  the  problem  of  lighting.  Sight  is  a  function  of  two 
variables:  the  illumination  of  the  object,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  the  organ;  and  two  everyday  facts  indicate  that 
the  latter  is  the  more  important  factor  for  the  delicate 
seeing  which  museum  visiting  involves.  First:  it  is  well 
known  that  visual  discrimination  is  at  its  best  under  a 
moderate  intensity  of  light.  As  an  object  is  more  and 
more  brilliantly  illuminated,  our  power  of  seizing  its  de- 
tails diminishes.  The  device  called  the  Claude  Lorraine 
glass  aims  to  bring  out  the  beauty  of  a  landscape  by  re- 
flecting it  in  a  mirror  constructed  to  tone  down  its  bright- 
ness. Second:  exposure  to  brilliant  light  dulls  the  eye  at 
the  [time  and  afterward  for  objects  moderately  illumi- 
nated. A  white  picket  fence  in  the  sun  is  an  effective 
screen  to  objects  which  otherwise  would  be  discernible 
through  it;  and  on  going  outdoors  at  night  we  do  not  at 
once  see  so  well  as  later. 

From  these  two  facts  the  inference  is  that  light  open- 
ings of  almost  any  dimensions  customary  in  other  build- 
ings would  suffice  for  museum  purposes,  if  only  the  open- 
ings themselves  and  reflections  from  them  were  kept  out 
of  sight  of  the  visitor,  as  they  are  not  in  other  buildings. 
The  more  important  consideration  is  not  the  size  of  the 
sources  of  light,  but  their  position.  The  crux  of  the  prob- 
lem lies  in  protection  from  glare. 

Two  positions  have  hitherto  been  mainly  chosen:  that 
of  ordinary  windows,  giving  what  is  called  "side  light"; 
and  that  of  openings  in  the  ceiling  and  roof,  giving  "top 
light."  Of  the  first  two  buildings  planned  in  Europe  ex- 
pressly for  museum  purposes,  one,  the  Old  Museum  in 
Berlin  (1824-28),  was  lighted  only  by  windows;  the  other, 


164  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  Old  Pinacothek  in  Munich  (1826-36),  chiefly  by  ceil- 
ing lights.  This  method  was  one  of  two  architectural 
novelties  embodied  in  the  Old  Pinacothek,  the  other  being 
its  arrangement  of  rooms  along  a  corridor.  The  choice 
of  top  light  for  the  main  galleries  is  said  to  have  been  dic- 
tated by  the  belief  that  Greek  temples  were  hypethral, 
that  is,  open  to  the  sky;  from  which  it  was  inferred  that 
Greek  taste  demanded  to  see  works  of  art  under  light  from 
above.  It  has  since  become  doubtful  whether  Greek  tem- 
ples were  ever  hypethral  by  intention;  and  the  method 
of  their  lighting  is  now  admittedly  a  puzzle.  But  in  spite 
of  the  weakening  of  the  classical  argument  for  top  light 
in  galleries  of  art,  strong  reasons,  chiefly  those  of  economy 
in  space,  have  maintained  it  as  the  standard  lighting. 
With  top  light,  all  four  walls  of  a  room  may  be  used  for 
exhibition;  and  however  large  the  area  of  a  building,  it 
can  all  be  covered  by  a  one-story^  construction,  within  a 
perimeter  carried  higher. 

In  a  high  building,  the  lower  stories  are  necessarily 
lighted  by  windows;  and  in  museums  of  science,  which 
are  commonly  of  several  stories,  side  light  is  apt  to  pre- 
dominate. It  has  also  always  been  used  in  museums  of 
art  for  smaller  galleries,  or  cabinets,  designed  for  objects 
demanding  close  inspection. 

Judged  by  the  canon  here  adopted  —  the  avoidance 
of  glare  ?—  both  systems  of  lighting  leave  much  to  be  de- 
sired for  museum  purposes.  Under  top  light,  the  visitor's 
eyes  are  subjected  to  more  or  less  glare  from  five  sources. 
These  are  (1)  direct  glare  from  the  ceiling  opening  —  con- 
spicuous in  long  galleries;  (2)  indirect  glare  (a)  from  be- 
low—  conspicuous  as  the  image  of  the  ceiling  opening 
in  desk  cases;  (b)  from  above  —  conspicuous  as  a  shim- 
mer on  canvases  hung  high;  (c)  from  in  front  —  conspic- 
uous as  the  image  of  the  visitor  himself  on  the  glass  of 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  165 

upright  cases  and  low  hung  pictures;  (3)  indirect  glare 
from  sun  spots,  or  the  areas  directly  lighted  by  the  sun 
through  the  ceiling  light. l  Dr.  Koetschau  lately  called  top 
light  "a  necessary  evil"  2  and  Mr.  Seager  flatly  declares 
"the  principle  of  having  a  top  or  ceiling  light  is  wrong."  3 
With  side  light  there  is  an  oppressive  glare  from  the 
windows,  and  dazzling  reflections  on  canvases  or  cases 
opposite.  Of  "the  accepted  idea  of  a  natural  history 
museum,  namely,  of  halls  about  sixty-five  feet  wide, 
lighted  on  each  side,  the  windows  being  as  large  and  the 
rooms  as  long  and  as  unimpeded  as  possible,"  Mr.  C.  C. 
Brewer  writes: 

If  a  person  passes  along  one  of  these  rooms  and  notes  carefully 
what  he  has  seen  or  can  see  from  the  central  aisle,  he  will  find 
that  with  desk  or  table  cases  he  has  noticed  an  enormous  area  of 
reflections  on  glass,  and  a  certain  number  of  small  dark  objects 
through  the  glass.  If  the  room  is  filled  with  larger  cases  of  mam- 
mals, etc.,  he  has  again  seen  a  great  many  reflections,  and  in  ad- 
dition the  silhouettes  of  many  animals  and  occasionally  the  side 
of  some,  really  almost  well  lighted.  It  may  be  that  the  visitor  is 
really  bent  on  examining  the  exhibits,  and  industriously  examines 
the  cases  in  two  or  three  rooms  about  two  hundred  feet  long,  by 
which  time,  having  been  occupied  in  dodging  reflections,  he  is 
weary,  and  walks  hurriedly  up  the  centre  aisle  of  the  remaining 
rooms,  gaining  nothing  thereby  but  additional  fatigue.4 

Most  museum  visitors  will  be  able  to  corroborate  much 
of  Mr.  Brewer's  account  from  their  own  experience.  In 
fact,  the  normal  use  of  a  museum  gallery  may  be  said  to 
forbid  without  appeal  the  use  of  low  windows  —  that  is, 
openings  in  the  wall  proper  —  as  sources  of  light.  A 
museum  gallery  is  a  place  where  people  are  to  move  about 

1  Amusing  examples  of  the  reflections  of  light  openings  on  desk  cases  are  given 
in  the  illustrations,  pp.  118-19  of  Museumskunde,  vol.  vn.  (1911.) 

2  Museumskunde,  vol.  vn  (1911),  p.  85. 

8  S.  H.  Seager,  "The  Lighting  of  Picture  Galleries  and  Museums,"  Journal 
of  the  Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects,  vol.  xx  (1913),  p.  44 

4  C.  C.  Brewer,  "American  Museum  Buildings,"  Journal  of  Me  Royal  Insti- 
tute of  British  Architects,  vol.  xx,  no.  11  (April  12,  1913),  p.  388. 


166  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

inspecting  its  contents.  In  this  purpose  it  differs  radi- 
cally from  a  living-room  or  an  assembly  hall,  where  peo- 
ple are  to  seat  themselves  or  where  seats  are  placed  for 
them,  out  of  the  glare  from  the  windows;  and  where  see- 
ing is  not  their  only  or  their  chief  occupation.  Every  turn 
that  directs  a  museum  visitor  toward  the  window  wall 
of  a  side-lighted  gallery  exposes  his  eyes  to  a  glare  that 
for  the  time  makes  good  seeing  difficult  if  not  impossible. 
To  meet  this  difficulty  it  is  recommended  in  the  books 
that  the  window  sill  be  placed  not  lower  than  the  visitor's 
eyes.  Although  soberly  proposed,  this  remedy  is  patently 
ineffective.  The  range  of  vision  with  erect  head  extends 
sixty  degrees  above  the  horizontal,  and  a  sill  at  the  level 
of  the  eye  cuts  out  only  that  glare  which  may  come  from 
below  the  horizon,  from  the  ground  or  buildings.  Glare 
from  the  sky  remains,  diminishing  as  the  sill  is  raised  to 
higher  levels.  At  six  feet,  to  cut  off  any  disturbing  view 
of  the  sky,  the  visitor  must  place  himself  within  a  few 
inches  of  the  window  wall;  at  seven  feet,  within  a  foot 
or  two;  and  within  greater  but  still  impracticably  small 
distances  for  any  height  of  sill  below  the  upper  limit  of 
his  main  vision  as  he  walks  about  inspecting  exhibits. 
In  a  room  of  moderate  height  this  range  covers  at  least 
all  of  the  space  below  an  appropriately  placed  cornice. 
Hence  no  light  openings  should  be  placed  in  the  wall 
proper.  The  principle  of  the  avoidance  of  glare  demands 
the  abandonment  of  side  light  in  museum  galleries  in 
which  the  visitor  is  supposed  to  walk  about.  According 
to  the  Messrs.  Papworth,  "side  lights  are  objectionable, 
except  for  rooms  in  which  the  chief  pursuits  are  those  of 
daily  life,  such  as  the  apartments  provided  for  the  offi- 
cers, servants,  reading-rooms,  etc."  l 

1  J.  W.  and  W.  Papworth,  Museums,  Libraries  and  Picture  Catteries  (London, 
1853),  p.  12. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 


167 


SIDE  LlGrHT 


f 


TOP  LI^HT 


ATTIC,  or 

CLERESTORY  LIGHT. 
DIAGRAM  1 

At  their  extremes,  top  light  is  vertical  and  side  light 
horizontal.  One  other  direction  is  possible:  a  diagonal 
between  the  two.  The  light  may  come,  not  from  the  wall 
proper  of  the  room,  nor  through  the  roof  of  the  attic  over 
it,  but  through  the  wall  of  the  attic  made  a  part  of  this 
room.  By  extending  the  attic  above  the  roof  of  adjoining 
construction  the  method  becomes  a  means  of  lighting 
interior  spaces.  The  attic  becomes  a  clerestory.  This 
third  possible  solution  of  the  problem  of  museum  lighting 


168  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

proposes  that  the  sources  of  light  should  be  windows,  but 
windows  with  sills  at  or  above  the  cornice  of  the  room 
lighted.  The  three  methods  are  compared  in  Diagram  1. 

Under  the  name  of  "studio"  or  "atelier"  lighting,  the 
illumination  of  works  of  art  from  high  windows  is  widely 
acknowledged  as  the  ideal.  The  method  conforms  to  the 
canon  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  that  "the  painter  should 
work  under  a  light  in  which  the  shadows  of  objects  are 
equal  to  their  height."  *  Dr.  Waagen  advocated  high 
side  light  for  the  Old  Museum  in  Berlin  because  it  was 
the  illumination  under  which  pictures  were  produced,  and 
the  best  light  to  work  by  would  be  the  best  light  for 
seeing.2 

Professor  Brticke  mentions  the  frequent  use  of  "so- 
called  high  side  light"  and  gives  reasons  for  its  good  suc- 
cess.3 Professor  Wagner  describes  its  advantages  for 
pictures  and  adds: 

The  proper  lighting  for  collections  of  works  of  art  of  every 
kind  is  the  high  side  light  from  one  side  just  recommended  for 
picture  galleries,  especially  when  it  comes  in  a  northerly  direc- 
tion, as  in  ateliers.  This  method  of  introducing  light  offers  most 
of  the  advantages  of  ceiling  light  without  its  disadvantages.  It 
is  particularly  favorable  when  the  light-opening,  as  in  ateliers, 
can  be  continued  above  the  wall,  cutting  into  the  roof  and  loft, 
or  through  the  vaulting.4 

Studio  or  atelier  light  in  both  the  forms  here  called  ex- 
terior and  interior  attic  lighting  is  already  illustrated  in 
many  museums  and  almost  all  instances  are  singled  out 
for  especial  praise.  True  attic  lighting  —  from  penetra- 
tions in  an  exterior  wall  above  a  cornice  —  is  provided 
in  several  galleries  of  the  Vatican.  The  alcoves  of  the 
Belvedere  (1770),  the  Sala  a  Croce  Greca  (1780)  and  the 

1  Libro  delta  Pittura,  cap.  85.  2  Papworth,  p.  69. 

8  Ernst  Brilcke,  Bruckstucke  aus  der  Theorie  der  bildenden  Kiinste  (Leipzig, 
1877),  p.  175. 
*  Dunn's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4,  p.  257. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  169 

Museo  Chiaramonti  (1810)  all  receive  light  from  open- 
ings in  vaulting;  and  by  both  Mr.  Clipston  Sturgis  and 
Mr.  Edmund  M.  Wheelwright  of  the  Commission  of 
Observation  sent  to  Europe  by  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts  in  Boston  in  1904,  the  lighting  of  all  is  commended 
in  varying  measure.1  The  porticoes  of  antique  sculpture 
at  the  Naples  Museum,  which  were  apparently  loggias 
when  the  building  fulfilled  its  original  purpose  as  a  cav- 
alry barrack  (1587),  receive  a  like  and  very  advanta- 
geous light  from  windows  high  in  the  walled-up  arches 
(1790).  An  adaptation  of  attic  light  to  special  conditions 
of  reconstruction  was  adopted  by  Professor  Treu  (1891) 
for  the  principal  galleries  of  casts  at  the  Albertinum  in 
Dresden.  Here  an  interior  room  receives  its  light  from 
the  roof  through  an  opening  on  one  side  of  a  vaulted  ceil- 
ing. Professor  Treu  found  the  results  notably  satisfac- 
tory. Both  the  dazzling  of  the  visitor's  eyes  produced 
by  lower  light  and  the  unrelieved  shadows  in  the  sculp- 
ture produced  by  light  from  overhead  were  avoided.2  Mr. 
Brewer  found  Blackstone  Hall  in  the  Chicago  Art  Insti- 
tute, lighted  from  windows  on  one  side  at  fifteen  feet 
from  the  floor,  "one  of  the  best  lit  that  I  saw/'3 

To  most  people  the  Sistine  Chapel  (built  in  1473;  157 
feet  long,  52  wide,  59  high)  is  rather  a  museum  gallery 
than  a  church;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  architect 
had  in  mind  the  effect  of  the  paintings  filling  the  lower 
part  of  its  walls.  The  lighting  is  by  clerestory  windows 
running  above  a  gallery  at  some  thirty-five  feet  from  the 
floor;  and  has  been  called  by  competent  observers  the 
most  beautiful  light  for  pictures  they  had  ever  seen.  Sev- 

1  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in  (Bos- 
ton, 1905),  p.  35. 

2  G.  Treu,  "Die  Sammlung  der  Abgiisse  im  Albertinum  zu  Dresden,"  Arch- 
aeologischer  Anzeiger:  Beiblatt  zum  Jahrbuch  des  Archaeologischen  Instituts,  vol.  I. 
(1891.) 

8  Brewer,  p.  381. 


170  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

eral  buildings  erected  expressly  for  museum  purposes 
contain  halls  lighted  from  a  clerestory.  The  west  range 
of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  building  at  Washington 
(1847-55),  consisting  of  a  nave  with  clerestory  and  aisles, 
one  lighted  by  windows,  was  originally  planned  as  a  read- 
ing-room, but  since  1866  has  been  used  for  collections 
of  natural  history.  The  main  hall  of  the  Kelvingrove 
Museum  at  Glasgow  (built  1893-1901;  137  feet  long,  62 
wide,  88  high)  is  another  example.  Sir  W.  Armstrong 
has  called  the  ground  floor  plan  of  this  museum  "more 
successful  than  anything  else  of  the  same  kind  in  Eu- 
rope." The  gallery  containing  the  zoological  collection 
of  the  museum  at  Perth,  West  Australia  (1895),  is  re- 
ported as  "admirably  lighted  by  clerestory  windows."1 
The  central  "Basilica"  of  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 
in  Berlin  (1898-1904)  receives  its  light  from  a  clerestory. 
At  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston,  the  Tapestry 
Gallery  in  the  new  Evans  Building  is  admirably  lighted 
from  windows  on  both  sides  above  a  cornice  twenty-seven 
feet  from  the  floor.  Of  the  central  hall  of  the  Decora- 
tive Arts  Wing  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in 
New  York  (1910),  which  is  also  lighted  by  clerestory 
windows,  Mr.  Brewer  writes:  "If  only  this  clerestory 
lighting  could  be  adapted  to  lower  rooms,  we  should  prob- 
ably arrive  somewhere  near  to  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  pic- 
ture gallery."2 


1  Museums  Journal,  vol.  m,  no.  6  (December,  1903),  p.  179. 

2  Brewer,  p.  379.   The  lighting  iu  the  Rotunda  of  the  National  Museum 
Washington  from  lunettes  at  sixty-two  feet  from  the  floor  and  a  central  sky- 
light in  the  dome  at  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  is  compared  favorably  by 
Mr.  Brewer  with  that  in  other  rooms.    "The  Rotunda  is  much  more  restfully 
though  amply  lighted,  but  it  seemed  the  central  skylight  might  even  here  have 
been  omitted  to  advantage"  (p.  392). 

Since  the  publication  of  the  present  essay  in  the  Architectural  Record,  Dr. 
Karl  Koetschau  has  described  in  Museumskunde  (vol.  xi,  1915,  p.  134  /.)  a 
museum  plan  based  on  obtaining  high  side  light  from  inclined  windows.  A  pat- 
ent for  the  scheme  has  been  applied  for  by  the  author,  the  architect,  Peter  Bir- 
kenholz,  of  Munich  and  Switzerland.  High  side  lighting  from  inclined  windows 


., 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  171 

These  approving  judgments  upon  the  general  method 
of  introducing  light  above  a  cornice,  and  upon  individual 
galleries,  may  be  taken  to  refer  chiefly  to  the  effect  of 
this  illumination  in  bringing  out  the  character  of  objects. 
It  remains  to  go  further  into  the  question  of  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  top  light  and  attic  light  in  the  matter  of 
the  avoidance  of  glare  in  the  eyes  of  spectators. 

In  Diagrams  3  to  17  four  galleries  are  compared,  three 
top-lighted  and  one  attic-lighted.  All  are  supposed  thirty- 
four  feet  square.  Square  galleries  are  chosen  because 
they  present  the  best  conditions  in  respect  to  glare  under 
both  systems  of  lighting.  For  attic  light,  oblong  galler- 
ies are  somewhat  inferior,  and  for  top  light  markedly  so. 
The  attic-lighted  gallery  has  a  height  equal  to  its  other 
dimensions,  with  a  cornice  at  twenty-one  feet  from  the 
floor.  This  is  the  average  height  of  the  picture  zone  in 
fourteen  galleries  tabulated  by  Professor  Wagner.1  The 
window  above  is  eleven  feet  high  and  thirteen  feet  broad, 
in  the  centre  of  the  attic  wall  and  reaching  to  the  ceiling. 
The  height  of  one  of  the  top-lighted  galleries  —  twenty- 
four  feet  —  is  to  its  other  dimensions  approximately  in 
the  proportion  recommended  by  Magnus,  namely,  7.85 
to  11,  or  nearly  5  to  7.  This,  or  a  smaller  ratio,  is  not 
infrequent  in  American  galleries.  The  height  of  the  sec- 
ond, twenty-eight  feet,  approximately  illustrates  the  pro- 
portion recommended  by  Tiede,  namely,  75  to  91,  or 
nearly  5  to  6.2  The  third  is  a  cube  like  the  attic-lighted 
gallery,  according  to  the  rule  stated  to  Professor  Wag- 
ner by  Mr.  R.  Redgrave,  formerly  of  the  South  Ken- 
is  also  the  proposal  of  Arthur  Deane  whose  article  on  "The  Accepted  Design 
for  the  Belfast  Municipal  Art  Gallery  and  Museum"  (Museums  Journal,  Sep- 
tember, 1914,  vol.  xiv,  no.  3,  p.  95)  contains  critical  remarks  about  the  top- 
lighting  of  pictures  and  proposes  an  adaptation  of  weaving-shed  construction. 

1  Durm's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4,  p.  237. 

2  In  the  first  building  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  the  lower  picture 
galleries  were  twenty-four  feet  high,  the  higher  twenty-eight. 


172  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

sington  Museum.  Mr.  Redgrave's  opinion  was  that  the 
height  of  a  gallery  to  the  ceiling  light  should  be  equal  to 
its  width;  this  proportion  avoiding  reflections,  if  the 
width  of  the  light  is  one  half  that  of  the  gallery.1  This 
is  the  width  here  adopted  for  the  ceiling  light  (Magnus 
one  third,  Tiede  one  half,  Weissman  independently  one 
half;2  in  practice  often  greater),  its  area  being  one  quarter 
that  of  the  floor  of  the  room.  In  the  group  of  galleries 
cited  by  Professor  Wagner,  the  relative  area  varies  from 
seventeen  to  fifty  per  cent. 3  As  the  larger  the  ceiling  light 
the  greater  the  glare  from  it,  a  low  mean  between  these 
extremes  presents  the  case  favorably  for  top  light. 

Although  the  area  of  the  window  is  but  an  eighth  the 
floor  area  of  the  room,  it  would  appear  that  the  illumina- 
tion from  it  would  be  not  far  from  equal  to  that  from  the 
ceiling  light.  The  restriction  of  the  glazing  of  the  roof  to 
the  slopes,  as  shown  in  Diagram  1,  now  very  generally 
recognized  as  essential  to  good  top-lighting,  materially 
cuts  down  the  area  of  the  ceiling  light  through  which 
light  in  any  part  of  the  room  is  received  from  the  sky. 
Moreover,  light  from  a  ceiling  opening  passes  through 
two  layers  of  glass,  losing  forty  per  cent  in  the  process, 
according  to  the  estimate  recorded  by  Professor  Wagner, 
and  from  the  window  through  but  one.4  Space  for  an- 
other window  of  half  the  breadth  of  the  central  one  and 
on  either  side  of  it  is  indicated  in  the  panelling  of  the  attic 
shown  in  the  diagrams;  but  experience  goes  to  prove  that 
the  increase  would  very  seldom  indeed  be  needed.  Accord- 
ing to  Professor  Wagner,  the  painter  Kaulbach  and  others 
found  the  gallery  constructed  on  Professor  Tiede's  meas- 

1  Dunn's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4,  p.  237. 

2  A.  W.  Weissman,  "Gallery  Building,  Journal  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  British 
Architects,  vol.  xiv  (3d  series),  3d  quarterly  part,  nos.  11-15.    (1907.) 

*  Durm's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4,  p.  237. 
4  Idem,  p.  238. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  173 

urements  at  times  almost  too  much  lighted.1  In  the  large 
top-lighted  galleries  of  the  Brera  at  Milan  the  light  comes 
through  one  layer  of  glass,  there  being  no  ceiling  light. 
The  area  of  the  opening  in  three  of  the  galleries  is  but 
a  sixteenth  the  floor  area  of  the  room;  yet  Mr.  Sturgis 
remarks:  "Seen  under  average  (not  really  dark)  winter 
conditions,  there  is  apparently  ample  light  at  all  times."  2 

For  convenience  of  inspection,  the  results  under  given 
conditions  for  all  four  galleries  are  presented  at  once  in 
Diagrams  5  to  7.  No  account  is  taken  of  the  arrangement 
of  the  skylights  in  the  roof.  Were  the  opaque  zenith 
shown  in  Diagram  1  provided,  it  would  cut  out  a  portion 
of  the  patches  of  glare  indicated  in  the  diagrams,  leaving 
a  strip  on  one  or  other  or  both  edges. 

Semi-transparent  diffusing  curtains  or  screens  capable 
of  being  drawn  over  light  openings  to  exclude  direct  sun 
are  a  necessity  of  any  system  of  museum  lighting.  With 
top  light  these  are  horizontal  or  inclined,  and  are  gen- 
erally placed  and  controlled  in  the  loft  above  the  gallery. 
With  a  window  they  are  hung  perpendicularly  like  domes- 
tic curtains,  and  may  be  controlled  from  the  room.  The 
difference  in  convenience  in  favor  of  window  curtains, 
due  to  the  inaccessibility  and  exposure  to  dust  of  sky- 
light curtains,  can  hardly  be  appreciated  by  any  one  who 
has  not  to  do  with  museum  housekeeping.3 

The  method  of  determining  the  boundaries  of  the  re- 
flections from  the  light  openings  is  illustrated  in  Diagram 
2.  The  angle  of  reflection  being  equal  to  the  angle  of  inci- 

1  Dunn's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  iv,  6,  4,  p.  229. 

2  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in;  The 
Museum  Commission  in  Europe  (Boston,  1905),  p.  26. 

8  In  the  side-lighted  room  especially  built  at  the  Ryksmuseum  at  Amsterdam 
for  Rembrandt's  Night  Watch,  curtains  of  tracing  linen  are  hung  before  the 
window.  Report  of  the  Royal  Dutch  Commission,  quoted  in  Communications 
to  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  vol.  n  (December,  1904), 
p.  60. 


174 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


DIAGRAM  2 


dence,  the  image  of  an  object  before  a  plane  mirror  is  at 
the  same  distance  behind  it,  of  the  same  magnitude,  and 
equally  inclined  to  it;  in  other  words,  is  the  symmetric 
counterpart  of  the  object.1  The  study  of  reflections  is 
not  without  its  difficulties,  and  the  diagram  is  here  in- 
troduced to  make  the  matter  plain.  A  puzzling  passage 
in  a  recent  essay  by  a  well-known  museum  architect  reads: 
"If  the  dark  space  around  the  ceiling  is  five  feet  wide, 
only  the  roof  openings  opposite  can  light  the  picture,  and 
the  light  from  the  openings  on  the  same  side,  which  causes 
the  annoying  glimmering  of  the  picture  surfaces,  is  com- 
pletely shut  out."  The  diagram  shows  that  the  lower  and 
more  obtrusive  part  of  the  glare  on  a  canvas  from  a  ceil- 
ing light  is  due  to  rays  from  the  opposite,  not  the  over- 

1  It  is  noteworthy  that  Dante  states  the  law  of  reflection  as  exactly  as  it  could 
be  stated  by  a  physicist: 

"  Come  quando  dall'  acqua  o  dallo  specchio 
Salta  lo  raggio  all'  opposta  parte 
Salendo  su  per  lo  modo  parecchio 
A  quel  che  scende,  e  tanto  si  diparte 
Dal  cader  della  pietra  in  egual  tratta 
Si  come  mostra  esperienza  ed  arte." 

Purgatorio,  xv,  16-21. 

"When  a  ray  leaps  up  in  the  opposite  direction  from  water  or  a  mirror,  it 
rises  in  the  same  way  that  it  falls,  departing  just  as  much  from  the  line  of  a  fall- 
ing body  (the  perpendicular)  within  the  same  space,  as  observation  and  theory 
show." 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 


175 


head  opening.  Mr.  Sturgis  remarks  that  at  the  Thorny 
Thiery  Gallery  of  the  Louvre  it  was  sought  to  exclude  the 
influence  of  the  opposite  top  light  by  opening  the  ceiling 
directly  on  the  pictures  instead  of  at  the  centre,  but  with- 
out any  marked  success.  "Clearly  the  preponderance  of 
light  came  from  the  opening  opposite  and  not  from  that 
directly  above."  "The  freedom  from  reflections  on  the 
pictures  was  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  hung  low  and 
not  to  the  fact  that  light  was  directly  over  them."1 

In  the  present  comparison  between  top  light  and  attic 
light  in  the  matter  of  glare  the  five  sources  already  men- 
tioned will  be  considered  in  order. 

(1)  The  comparison  for  direct  glare  is  indicated  in  the 


«b fl C? 


DIAGRAM  3.  TOP  LIGHT 

black  circles  of  Diagram  3  representing  the  top-lighted 
gallery  thirty-four  feet  in  height,  and  of  Diagram  4  rep- 

1  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in, 
The  Museum  Commission  in  Europe  (Boston,  1905),  p.  28. 


176  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

resenting  the  attic-lighted  gallery  of  the  same  height. 
The  highest  top-lighted  gallery  is  chosen  because  it  pre- 
sents the  case  for  top  light  most  favorably.  The  height 
of  the  visitor's  eye  is  taken  throughout  the  diagrams  at 
five  feet.  In  Diagrams  3  and  4  the  floor  is  divided  into 
nine  equal  sections,  and  the  visitor  is  supposed  to  be  at 
the  centre  of  each. 

The  white  sectors  represent  the  horizontal  angle  sub- 
tended by  the  ceiling  light  or  window,  and  indicate  how 
far  the  visitor  must  turn  from  the  wall  before  beginning 
to  receive  direct  glare  from  the  source  of  light.  In  the 
top-lighted  rooms  there  would  be  a  space  in  the  centre, 
in  which  the  ceiling  light  would  be  entirely  out  of  the 
maximum  range  of  vision  with  erect  head  —  about  sixty 
degrees  altitude  —  in  whatever  direction  the  glance  was 
turned.  This  area  would  vary  from  about  a  ninth  of  the 
floor  area  of  the  thirty-four-foot  gallery,  to  an  inconsid- 
erable fraction  of  the  twenty-four-foot  gallery.  Elsewhere 
in  the  thirty-four-foot  top-lighted  gallery  the  vertical 
angle  subtended  by  the  ceiling  light  increases  to  a  maxi- 
mum, at  the  walls,  of  about  half  the  horizontal  angle. 
In  the  attic-lighted  gallery,  the  window  would  be  con- 
cealed in  like  manner  by  the  brow  of  a  visitor  standing  at 
any  point  within  about  a  third  of  the  area  of  the  room 
-  that  nearest  the  window  wall  —  and  would  be  above 
the  ordinary  range  of  convenient  seeing  at  all  practicable 
points.  In  this  gallery  the  vertical  angle  subtended  by 
the  window  is  about  three  quarters  the  horizontal  angle 
in  the  outer  positions  indicated,  and  about  half  in  the 
central  positions. 

These  various  conditions  express  the  general  fact  that 
from  the  floor  of  a  room  an  area  central  on  the  ceiling  is 
seen  either  wholly  without  foreshortening  (at  the  centre) 
or  somewhat  foreshortened  (at  the  walls);  while  an  area 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 


177 


at  the  top  of  a  wall  is  either  seen  equally  foreshortened 
(at  the  opposite  wall)  or  is  entirely  invisible  by  foreshort- 
ening (at  the  window  wall).  One  point  favors  top  light. 
The  ceiling  light  would  at  no  point  descend  so  low  — 


P*     0 


D*      D  • 


DIAGRAM  4.  ATTIC  LIGHT 

about  thirty  degrees  —  into  the  maximum  field  of  vision 
as  would  the  window  seen  from  near  the  opposite  wall, 
although  nearly  as  low  in  a  twenty-four-foot  gallery  seen 
from  one  corner.  Three  points  favor  attic  light.  The 
area  totally  exempt  from  direct  glare  is  much  larger. 
Moreover,  the  sectors  show  that  the  visitor  has  a  larger 
freedom  of  turning  without  exposure  to  direct  glare. 
Finally,  the  exempt  area  in  a  top-lighted  gallery  being 
in  the  centre,  no  position  of  the  doorway  will  spare  the 
visitor  direct  glare  from  the  source  of  light  on  entering; 
while  in  an  attic-lighted  room  the  doorway  may  be  placed 
in  the  exempt  area  —  that  is,  near  the  window  wall  —  as 


178  MUSEUM  IDEALS 


shown  in  Diagram  4,  so  that  the  visitor  may  begin  the 
inspection  of  the  room  undazzled.  On  the  whole,  the 
comparison  in  the  matter  of  direct  glare  may  be  taken 
to  incline  noticeably,  though  not  decisively,  in  favor  of 
attic  light. 


The  rectangles  in  Diagram  3  and  the  trapezoids 
in  Diagram  4  represent  the  reflection  of  the  ceiling  light 
and  the  window  on  the  floor  of  the  gallery.  These  reflec- 
tions change  in  position  and  more  or  less  in  shape  for 
every  change  in  the  standpoint  of  the  observer.  The  re- 
flection of  the  ceiling  light  is  much  the  larger,  both  on 
account  of  its  larger  source  and  its  shorter  path,  and 
would  be  larger  still  in  the  twenty-eight  and  twenty-four- 
foot  galleries.  Further,  it  is  more  or  less  directly  beneath 
the  visitor's  eyes,  instead  of  several  feet  away,  as  in  the 
attic-lighted  room.  The  disturbance  from  this  source  is 
negligible  where,  as  in  most  galleries,  the  floor  is  covered 
with  some  dark,  non-reflecting  material;  but  the  position 
of  the  figures  reveals  the  cause  of  one  of  the  most  common 
complaints  against  top  light  in  museums.  Drawn  some- 
what closer  to  the  visitor's  position  and  made  somewhat 
smaller,  the  rectangles  and  trapezoids  would  represent 
also  the  reflections  from  the  surfaces  of  horizontal  glass 
cases:  so-called  desk,  or  table  cases.1  Diagram  3  shows 
that  with  top  light  these  reflections  would  lie  upon  the 
glass  almost  or  quite  directly  over  the  object  looked  at, 
effectively  concealing  it  except  in  so  far  as  the  visitor's 
head  and  body  intervene.  With  attic  light  they  would 
never  lie  under  the  visitor's  eyes,  but  always  on  one  side, 
from  a  few  feet  away  when  large  to  a  few  inches  when 
small,  in  the  direction  toward  the  window,  either  diag- 
onally in  front  or  on  either  hand.  The  diagram  makes 

1  S.  H.  Seager,  p.  52.   "The  most  annoying  effect  of  all  is  perhaps  to  be  seen 
when  horizontal  glass  specimen  cases  are  placed  in  a  strongly  top-lighted  room." 


GLARE  IN   MUSEUM   GALLERIES  179 

plain  the  imperative  need  of  window  light  for  desk  cases 
that  every  one  has  felt  who  has  ever  sought  to  make  out 
their  contents  under  light  from  the  ceiling.  In  the  matter 
of  reflections  from  below,  the  comparison  results  decisively 
in  favor  of  the  attic  light. 

(2b)  Diagrams  5  to  7  represent  reflections  on  the  walls 
of  the  four  galleries,  and  on  canvases  hung  perpendicu- 
larly, as  seen  from  different  standpoints  on  the  floor,  and 
indicate  also  what  the  reflections  would  be  from  the  glass 
of  cases.  These  reflections  fall  lower  as  the  observer  ap- 
proaches the  reflecting  surface  and  rise  higher  as  he  re- 
cedes from  it. 

From  incidental  references  in  the  books  and  from  ex- 
perience, it  may  be  assumed  that  the  most  restful  seeing 
demands  that  a  line  drawn  from  the  eye  to  the  top  of  the 
object  should  form  with  the  horizontal  an  angle  not  greater 
than  about  thirty  degrees.  Professor  Magnus  placed  the 
top  of  a  picture  zone  in  a  gallery  thirty-six  feet  (11  m.) 
wide  at  nineteen  feet  (5.95  m.)  from  the  floor;  and  Pro- 
fessor Tiede,  in  a  gallery  thirty  feet  (9.1  m.)  wide,  at  eight- 
een feet  (5.65  m.).  The  latter  remarks  that  this  height 
requires  only  a  moderate  raising  of  the  glance.1  Professor 
Treu  recommends  about  this  height  (5.5.  m.)  for  the  cor- 
nice of  a  sculpture  gallery.2  From  the  centre  of  either  the 
Magnus  or  the  Tiede  Gallery,  eighteen  or  fifteen  feet  from 
the  wall,  the  angle  to  the  top  of  the  picture  zone  would 
be  about  forty  degrees;  but  taking  Mr.  Papworth's  opin- 
ion that  the  largest  pictures  should  not  be  seen  at  a  less 
distance  than  twenty-five  feet,  or  approximately  three 
quarters  across  either  gallery,  the  angle  would  reduce  to 
about  thirty  degrees.3  According  to  this  criterion,  to  see 

1  A.  Tiede,  "Museumsbaukunde,"  Abschnitt  I  from  the  Baukunde  des  Arch- 
iteklen,  Band  n,  Theil  2  (Berlin,  1898),  p.  73. 

2  G.  Treu,  Die  Sammlung  der  Abgilsse  im  Albertinum  zu  Dresden"  (1891.) 

3  Papworth,  p.  54. 


180 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


an  object  reaching  to  six  feet  from  the  floor  —  for  ex- 
ample, a  picture  three  feet  high  hung  over  a  baseboard, 
or  dado,  of  the  same  height  —  the  spectator  might  stand 
as  near  as  three  feet,  a  distance  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  limit  of  approach,  except  for  the  scrutiny  of  par- 
ticular features.  If  the  top  of  the  object  reached  to  eight 
feet  from  the  floor  —  for  example,  a  picture  five  feet  in 
height  —  seven  or  eight  feet  would  be  the  limit  of  ap- 
proach. If  to  fifteen  feet  —  for  example,  a  picture  twelve 
feet  high  —  the  limit  would  be  eighteen  feet.  If  to  twenty 
feet,  the  limit  would  be  twenty-five  feet. 


r\. 


DIAGRAM  5.  OPPOSITE  WALL;  FROM  NEAR  BY 

Pictures  reaching  to  approximately  these  heights  are 
shown  in  Diagrams  5  to  7,  seen  from  approximately  these 
distances.  Diagram  5  shows  by  dotted  lines  the  reflec- 
tions of  the  ceiling  lights  in  the  three  top-lighted  galleries, 
on  any  wall,  and  by  full  lines  the  reflections  of  the  window 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  181 

in  the  attic-lighted  room  on  the  opposite  wall,  as  they 
would  appear  to  a  spectator  three,  four,  and  eight  feet 
away.  Under  the  reflections  on  the  right,  seen  at  three 
feet  away,  the  Mona  Lisa  (31  inches  high,  20  inches  broad, 
or  .77  m.  by  .53  m.)  is  hung.  Under  the  reflections  on 
the  left,  seen  at  four  feet,  the  picture  is  The  Fighting 
Temeraire  of  Turner  (35J  inches  high  by  47^  inches 
broad).  The  central  picture  seen  at  eight  feet  away  is 
The  Entombment  by  Titian,  at  the  Louvre  (4  feet  10 
inches  high,  by  7  feet  broad;  or  1.48  m.  by  2.15  m.).  The 
reflections  from  the  window  are  above  the  canvases,  and 
those  from  the  ceiling  lights  are  at  greater  or  less  distances 
above  the  frames. 

It  proves  on  investigation  that  larger  pictures  would 
not  escape  reflections  from  a  window  opposite  unless  the 
spectator  were  to  place  himself  beyond  the  best  distance 
for  seeing.  The  case  is  otherwise  for  the  ceiling  lights 
represented.  The  limit  of  height  to  which  a  canvas  could 
be  raised  without  receiving  reflections  from  above,  sup- 
posing the  spectator  to  retreat  until  he  saw  the  top  at 
an  angle  of  thirty  degrees  —  that  is,  within  the  best  see- 
ing range  —  would,  for  the  twenty-four-foot  light,  be 
nine  feet  six  inches  from  the  floor,  the  distance  being 
eight  feet;  for  the  twenty-eight-foot  light,  thirteen  feet, 
the  distance  being  fourteen  feet;  and  for  the  thirty-four- 
foot  light,  nineteen  feet,  the  distance  being  twenty-five 
feet.  Supposing  nineteen  feet  to  be  about  the  height  of 
the  picture  zone,  this  last  result  confirms  Mr.  Redgrave's 
assertion  that  in  a  top-lighted  gallery  as  high  as  it  is 
broad,  and  with  a  ceiling  light  half  its  breadth,  there  are 
no  reflections  on  the  pictures;  supposing,  it  must  be 
added,  that  the  spectator  always  views  them  at  the 
distances  at  which  they  can  most  comfortably  be  seen  as 
wholes. 


182  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

The  establishment  of  a  limit  of  five  feet  in  height,  or 
eight  from  the  floor,  for  pictures  shown  on  the  opposite 
wall  of  the  attic-lighted  room,  is  a  point  against  attic  light 
to  be  regarded  as  more  than  counterbalancing  the  very 
much  larger  area  on  the  wall  occupied  by  the  glare  from 
the  ceiling  light.  Yet  measurements  of  two  hundred  pic- 
tures taken  at  random  from  the  chief  galleries  in  Europe 
and  America  indicate  that  two  thirds  of  museum  pictures 
are  below  five  feet  in  height.  Under  the  attic  light  pro- 
posed the  opposite  wall  is  hence  suitable  not  alone  for 
small  pictures,  but  for  a  large  majority  of  all  pictures. 
Dr.  Salin  is  reported  to  have  said  that  objects  over  eight 
feet  from  the  floor  cannot  be  looked  at  for  any  length 
of  time  without  undue  fatigue.1  The  remark  doubtless 
referred  chiefly  to  case  objects;  but  it  has  its  applica- 
tion also  to  pictures.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  further 
that  the  whole  upper  part  of  this  opposite  wall  would  be 
a  superb  position  in  which  to  show  tapestries  or  any  other 
objects,  artistic  or  scientific,  which  were  devoid  of  sheen. 
The  pictures  or  other  objects  shown  below  would  also 
possess  an  Sclat  of  coloring  unknown  in  top-lighted  gal- 
leries. 

The  tilting  of  a  canvas  raises  the  reflections  upon  it, 
and  is  the  expedient  customarily  resorted  to  when  sheen 
upon  it  is  burdensome.  These  diagrams  do  not  take  into 
account  any  inclination  of  the  canvases  from  the  perpen- 
dicular, both  because  the  practicable  amount  is  uncer- 
tain, and  because  the  larger  the  picture  the  more  undig- 
nified does  any  considerable  tilting  become.  It  may  be 
recalled  that  in  the  Vatican  Gallery  large  pictures  oppo- 
site low  side  light  are  placed  on  hinges,  and  the  visitor  who 
wishes  to  see  them  exempt  from  all  glare  is  free  to  move 

1  Martin  Mayer,  "Betrachtung  eines  Bautechnikers  uber  die  Einrichtung  von 
Schausammlungen,"  Museumskunde,  vol.  vi  (1910),  p.  161. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  183 

them  as  he  pleases.  This  method  has  the  advantage  over 
tipping  that  it  is  perfectly  effective  and  may  be  used  with 
the  largest  canvases  without  interfering  with  the  state- 
liness  of  their  effect.  The  Sistine  Madonna  is  permanently 
installed  at  an  angle  to  the  window  lighting  it. 

On  cases,  when  seen  as  is  customary  from  perhaps 
three  feet  away,  the  reflection  from  the  attic  light  oppo- 
site would  still  fall  eighteen  inches  above  the  observer's 
eyes;  and  were  he  to  stand  off  to  double  that  distance  or 
beyond,  it  would  fall  wholly  above  a  case  of  the  usual 
height  of  seven  feet  six  inches  or  eight  feet. 

On  the  whole,  the  comparison  for  reflections  on  the 
opposite  wall  may  be  said  to  result  unfavorably  to  attic 
light,  although  under  the  conditions  here  proposed  its 
handicap  would  in  all  probability  seldom  or  never  be 
noticed,  the  freedom  of  installation  it  allows  being  in 
general  amply  sufficient. 

A  square  attic-lighted  room  differs  from  a  square  top- 
lighted  gallery  in  that  the  conditions  of  illumination  differ 
from  wall  to  wall.  In  the  top-lighted  gallery  they  are 
identical.  Their  different  lighting  from  a  window  is  a 
point  of  signal  advantage  in  museum  economy.  Objects 
belonging  in  the  same  gallery  on  account  of  their  simi- 
larity of  origin  or  nature  are  never  of  the  same  rank  or 
importance,  nor  are  they  all  seen  at  their  best  under  iden- 
tical conditions  of  illumination.  The  managers  of  exhi- 
bitions of  art  in  particular  willingly  acknowledge  that 
opportunities  to  keep  some  objects  back,  put  others  for- 
ward, and  otherwise  to  adapt  their  lighting  to  their  char- 
acter, are  most  welcome. 

A  comparison  of  the  identical  conditions  present  on 
the  transverse  walls  of  the  three  top-lighted  galleries  with 
the  changed  conditions  on  those  of  the  attic-lighted  room 
results  decisively  in  favor  of  attic  light,  as  Diagrams  6 


184 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


and  7  show.  Diagram  6  represents  the  reflections  on  a 
transverse  wall  as  they  would  appear  to  a  spectator 
seated  at  the  centre  of  the  gallery,  in  a  position  to  inspect 
at  leisure  its  most  important  exhibits.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  when  seated  in  this  position  in  the  attic-lighted  gal- 


DIAGRAM  6.  TRANSVERSE  WALL;  FROM  CENTRE  OF  GALLERY 

lery  the  visitor  would  be  unable  to  see  any  of  the  windo\ 
in  the  next  gallery,  and  would  have  in  view  only  its  least 
illuminated  wall.  The  broader  picture  indicated  is  the 
Night  Watch  of  Rembrandt  (11  feet  9  inches  high;  14  feet 
3  inches  broad;  or  3.59  m.  by  4.35  m.)  installed  with  the 
canvas  at  a  foot  from  the  floor  as  it  is  now  placed  in  the 
new  room  especially  built  for  it  at  the  Ryksmuseum  at 
Amsterdam.  For  this  new  room  dimensions  have  been 
chosen  not  far  from  those  of  the  gallery  here  proposed. 
It  is  five  feet  narrower  on  the  picture  wall,  and  two  feet 
deeper  in  front  of  the  picture,  and  is  lighted  by  a  window 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  185 

on  the  left,  with  a  sill  at  about  seven  feet  six  inches  from 
the  floor.  To  an  observer  in  the  position  indicated  the 
twenty-four-foot  ceiling  light  gives  reflections  on  the 
canvas,  but  none  of  the  other  three  sources.  The  higher 
picture  represented  is  Giovanni  Bellini's  Madonna  di 
San  Giobbe  at  Venice  (15  feet  3  inches  high  by  8  feet 
3  inches  broad;  or  4.66  m.  by  2.52  m.)  installed  likewise 
at  a  foot  from  the  floor.  The  supposed  observer's  angle 
of  vision  to  the  top  is  about  thirty-eight  degrees.  This 
inclination  may  be  said  to  translate  into  museum  terms 
the  very  much  greater  angle  at  which  the  painter  planned 
the  picture  should  be  seen  from  its  position  on  an  altar. 
Here  the  attic  light  alone  gives  no  reflection  on  the  can- 
vas. Even  the  thirty-four-foot  top  light  covers  the  top 
of  the  picture  with  sheen,  and  the  lower  lights  obliterate 
a  good  part  of  it.  This  result  contravenes  the  often  ex- 
pressed opinion  that  overhead  lighting  is  essential  for 
large  pictures,  such  as  Italian  altar  pieces,  side  lighting 
being  suitable  only  for  small  pictures.  The  truth  appears 
to  be  more  nearly  the  contrary.  Window  lighting  is  in- 
dispensable for  the  largest,  as  well  as  best  for  the  smallest 
and  those  of  moderate  size.  The  superior  convenience 
of  top  light  is  shown  only  in  the  case  of  a  residue  of  large 
but  not  the  largest  dimensions. 

The  imperative  necessity  of  window  light  for  pictures 
reaching  very  high  from  the  floor  is  emphasized  in  Dia- 
gram 7,  representing  the  reflection  from  ceiling  lights  and 
window  on  the  transverse  wall,  as  seen  from  a  position 
three  quarters  across  the  gallery,  or  about  twenty-five 
feet  from  the  wall.  From  this  point  the  top  of  the  upper 
canvas  represented  makes  the  normal  angle  of  thirty  de- 
grees with  the  horizontal.  The  picture  is  a  Boar  Hunt 
by  Snyders,  in  the  Louvre  (7  feet  6  inches  high  by  11  feet 
6  inches  wide;  or  2.32  m.  by  3.48  m.).  The  picture  below 


186 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


is  Boucher's  Venus  and  Vulcan  (6  feet  9  inches  high  by 
5  feet  6  inches  wide;  or  2.05  m.  by  1.70  m.)  also  in  the 
Louvre.  All  of  the  ceiling  reflections  enter  the  upper  pic- 
ture, that  from  the  thirty-four-foot  light  covering  a  mini- 
mal strip,  and  those  from  the  twenty-eight  and  twenty- 


\ 


\ 


DIAGRAM  7.  TRANSVERSE  WALL;  FROM  THREE  QUARTERS 
ACROSS  GALLERY 

four-foot  lights  masking  the  picture  more  or  less  com- 
pletely. Under  the  twenty-four-foot  ceiling  it  would  be 
impossible  to  see  the  picture  free  of  glare  even  from  the 
opposite  wall.  As  before,  the  reflection  from  the  window 
is  wholly  out  of  range  of  the  canvas.  In  general,  the  com- 
parison indicates  that  on  the  transverse  wall  a  picture 
in  any  part  of  the  zone  would  be  free  of  any  reflection 
from  the  window  when  seen  from  an  appropriate  posi- 
tion, while  all  the  upper  half  of  the  zone  seen  from  appro- 
priate positions  is  exposed  to  reflections  from  some  or  all 
of  the  ceiling  lights. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  187 

In  the  top-lighted  galleries  these  same  conditions  are 
repeated  on  the  remaining  wall  of  the  room,  that  in  which 
the  window  of  the  attic-lighted  room  is  placed.  In  this 
room  no  light  falls  directly  on  the  window  wall,  and  there 
would  hence  be  no  reflections  at  all  on  it  from  the  window. 
All  its  illumination  comes  indirectly  from  the  interior  of 
the  room,  and  especially  from  the  opposite  attic  wall, 
which  receives  the  light  of  widest  angle  from  the  window. 
In  this  particular,  attic  lighting  differs  radically  and  for 
the  good  from  either  top  or  side  lighting.  Under  top 
light,  the  objects  most  strongly  illuminated  are  the  floor 
and  the  visitors  upon  it;  under  side  light,  the  opposite 
exhibition  wall  and  the  objects  and  visitors  it  strikes  on 
the  way.  With  an  attic  window  the  light  of  widest  angle 
is  received  where  it  can  be  put  to  the  best  use.  The  attic 
wall  is  not  used  for  exhibition,  and  being  above  the  visi- 
tor's normal  range  of  vision  —  that  is,  thirty  degrees  of 
altitude  —  in  all  practicable  parts  of  the  gallery,  may  be 
given  the  reflecting  surface  which  will  best  diffuse  light 
through  the  room.  Attic  lighting  offers  a  favorable  op- 
portunity for  the  use  of  indirect  illumination  from  a  re- 
flecting surface,  whose  present  neglect  after  its  success- 
ful employment  by  old  Italian  architects  has  been  lately 
regretted  by  Mr.  Hedley.1 

A  window  wall  is  commonly  deemed  wholly  useless 
for  exhibition  purposes,  and  the  resulting  loss  of  exhibi- 
tion space  is  one  of  the  chief  objections  made  to  lighting 
museum  galleries  by  windows.  It  is  to  be  admitted  that 
the  objection  holds  against  side  light,  since  in  this  case 
the  wall  and  the  window  in  it  are  within  the  range  of 
vision  together.  But  the  simple  experiment  of  screening 
the  eyes  from  the  window  and  the  floor  before  it,  as  well 

1  C.  Hedley,  Report  on  Museum  Administration  in  the  United  States,  Australian 
Museum,  Sydney,  Miscellaneous  Series,  vol.  vin  (Sydney,  1913),  p.  31. 


188  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

as  may  be,  with  any  object  held  in  the  hand,  offers  con- 
vincing proof  that  it  is  not  wholly  and  may  not  be  mainly 
the  lack  of  sufficient  illumination  on  a  window  wall  that 
makes  objects  invisible  on  it,  but  the  deadened  condition 
of  the  sight  produced  by  dazzling  from  the  window.  This 
deadened  condition  is  forestalled  in  the  attic-lighted  room 
here  proposed.  The  visitor  would  enter  the  room  with 
his  eyes  protected  from  any  glare  from  the  light  source, 
and  thereafter  would  continue  to  be  protected  from  it. 
Moreover,  the  window  wall  would  be  lighted  up  by  dif- 
fusion from  a  surface  above  the  ordinary  range  of  vision 

—  namely,  the  highly  illuminated  and  light  colored  attic 

—  as  it  never  is  in  a  side-lighted  gallery.  It  is  to  be  fairly 
expected  that  under  these  circumstances  the  "seeing" 
on  the  window  wall  would  compare  well  with  that  in  other 
parts  of  the  room.    Both  observation  and  experiment  in 
this  direction  are  very  greatly  to  be  desired.  l 

The  total  result  of  the  comparison  for  reflections  of 
the  sources  of  light  on  pictures  or  upright  cases  bears 
strongly  in  favor  of  attic  light.  Only  the  transverse  walls 
of  the  attic-lighted  room  offer  high  objects  complete  ex- 
emption from  such  reflections.  Its  window  wall  and  oppo- 
site wall  afford  all  needed  freedom  of  installation;  exempt 
from  glare  in  the  one  instance  for  objects  of  the  prevail- 
ing height,  and  in  the  other  at  all  heights  for  the  ob- 
jects of  minor  importance  of  which  every  gallery  has  its 
share. 

(2c)  The  comparison  for  reflections  from  brightly  lighted 
objects  within  the  gallery,  including  the  visitor  himself 

—  or,  as  they  may  be  called,  mediate  reflections  —  again 
favors  attic  light.   The  result  in  this  case  is  decisive,  owing 
to  the  difference  just  noted  between  the  areas  of  maxi- 

1  Mr.  Papworth  remarks:  "The  reason  that  many  galleries  fail  of  success 
is  that  they  are  overlighted;  and  few  persons  comprehend  this  defect"  (p.  74). 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  189 

mal  illumination  under  the  two  systems.  In  looking  at  a 
museum  object  through  glass  a  more  or  less  visible  image 
of  a  fragment  of  the  scene  before  the  glass  overlies  the 
object.  The  mass  of  light  reflected  from  the  glass  and 
forming  the  image  comes  to  the  eye  from  that  fragment 
of  the  room  and  its  contents  seen  in  the  image;  while  the 
mass  of  light  reflected  from  the  object  and  revealing  it 
comes  to  the  eye  in  general  from 
other  parts  as  well.  What  can  be 
seen  on  the  glass  over  the  object 
differs  from  what  could  be  seen 
through  the  glass  from  the  object. 
This  appears  in  Diagram  8.  But 
since  glass  reflects  a  larger  per- 
centage of  light  than  objects  do,1 
unless  some  part  of  the  room  vis- 
ible through  the  glass  from  the  DlAGRAM  8 
object  is  more  intensely  lighted  than  that  fragment  of  it  seen 
on  the  glass  over  the  object,  the  image  will  tend  to  confuse 
the  view  of  the  object.  Speaking  broadly,  the  image  must 
not  include  the  most  brilliantly  lighted  part  of  the  room. 
This  condition  is  fulfilled  in  the  attic-lighted  room  and  vio- 
lated in  the  top-lighted  galleries.  For  the  image  in  both 
alike  will  consist  mainly  of  the  lower  walls  of  the  room, 
with  the  floor  and  the  objects  on  it,  including  the  visitor 
himself.  Under  attic  light  this  is  less  brilliantly  lighted 
than  the  upper  part  of  the  room;  under  ceiling  light  more 
brilliantly  lighted.  Hence  under  attic  light  the  image  will 
tend  to  leave  undisturbed  the  normal  view  of  the  object; 
under  ceiling  light  to  obscure  it.  The  ceiling-lighted  im- 
age will  efface  the  object  because  more  strongly  lighted; 
the  attic-lighted  object  will  overpower  the  image,  like- 
wise, because  more  strongly  lighted.  In  the  matter  of 

1  Martin  Mayer,  Museumskunde,  vol.  vi  (1910),  p.  162. 


190  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

reflections  from  upright  glass  the  argument  stands  as  de- 
cisively in  favor  of  attic  light  as  it  stood  for  reflections 
from  the  horizontal  glass  of  desk  cases.1 

(3)  The  evidence  favors  attic  light  again  in  the  final 
point — that  of  glare  coming  from  sun  spots,  or  the  spaces 
on  floors  and  walls  directly  lit  up  by  the  sun.  The  tem- 
pering of  direct  sun  by  semi-transparent  curtains  is  a 
necessity  of  any  system  of  museum  lighting;  but  without 
unduly  darkening  the  room  its  effect  can  only  be  reduced 
without  being  wholly  obviated.  This  effect  takes  the  form 
of  an  inequality  of  illumination  between  the  sunlit  and 
the  shaded  wall  such  that  the  visitor  may  be  hindered  in 
seeing  either  well.  Objects  under  the  influence  of  direct 
sun  dazzle  him  on  turning  from  those  dimly  lighted;  and 
the  dimly  lighted  are  difficult  to  see  on  turning  from  the 

1  On  drawing  the  necessary  lines  in  one  of  the  diagrams,  it  appears  that  from 
no  standpoint  will  the  image  of  the  room  seen  at  or  beyond  the  customary  dis- 
tance of  three  feet  from  glass  seven  feet  six  inches  or  eight  feet  in  height  show 
more  than  the  lower  fringe  of  the  attic,  or  cove,  below  the  normal  altitude  for 
the  convenient  inspection  of  objects,  namely,  thirty  degrees;  and  for  almost  all 
standpoints  no  part  of  the  attic  will  descend  within  that  range;  that  is,  the  nor- 
mal image  will  be  almost  wholly  confined  to  that  part  of  the  room  in  which  the 
illumination  is  not  maximal. 

The  image  of  the  room  seen  in  very  high  reflecting  surfaces  will,  under  attic 
light,  likewise  include  its  most  brilliantly  lighted  area  —  that  is,  the  attic  —  and 
hence  will  become  disturbing.  But  except  on  the  opposite  wall  it  will  not  include 
the  source  of  light  itself,  as  the  image  under  ceiling  light  does  on  all  four  walls. 
Low  side  light  alone  excludes  on  high  reflecting  surfaces  the  image  both  of  the 
source  of  light  and  of  the  area  most  brilliantly  illuminated  by  it,  namely,  the 
opposite  exhibition  wall.  But  in  turn,  it  brings  either  the  source  of  light  itself  or 
its  immediate  reflection  within  the  normal  range  of  the  visitor's  vision  in  half  the 
positions  he  can  assume.  In  short,  top  light,  having  its  maxima  in  the  ceiling  and 
the  floor,  gives  mediate  reflections  on  low  reflecting  surfaces,  and  immediate 
reflections  on  high  reflecting  surfaces.  Side  light,  having  its  maxima  on  two  op- 
posite exhibition  walls,  gives  neither  on  high  surfaces,  and  immediate  reflections 
on  opposite  low  surfaces.  Attic  light,  finally,  having  its  maxima  on  two  opposite 
walls  above  the  exhibition  range,  gives  neither  on  low  surfaces  and  immediate 
reflections  on  opposite  high  surfaces.  If  the  attic  is  made  throughout  a  reflecting 
surface,  as  it  should  be,  it  adds  mediate  reflections  on  the  remaining  high  sur- 
faces. Since  glass  is  the  protection  to  objects  within  reach  commonly  found 
necessary  in  museums,  and  high  objects  are  generally  non-reflecting,  attic  light 
alone  gives  the  exemption  most  needed,  taking  the  whole  exhibition  wall  into 
consideration. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  191 

brighter.1  The  decision  of  this  final  point  between  top 
and  attic  light  must  therefore  turn  on  the  question  as  to 
the  amount  of  exposure  of  the  exhibition  walls  of  a  gal- 
lery to  sun  spots  under  the  two  systems.  The  lighting 
which  gives  smaller  wall  spots  for  shorter  periods  will 
have  the  advantage.  Diagrams  9  to  18  show  as  might  be 
anticipated  that  the  advantage  remains  with  attic  light.2 
As  before,  no  account  is  taken  of  the  effect  of  the  struc- 
ture of  the  roof  on  the  spots  under  top  light,  no  uniformity 
of  opinion  existing  as  to  the  details  of  its  best  design.  An 
opaque  zenith  is  held  a  sine  qua  non  of  good  top-lighting 
by  most  museum  authorities  at  present,  and  would  cut 
out  a  portion  of  the  sun  spots  from  top  light,  as  it  did  of 

1  Professor  Wagner  remarks  that  the  walls  of  a  top-lighted  gallery  may  be  so 
unequally  lighted  that  the  pictures  on  the  darker  wall  "are  for  the  moment 
hardly  discernible."  Durm's  Handbuch  der  Architektur,  vol.  rv,  6,  4,  p.  238. 

2  The  spots  have  been  mapped  out  according  to  the  following  principles: 
The  path  of  a  ray  of  light  across  a  room  will  follow  a  straight  line  having  a 

certain  point  of  entrance  into  it,  a  certain  direction  through  it  and  a  certain 
point  of  contact  within  it. 

Given  the  point  of  entrance  and  the  direction,  the  point  of  contact  may  be 
found  as  follows: 

The  three  pairs  of  parallel  faces  of  which  a  rectangular  room  is  composed, 
being  the  ceiling,  floor,  and  walls,  the  point  of  entrance  of  sunlight  may  lie  in 
any  face  but  the  floor.  Its  position  will  be  determined  by  its  perpendicular  dis- 
tance from  any  other  two  faces  adjacent  to  this  face  and  each  other.  The  direc- 
tion of  the  ray  will  be  given  by  the  compass  point  through  which  the  plane  of 
its  projection  upon  the  floor  passes,  called  its  bearing;  and  its  altitude,  or  the 
angle  it  forms  with  the  floor  in  the  plane  of  that  projection. 

The  projection  of  the  ray  upon  the  floor  may  be  a  point;  in  which  case  the 
point  of  entrance  will  be  in  the  ceiling,  the  bearing  of  the  ray  will  be  indeter- 
minate, its  altitude  will  be  a  right  angle,  and  the  point  of  contact  will  be  a  point 
having  the  same  position  on  the  floor  as  the  point  of  entrance  in  the  ceiling. 

Or,  the  projection  of  the  ray  upon  the  floor  is  a  line;  in  which  case  the  point 
of  entrance  may  be  in  either  the  ceiling  or  the  walls,  and  its  bearing  will  be 
determined  as  the  compass  point  of  the  plane  of  the  projection.  This  plane  will 
intersect  one  or  both  of  the  pairs  of  opposite  walls. 

If  the  intersection  is  with  both  the  pairs  of  walls,  the  bearing  will  be  a  diagonal 
of  the  room,  and  the  point  of  contact  may  be  found  by  projecting  on  one  of 
either  pair  of  walls  the  figure  formed  by  drawing  from  the  point  of  entrance, 
in  the  plane  of  the  bearing,  a  line  forming  with  the  floor  an  angle  equal  to  the 
altitude. 

In  general,  the  intersection  will  be  with  one  pair  of  walls  only;  in  which  case 
the  point  of  contact  will  be  found  by  projecting  the  same  figure  upon  one  of  the 
other  pair  of  walls. 


192  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  reflections  from  the  ceiling  opening.  Again,  th< 
which  are  represented  at  the  top  of  the  walls  in  the  dia- 
grams might  be  less  in  size  or  entirely  shut  out,  as  more  of 
the  roof  near  the  eaves  were  of  solid  construction. 

The  spots  are  represented  as  they  would  appear  on  the 
longest  and  the  shortest  days  in  the  latitude  of  Boston; 
their  approximate  size  and  place  at  other  times  being  de- 
ducible  from  these  extremes.  They  are  taken  at  9  A.M., 
the  usual  opening  hour  of  museums;  at  noon  or  other  in- 
termediate hours,  and  at  the  winter  closing  hour  —  four 
o'clock  —  and  the  summer  closing  hour  —  five  o'clock. 
The  intermediate  hours  show  the  sweep  of  the  spots. 

The  galleries  are  represented  seen  from  above,  with  the 
four  walls  laid  out  flat.  All  are  supposed  aligned  with 
the  cardinal  points.  As  the  ceiling  light  is  square,  and 
central  in  a  square  gallery,  two  diagrams,  one  for  winter 
and  one  for  summer,  suffice  for  top  light.  The  gallery 
shown  is  that  with  a  ceiling  light  at  twenty-eight  feet, 
being  a  mean  between  the  others.  For  the  attic-lighted 
gallery,  summer  and  winter  diagrams  are  given  with  each 
direction  of  the  window,  north,  south,  east  or  west. 

The  diagrams  show  that  under  the  ceiling  light  the 
spots  occur  every  clear  day,  and  continuously  while  the 
sun  is  high  enough.  With  the  attic  window  to  the  north, 
they  do  not  occur  at  all,  excepting  for  a  short  time  just 
before  the  closing  hour  in  midsummer.  With  the  window 
to  the  south,  they  occur  all  day  in  winter,  and  until  about 
three  o'clock  in  summer.  With  the  window  to  the  east, 
they  occur  from  the  opening  hour  until  noon,  both  sum- 
mer and  winter;  and  with  the  window  to  the  west,  from 
noon  to  the  closing  hour. 

Taking  all  the  four  exposures  together,  they  would 
appear  for  about  half  as  long  a  time  in  attic-lighted  gal- 
leries as  in  galleries  top-lighted. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES 


193 


In  size,  the  spots  from  the  ceiling  light  are  in  these  dia- 
grams rather  the  larger;  but  if  reduced  by  an  opaque 
zenith  they  would  be  smaller. 

In  position,  the  ceiling  light  spots  in  winter  somewhat 
correspond  to  the  window  spots  in  summer,  for  the  most 
part  causing  no  inequality  in  lighting  on  the  exhibition 


KC2I 


SWUttl 


DIAGRAM  9 


DIAGRAM  10 
SUN  SPOTS  FROM  A  SKYLIGHT 


194 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


walls  during  these  seasons  respectively.  The  winter  ceil- 
ing light  spots  are  high  on  the  exhibition  walls  or  in  the 
cove  above,  and  the  summer  window  spots  either  near 


N 
W+l 

9 


NORTH  WINDOW 


DIAGRAM  11' 


DIAGRAM  12 
SUN  SPOTS  FROM  A  NORTH  ATTIC  WINDOW 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES 


195 


the  doorways  or  on  the  floor,  excepting  in  the  west  attic- 
lighted  room  in  the  late  afternoon. 

As  spring  comes  on,  the  spots  from  the  ceiling  light  de- 
scend upon  the  walls,  causing  more  and  more  inequality 


W+E 


DIAGRAM  13 


DIAGRAM  14 
SUN  SPOTS  FROM  A  SOUTH  ATTIC  WINDOW 


196 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


of  lighting,  until  in  midsummer  the  western  wall  is  bathed 
in  sunlight  during  the  early  morning  hours,  and  the  east- 
ern wall  nearly  all  the  afternoon.  According  to  the  dii 


D 


w-j-i 


EAST  WINDOW 


DIAGRAM  15 


D 


EAST  WINDOW 


DIAGRAM  16 
SUN  SPOTS  FROM  AN  EAST  ATTIC  WINDOW 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  197 

grams  the  inequality  of  lighting  has  now  become  greater 
than  in  the  attic-lighted  room  at  any  time.  As  autumn 
advances,  the  process  reverses  itself. 


n 


DEC.  21 


n 


DIAGRAM  17 


DIAGRAM  18 
SUN  SPOTS  FROM  A  WEST  ATTIC  WINDOW 


198  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

In  the  north  attic-lighted  room  the  walls  would  at  all 
times  be  equally  lighted.  A  patch  too  small  to  be  of  any 
effect  would  appear  over  the  doorway  just  at  the  end  of 
the  day  in  summer.  ' 

In  the  southern  and  eastern  attic-lighted  rooms  there 
would  be  some  inequality  of  lighting  in  midwinter.  But 
the  spots  are  still  for  the  most  part  in  the  attic  or  high 
on  the  walls,  and  as  the  season  of  stronger  sun  and  clearer 
skies  advances  they  begin  to  escape  to  the  floor,  the  in- 
equality diminishing  until  it  disappears  in  midsummer; 
the  process  reversing  itself  in  the  fall.  The  total  exemp- 
tion of  the  north  attic  room  from  any  disturbing  inequal- 
ity of  lighting  is  balanced  in  a  measure,  though  not  wholly, 
by  the  exposure  of  the  western  room,  especially  in  the  late 
afternoon  in  summer.  Toward  spring  or  autumn  the  in- 
equality would  here  become  practically  negligible. 

On  the  whole,  taking  duration  and  place  both  into 
consideration,  and  allowing  for  the  smaller  spots  under 
an  opaque  zenith,  the  diagrams  indicate  that  the  attic- 
lighted  rooms  would  suffer  much  less  from  inequality  of 
lighting  on  the  exhibition  walls  than  the  top-lighted  gal- 
leries. Under  the  ceiling  light,  the  sun  spots  would  begin 
to  invade  exhibition  space  early  in  the  spring  and  would 
remain  there  until  late  in  the  autumn,  reaching  their  maxi- 
mum when  the  sun's  rays  had  most  power.  At  this  sea- 
son only  one  of  the  attic-lighted  rooms,  that  directed 
west,  would  be  subject  to  disturbing  spots,  and  that  one 
only  at  the  end  of  the  museum  day.  In  none  of  the  rooms 
do  any  other  disturbing  spots  appear,  except  in  winter, 
when  they  would  be  for  the  most  part  innocuous.  The 
winter  exposure  of  a  western  side  light  coming  at  the  end 
of  the  day  instead  of  in  its  noontide  glare  has  even  been 
claimed  as  an  advantage  by  the  Boston  experimenters.1 

1  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  iv;  The 
Experimental  Gallery  (Boston,  1906),  p.  25. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  199 

In  this  final  point,  attic  light  again  proves  markedly 
superior  for  museum  purposes. 

On  all  the  five  points  here  passed  in  review,  embracing 
glare  in  all  its  varieties,  the  argument  has  gone  one  way. 
The  psychological  demand  in  the  museum  lighting  prob- 
lem proves  to  be  met  by  attic  light  with  a  success  that 
top  light  does  not  begin  to  equal. 

On  the  architectural  and  practical  side  of  the  problem 
window  lighting  maintains  a  like  superiority.1  Another 
side  remains  —  the  physical  —  relating  to  the  second  of 
the  two  factors  in  good  lighting,  namely,  the  proper 
illumination  of  the  object.  Here  again  attic  lighting  takes 
precedence.  Professor  Briicke  stated  the  reason  many 
years  ago.2  While  high  light,  like  that  from  an  attic 
window,  best  brings  out  the  details  of  objects,  as  Leo- 
nardo said,  beneath  light  from  the  ceiling  the  observer 
sees  mainly  the  shadowed  sides  of  any  projections  on  an 
object  above  his  eyes,  whether  these  are  the  unevennesses 
in  a  canvas,  a  stuff  or  a  solid  object.  Apart  from  possible 
sheen,  a  veil  of  greater  or  less  obscurity  therefore  tends 
to  overspread  it.  The  difference  becomes  manifest,  as 
weavers  know,  when  the  dulness  of  tapestries  under  top 
light  is  compared  with  their  brilliancy  under  light  from 
a  window.  The  remedy,  which  was  suggested  by  Pro- 
fessor Briicke,  assuming  top  light  retained,  consisted  in 
building  an  elevated  footway  through  the  gallery,  sup- 
ported on  columns  or  otherwise,  and  reached  by  steps. 
From  this  footway  the  visitor  would  so  overlook  a  large 
picture  that  the  lighted  and  not  the  dark  sides  of  its 
minute  projections  of  pigment  would  be  mainly  visible. 

Corresponding  to  this  radical  solution  of  the  physical 
problem  of  top-lighting  —  that  of  color  —  an  equally 

1  These  matters  are  discussed  in  the  preceding  essay. 

2  Ernest  Briicke,  Bruchstiicke  aus  der  Theorie  der  Uldenden  Kiinste  (Leip- 
zig, 1877),  p.  171  /. 


200  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

radical  solution  of  the  psychological  problem  —  that  of 
glare  —  had  already  been  carried  out  at  the  New  Pina- 
cothek  at  Munich  in  the  Rottmann  Gallery.  Here  the 
space  assigned  to  the  pictures  was  definitely  divided  off 
from  the  space  assigned  to  the  public  by  a  row  of  columns 
supporting  a  solid  roof,  or  velum,  above  which  the  light 
was  admitted  upon  the  picture  wall,  while  the  specta- 
tors remained  in  comparative  darkness.1  A  variation  of 
the  same  device  was  proposed,  apparently  independently, 
by  the  Messrs.  Papworth,  whose  ideal  gallery  contained 
a  central  space  with  a  roof  chiefly  solid  and  either  hung 
or  resting  on  columns,  light  reaching  the  pictures  from 
above  it.2  The  plan  is  nearly  equivalent  to  the  joining 
of  two  small  attic-lighted  galleries  face  to  face  by  an  inter- 
mediate covered  passage  —  a  scheme  which  was  adopted 
in  the  Royal  Glass  Palace  at  Munich,  with  results  which 
Professor  Tiede  calls  "extraordinarily  favorable";3  and 
in  the  Mappin  Art  Gallery  at  Sheffield,  England  (1886).4 
Mr.  Seager  has  just  proposed  the  method  anew  under 
the  name  of  "top  side  light."5 

These  two  radical  attempts  to  do  justice  to  the  two 
elements  of  the  top-lighting  problem  may  be  called  the 
only  really  important  contributions  to  its  solution  which 
the  century  of  the  prevalence  of  top  light  in  museums 

1  Mr.  Wheelwright  remarks  of  this  gallery:  "Aside  from  the  obstruction  to 
view  from  the  columns,  the  effect  of  this  method  of  lighting  is  very  undigni- 
fied."  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in; 
The  Museum  Commission  in  Europe,  p.  93. 

2  Papworth,  p.  73,  and  Plates  9  and  10. 

3  A.  Tiede,  Museumsbaukunde  (Berlin,  1898),  p.  77. 

4  E.  T.  Hall,  "Art  Museums  and  Picture  Galleries,"  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Institute  of  British  Architects,  vol.  xix  (1911-12),  p.  402. 

6  S.  H.  Seager,  Journal  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects,  vol.  xx 
(1912-13),  p.  51.  Since  the  publication  of  the  present  essay  in  the  Architec- 
tural Record,  Mr.  Edmund  Anscombe,  architect,  writing  from  Dunedin,  New 
Zealand,  sends  me  drawings  of  his  successful  design  for  the  Sargeant  Art  Gal- 
lery at  Wanganui,  New  Zealand,  in  which  the  principle  of  "top  side  light" 
is  to  be  used  for  the  picture  galleries,  according  to  the  stipulation  of  Mr.  Seager, 
who  was  Assessor  of  the  plans. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  201 

has  brought  forth.  All  the  discussions  since  on  other 
points  —  on  the  relation  of  the  dimensions  of  the  ceiling 
opening  to  the  height  and  area  of  a  gallery,  on  the  lines 
of  equal  illumination  in  the  picture  zone,  on  the  form  of 
the  roof,  the  quality  of  the  glass,  the  methods  of  shading 
the  skylight  and  cleaning  the  ceiling  light  —  appear  in- 
effective studies  of  detail  in  comparison.  Yet  each  of 
these  two  devices  —  footway  and  solid  velum  —  is  in  its 
own  way  a  reductio  ad  dbsurdum  of  the  effort  to  light 
museum  objects  from  the  top.  Professor  Briicke's  sug- 
gestion of  a  footway  seems  to  have  met  with  no  serious 
consideration  in  museums;  and  valuable  as  the  plan  of 
the  solid  velum  proves  in  special  instances,  as  a  general 
solution  of  the  difficulty  of  glare  it  seems  equally  inad- 
missible. The  design  of  modern  aquaria  l  shows  that  the 
plan  has  its  essential  sphere  in  museum  arrangements; 
and  it  has  been  used  to  the  general  satisfaction  in  collec- 
tions of  natural  history,  and  elsewhere,  as  at  the  North- 
ern Museum  in  Stockholm.  Diagram  19  represents  the 
principles  employed  in  these  various  devices  for  the 
reservation  of  light.2  By  all  of  them  the  visitor's  eyes 
are  shielded  from  direct  glare  from  the  light  openings. 
Nevertheless,  for  a  large  share  of  the  contents  of  all  mu- 
seums, whose  adequate  seeing  demands  the  alternation 
of  close  with  distant  inspection,  a  screen  reserving  light 
for  the  objects  alone  may  be  set  down  as  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. If  made  a  rule,  the  restriction  of  the  visitor's  free- 

1  Brewer,  p.  396. 

2  M.  Mayer,  "  Betrachtung  eines  Bautechnikers  iiber  die  Einrichtung  von 
Schausammlungen,"  Museumskunde,  vol.  vi  (1910),  p.  165. 

G.  von  Koch,  "Die  Zoologischen  Sammlungen  des  Landes-Museums  in 
Darmstadt,"  3,  Museumskunde,  vol.  vi  (1910),  p.  92. 

Edmund  M.  Wheelwright,  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications 
to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in;  The  Museum  Commission  in  Europe,  p.  105  and  Plate  76. 

Brewer,  p.  389. 

Dr.  F.  A.  Bather,  "The  Northern  Museum,  Stockholm,"  Museumskunde, 
vol.  iv  (1903),  p.  68. 


202 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 

v 


E  *  EXHIBITS      i 

A4UARIUM 

METHODS  Of  RESERVING    llftHT  FOR   EXHIBITS. 

DIAGRAM  19 

dom  of  movement  resulting  from  putting  the  public  in- 
stead of  the  objects  behind  a  barrier,  as  Herr  von  Koch 
has  phrased  it,  would  be  intolerable.1 

The  general  problem  of  glare  is  not  to  be  solved  by 
attending  to  the  augmentation  or  the  reservation  of  light 
from  an  original  source;  but  to  its  diffusion  thereafter 
from  all  parts  of  the  room  not  occupied  by  the  objects 
and  the  public.  Such  a  diffusion  takes  place  under  attic 
light,  the  whole  area  of  maximal  illumination  above  the 
cornice  becoming  its  secondary  source.  This  is  evidenced 
by  the  success  of  clerestory  lighting  wherever  employed; 
and  in  this  use  of  balanced  openings  the  principle  of  attic 
light  promises  also  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  museum 
planning,  as  it  will  now  be  attempted  to  show. 

1  G.  von  Koch,  Ueber  Naturgeschichtliche  Sammlungen.  (Darmstadt,  1892.) 
Also  Museumskunde,  vol.  vi  (1910),  p.  93. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  203 

THE  NAVE  PLAN  VERSUS  THE  COURT  PLAN 
Of  the  two  novelties  of  construction  embodied  by  Von 
Klenze  in  the  Old  Pinacothek  in  Munich  in  1826,  one  — 
its  top-lighting  —  the  previous  article  has  sought  to  prove 
a  defect.  The  other  —  its  corridor  plan  —  the  following 
pages  will  seek  to  prove  a  merit.  As  often  happens,  the 
defect  was  copied  because  it  was  easy  to  do  so,  and  the 
merit  dropped  because  it  was  difficult  to  do  otherwise. 
In  explaining  his  design,  von  Klenze  stated  his  purpose 
to  make  it  possible  to  reach  the  pictures  of  any  school 
without  passing  through  space  devoted  to  those  of  any 
other.  The  unit  of  museum  planning  was  not,  according 
to  this  architect,  an  exhibition  room,  but  an  exhibition 
room  with  a  passageway  adjoining;  the  room  in  his  plan 
being  divided  into  two,  one  top-lighted  as  the  chief  gal- 
lery, and  the  other  side-lighted  for  smaller  pictures.  This 
determination  of  the  museum  unit  as  a  room  plus  a  corri- 
dor recognized  the  basic  nature  of  a  structure  devoted  to 
permanent  exhibition.  A  building  through  which  people 
move  to  inspect  any  or  all  of  certain  classified  contents 
demands  freedom  of  direct  communication  between  any 
two  of  its  individual  spaces. 

The  expansion  of  museums  and  of  their  office  during 
the  century  since  the  planning  of  the  Old  Pinacothek 
has  emphasized  this  demand  for  freedom  of  access  in 
complicating  it.  The  accumulations  have  emphasized 
it  in  leading  to  the  frequent  rearrangement  of  rooms. 
Their  wider  use  has  emphasized  it  in  admitting  the  par- 
ticular study  of  a  single  room  by  a  class  or  audience  under 
a  leader  or  lecturer.  Unless  access  to  others  can  be  had 
independently,  the  closing  of  a  room  for  either  purpose 
deprives  visitors  of  the  use  of  a  whole  suite.  Again,  their 
wider  use  has  complicated  the  requirement  of  access  in 


204  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

assuming  both  in  theory  and  practice  a  tripartite  form. 
This  was  signified  in  1870  for  art  museums  in  the  words 
"Art,  Education,  Industry"  on  the  seal  of  the  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston,  and  was  first  formally  stated  for 
all  museums  in  Dr.  Bather's  Presidential  Address  in  1903 
as  inspiration  of  the  public  as  a  whole,  instruction  of  the 
interested,  and  investigation  by  the  specialist.1  Corre- 
sponding to  this  triple  division,  the  unit  of  museum  plan- 
ning has  become  an  arrangement  of  three  rooms  with  two 
intercommunicating  corridors  between. 

There  is  one  plan  for  a  museum  building  which  may 
be  called  the  standard,  in  that  no  other  one  plan  has  been 
so  often  adopted;2  and  by  great  good  fortune  its  develop- 
ment in  certain  museums  already  expresses  this  triple 
unit.  This  plan  provides  exhibition  space  in  two  floors 
about  two  large  areas  open  to  the  roof  or  the  sky  and  sep- 
arated by  a  structure  used  for  entrance.  In  many  mu- 
seums the  interior  areas  also  are  utilized  for  exhibition. 
In  a  number  of  museums,  including  one  of  the  oldest 
buildings  now  used  for  museum  purposes,  the  Naples 
Museum  (1587),  the  external  space  consists  of  a  double 
suite  of  rooms,  inner  and  outer.  Three  museums  lately 
built  give  the  inner  of  the  two  secondary  spaces  the  di- 
mensions and  use  of  a  corridor,  opening  into  the  ground 
floor  spaces  on  either  side.  These  are  the  Art  Institute 
in  Chicago  (1893),  the  Kelvingrove  Museum  in  Glasgow 
(1901),  and  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  (1909). 
This  corridor  variation  of  the  standard  plan,  affording 
three  kinds  of  space  —  the  large  interior  areas  and  the 
upper  and  lower  exterior  rooms,  with  corridors  between 
-  offers  a  home  for  the  modern  triple  unit.  The  corri- 

1  F.  A.  Bather,  Address  as  President  of  the  Museums  Association,  Museums 
Journal  (London),  September,  1903,  pp.  71  /. 

2  As  already  noted  in  the  previous  essay. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  205 

dors  are  intercommunicating  and  the  rooms  on  either 
hand  may  be  assigned  to  diverse  purposes. 

In  the  three  museums  mentioned  the  two  large  interior 
areas  are  top  lighted.  Attic  lighting,  in  its  two  forms  — 
exterior,  one-sided,  or  attic  lighting  proper,  and  interior, 
two-sided,  or  clerestory  lighting  —  suggests  a  further 
development  of  this  scheme  which  in  preserving  its  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  access,  satisfies,  together  with  the 
demand  for  avoidance  of  glare,  a  third  demand  now  widely 
current  among  all  interested  in  museums:  the  demand, 
namely,  for  some  means  of  making  collections  of  over- 
whelming size  available  to  the  public  as  a  whole.  For 
the  court,  open  or  top  lighted,  may  be  substituted  a  nave, 
obtaining  its  light  from  clerestory  windows  above  the 
outer  rooms,  and  sharing  it  with  the  superposed  corri- 
dors about  it.  This  nave  may  be  set  apart  for  the  public 
as  a  whole  by  devoting  it  to  the  exhibition  of  important 
objects  and  such  as  give  a  conspectus  of  the  total  con- 
tents of  the  museum.  Being  but  a  third  of  the  total  unit 
of  the  scheme,  it  may  remain  even  in  the  largest  museums 
no  more  extensive  a  space  than  can  be  visited  on  one 
occasion  without  confusion  or  fatigue.  The  lower  floor 
of  outer  rooms  may  be  given  attic  light  and  devoted  to 
the  exhibition  of  objects  reserved  for  the  study  of  inter- 
ested persons;  and  the  upper  floor  given  side  light  and 
used  for  department  offices  and  work-rooms  by  the  spe- 
cialists engaged  at  the  museum  and  their  guests.  Doors 
into  the  corridor  system  serving  both  nave  and  outer 
rooms  may  give  independent  access  to  every  space  which 
is  used  independently  of  others  throughout  the  whole 
museum.  Such  a  scheme  would  realize  the  essentials  of 
an  ideal  stated  by  Mr.  Brewer: 

A  natural  history  museum  suggests  itself  where  the  public 
should  be  admitted  to  only  a  very  small  synoptic  collection  of 


206  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

group  cases  in  specially  built  and  lighted  alcoves,  and  adjacent 
to  these  in  each  department,  first  the  collections  for  those  spe- 
cially interested,  beyond  these  again  the  reserve  collections  for 
the  actual  student.1 

The  scheme  may  be  assumed  a  sound  foundation  for 
architectural  development;  since  it  follows  the  analogy 
of  the  cathedral,  with  its  nave,  aisles,  chapels  and  tri- 
forium.  Diagrams  20  to  25  represent  in  plan  and  sections 
a  building  embodying  it.  The  professional  reader  will  see, 
and  the  non-professional  reader  is  asked  to  bear  in  mind, 
that  these  and  following  diagrams  are  not  offered  as  de- 
signs, but  as  drawings  showing  one  way  in  which  certain 
requirements  as  to  dimensions,  arrangement,  lighting  and 
assignment  of  rooms  might  be  observed  in  a  museum  de- 
sign. No  more  than  this  could  be  asked  of  a  museum  offi- 
cial, and  an  architect  has  the  right  to  demand  no  less  of 
a  professional  client. 

It  may  be  noted  that  the  modules  of  this  building  are 
taken  exactly  or  nearly  from  the  series  of  numbers  express- 
ing successive  approximations  to  the  proportion  called 
by  the  Greek  geometers  the  Golden  Section;  that  is,  the 
series  1,  2,  3,  5,  8,  13,  21,  34,  55,  89,  144,  etc.,  each  after 
the  first  two  being  the  sum  of  the  two  preceding.  In  a 
line  divided  by  the  Golden  Section  the  shorter  segment 
is  to  the  longer  as  the  longer  is  to  the  whole  line.  There 
is  no  question  as  to  the  aesthetic  value  of  the  internal  har- 
mony of  this  proportion  in  certain  cases,  although  the 
claims  of  an  all-embracing  application  made  for  it  a  gen- 
eration ago  were  doubtless  excessive. 

Diagrams  20  and  21  show  that  the  scheme  is  based  upon 
the  top-lighted  gallery  already  studied,  namely,  a  room 
thirty-four  feet  each  way  with  a  window  at  twenty-three 
feet  from  the  floor.  The  space  occupied  by  twelve  of  these 

1  Brewer,  p.  389. 


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DOWN:  TO  U>i  TO  LIBRARY, 

M£NS  LAVATORY  LECTURE  HALLwdRESTAURAMT 


DIAGRAM  20 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  207 

galleries  is  disposed  about  a  corridor  eight  feet  wide  com- 
pletely enclosing  a  nave  fifty-five  feet  wide,  one  hundred 
and  forty-two  feet  long  and  ninety  feet  high  to  its  flat 
ceiling. 

The  two  diagrams  (20  and  21)  show  in  addition  a  fea- 
ture which  is  not  embodied  in  the  standard  museum  plan, 
but  which  again  suggests  a  cathedral  with  its  ring  of  out- 
lying chapels.  A  series  of  small  and  low  rooms  or  cabinets 
thirteen  feet  wide  and  sixteen  feet  six  inches  long  runs 
along  each  side  of  the  building.  Each  of  them  is  reached 
by  a  door  from  one  of  the  main  galleries,  exception  being 
made  of  the  central  double  cabinet,  here  conceived  as  a 
vestibule  with  a  doorway  and  flight  of  steps  to  the  gar- 
den. These  cabinets  are  lighted  by  windows  with  sills 
at  domestic  height  —  about  three  feet.  They  aim  to 
afford  conditions  under  which  side  light  again  becomes 
available  for  exhibition  purposes;  that  is,  when  the  visi- 
tor no  longer  walks  about  to  see  objects  in  different  places, 
but  seats  himself  with  a  window  at  his  back  or  his  side 
to  see  objects  by  its  light.  The  principle  of  what  may  be 
called  seated  installation,  the  arrangement  of  an  object 
to  be  inspected  by  persons  sitting  down,  is  illustrated 
in  the  room  set  apart  in  Amsterdam  for  Rembrandt's 
Night  Watch.  A  liberal  application  of  the  principle  has 
just  been  advocated  by  the  President  of  the  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts,  in  Boston,  Mr.  Morris  Gray.1  In  Diagrams 
20  and  21  this  arrangement  becomes  an  integral  part  of 
a  museum  plan.  Its  advantages  are  obvious.  Objects 
so  shown  can  be  conveniently  arranged  for  the  closest 
study.  The  visitor  can  inspect  them  at  his  ease  and  lei- 

1  Annual  Report,  President  of  the  Museum  (1916),  p.  19.  "Usually,  of  course, 
they  (visitors)  must  stand  up  and  move  about  to  see  works  of  art;  but  where- 
ever  they  can  sit  down  and  thus  get  greater  enjoyment,  they  should  at  least 
be  given  the  opportunity. 

"  Here  and  there  in  the  different  departments,  therefore,  museums  would  do 
well  to  exhibit  works  of  art  distinctly  for  the  man  who  is  seated. ..." 


208  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

sure.  The  physical  rest  prepares  him  to  begin  again  to 
walk  and  stand  about,  as  he  must  in  order  to  see  most  of 
the  exhibits.  The  contents  of  such  cabinets  might  be 
changed  from  time  to  time,  giving  visitors  the  oppor- 
tunity of  closely  examining  a  variety  of  things  under 
conditions  at  once  pleasant,  restful,  quiet  and  good  for 
seeing.  In  the  cabinets  as  shown,  the  windows  are  cen- 
trally placed  in  order  not  to  cast  a  glare  in  the  eyes  as 
one  enters  from  the  main  gallery. 

The  corridor  between  the  main  galleries  and  the  nave 
is  purposely  kept  at  the  lowest  limit  of  width  that  will  in- 
sure the  free  passage  of  numbers  of  people,  in  order  to  make 
impossible  its  use  for  exhibition.  Above  the  main  galleries 
a  suite  of  side-lighted  offices,  thirteen  feet  in  height,  occu- 
pies the  same  space  and  is  served  by  a  second  corridor  over 
the  first.  The  lower  corridor  has  the  height  of  the  cornice 
of  the  galleries,  twenty-one  feet,  leaving  a  space  between 
the  two  corridors,  eleven  feet  high,  accessible  from  the 
upper  corridor  and  represented  in  the  diagram  as  used 
as  a  vault  for  storage.  All  these  corridor  spaces  borrow 
light  from  the  nave,  the  lowest  through  openings  at  thir- 
teen feet  in  the  screen  separating  it  from  the  nave,  the 
intermediate  by  lunettes  crowning  the  screen,  and  the 
highest  by  a  series  of  triforium  windows.  The  position  of 
the  intermediate  corridor  on  a  level  with  the  attic  of  the 
galleries  suggests  that  it  might  on  occasion  become  a  light 
chamber  instead  of  storage  space,  giving  minor  auxiliary 
illumination  on  the  window  wall  of  certain  of  the  suite 
of  galleries.  The  lighting  in  these  galleries  would  then  be 
the  unequally  balanced  high  side  light  preserving  its  unity 
which  Mr.  Wheelwright  admits  as  an  alternative;  in  a 
measure  also  fulfilling  Mr.  Brewer's  ideal  of  the  appli- 
cation of  clerestory  light  to  lower  rooms.1 

1  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in, 
pp.  106,  108. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES 


209 


The  nave  is  lighted  from  windows  along  the  side  walls 
with  sills  at  sixty-seven  feet  from  the  floor.  These  win- 
dows would  be  out  of  the  visitor's  range  of  vision,  except 
from  the  corner  of  the  eye  or  much  foreshortened,  in  all 
standpoints  in  the  gallery.  If  clear  glass  were  used,  the 


DIAGRAM  21 

light  in  the  nave  might  be  too  intense  for  the  best  seeing. 
In  any  case  curtains  would  be  desirable  to  cut  off  direct 
sun.  The  screen  ,with  its  cornice  at  eleven  to  thirteen 
feet  from  the  floor  would  give  a  background  rising  much 
above  the  customary  eight-foot  case  for  smaller  objects, 
somewhat  above  most  sculpture,  and  even  above  most, 
if  not  all,  of  the  cases  needed  for  larger  natural  history 
specimens. 

Diagram  22  represents  four  bays  of  the  nave  with  the 
screen  in  two  of  them  carried  to  the  level  of  the  top  of 
the  upper  cornice,  twenty-four  feet  from  the  floor,  in 
order  to  give  a  background  for  a  very  large  canvas.  The 
picture  represented  is  one  of  the  very  largest,  David's 


210 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


r 


Crowning  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  I  in  the  Louvre, 
twenty  feet  high  by  thirty  wide. 

The  arrangement  of  the  entrance  to  the  nave  shown  in 
the  plan  is  represented  in  Diagram  21,  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  exit  in  Diagram  23.  The  picture  chosen  here 
is  another  of  the  very  largest 
canvases,  Titian's  Assumption 
of  the  Virgin,  at  Venice,  twenty- 
two  feet  high  by  twelve  wide. 
There  would  be  no  glare  on 
either  picture  seen  from  any 
position  which  would  bring  it 
all  within  the  range  of  normal 
seeing. 

The  nave  is  represented  as 
partitioned  into  three  sections, 
as  if  the  largest  were  to  be  used 
for  objects  of  science  and  the 
smaller  two  for  works  of  art.  The  partitions  are  supposed 
to  run  either  to  the  top  of  the  screen,  thirteen  feet,  or  to 
the  top  of  the  cornice  above,  twenty-four  feet,  according 
as  lower  or  higher  backgrounds  or 
a  more  or  less  complete  division  is 
wished  for.  They  might  be  made 
removable  by  keeping  them  on  hand 
in  sections,  and  using  permanent 
sockets  in  the  floor  of  the  nave 
opposite  the  piers.  A  notion  of  the 
probable  effect  of  exhibitions  in 
these  divisions  of  the  nave  may  be 
gained  from  the  use  of  similar  partitions  twelve  feet  high 
in  the  top-lighted  central  hall  of  the  new  National  Mu- 
seum at  Washington.  Mr.  Brewer  writes  that  the  galleries 
thus  formed  "afford  excellent  exhibition  space  for  PIC- 


DIAGRAM  22 


DIAGRAM  23 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  211 

tures,  and  the  light  from  the  high  laylight  (fifty-five 
feet  from  the  floor)  reflected  and  diffused  by  the  white 
wall  above  is  excellent."  l  Further,  such  screens  tend 
to  detach  the  mind  of  the  spectator  from  the  great  space 
overhead;  and  upon  the  background  they  offer,  the 
smallest  objects  —  a  collection  of  insects,  of  coins,  of 
prints,  of  busts  —  would  be  at  home  in  the  largest  naves. 
The  largest  division  would  suitably  contain  any  objects 
but  the  very  largest.  For  the  exhibition  of  the  skeleton  of 
a  whale  or  other  gigantic  animal,  or  for  a  large  architec- 
tural cast,  the  whole  nave  would  be  none  too  large.  Doors 
are  supposed  provided  from  the  corridors  to  all  divisions  of 
the  nave,  as  well  as  to  all  the  parts  into  which  the  gallery 
space  could  conveniently  be  divided.  These  doors  would 
permit  cutting  off  direct  access  from  one  division  of  the 
nave  to  another,  passage  being  around  through  the  corri- 
dor; or  connecting  the  exhibits  in  any  division  with  gal- 
leries devoted  to  corresponding  objects. 

In  Diagram  20  the  gallery  space  about  the  nave  is 
shown  with  various  divisions,  as  if  to  accommodate  a 
miscellaneous  collection.  There  are  two  large  rooms, 
thirty-four  by  seventy  feet,  one  lighted  from  the  long  side 
only,  as  if  for  pictures,  the  other  from  both  the  side  and 
one  end,  as  if  for  case  objects.  All  of  the  right  hand  gal- 
lery space  is  in  one  large  apartment  one  hundred  and 
forty-two  feet  long,  divided  into  seventeen-foot  bays  by 
partitions  reaching  only  to  the  cornice.  The  left  hand 
space  contains  two  standard  galleries  thirty-four  feet 
square,  separated  by  four  cabinets,  sixteen  and  a  half  by 
twenty-one  feet.  In  these  the  ceiling  is  supposed  brought 
down  to  the  level  of  the  cornice  at  twenty-one  feet,  and 
the  window  set  at  fourteen  feet.  The  space  behind  marked 
"Storage"  in  the  plan  is  represented  fitted  with  racks  for 

1  Brewer,  p.  392. 


212 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


the  accommodation  of  pictures  or  other  objects  in  reserve. 
Comparing  these  cabinets  with  the  two  thirty-four-foot 
square  galleries  they  replace,  the  wall  space  shows  a  loss 
of  about  ten  per  cent,  while  about  fifteen  per  cent  of  the 
area  of  the  rooms  is  secured  for  storage. 

It  would  appear  entirely  practicable,  instead  of  block- 
ing up  the  six-and-a-half-foot  openings  on  either  side  of 
the  central  window  as  shown  in  the  left  hand  suite,  to 
allow  them  to  remain  open,  as  shown  in  the  right  hand 
suite.  If  opaque  curtains  were  then  provided  for  the  side- 
openings  they  could  be  kept  drawn  in  ordinary  weather, 
to  be  withdrawn  in  case  of  waning  light  or  dark  days,  or 
removed  in  case  of  a  use  of  the  gallery  demanding  un- 
usual illumination. 

Alternative  divisions  of  the  space  above  the  cabinets, 
made  possible  by  the  use  of  the  intermediate  corridor 

for  access,  are  shown 
in  Diagram  24.  Of 
these,  one  represents 
the  use  of  the  attic 
space,  eleven  feet 
high,  for  additional 
studies  or  classrooms, 
the  other  to  permit 
of  additional  galleries 
twenty-six  feet  high. 
It  may  be  claimed  as  a  merit  of  the  present  general  scheme 
that  its  corridor  system  permits  this  elasticity  in  the 
choice  of  floor  levels  in  the  whole  structure  about  the 
nave. 

A  fourth  possible  division  and  use  of  space  in  elevation 
and  plan  in  this  structure  is  shown  in  Diagram  25.  The 
end  in  view  is  the  reservation  of  light  for  exhibits,  whose 
success  in  many  instances  has  already  insured  it  a  per- 


DlAGRAM  24 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES 

manent  place  among  museum  methods.  The  gallery  of 
the  upper  tier,  which  is  shown  as  an  alternative  in  Dia- 
gram 24  and  is  reached  by  the  intermediate  corridor,  is 
here  reduced  to  the  width  of  that  on  the  ground  floor, 
twenty-one  feet,  and  is  represented  as  used  either  for 
cases  or  for  exhibits  occupying  a  space  of  about  fourteen 
by  sixteen  feet  and  seen  from  behind  a  glass  partition 
dividing  off  a  passageway  from  door  to  door.  The  ar- 
rangement nearly  reproduces  the  plan  of  an  outside  cor- 
ridor used  for  the  Zoological  Collection  of  the  Darmstadt 
Museum  and  shown  in  Diagram  19.  The  adjoining  space 
is  divided  horizontally  into  two  suites  of  smaller  spaces 
for  exhibits  to  be  looked  at  from  the  corridor  through  a 
partition.  Their  size,  twelve  by  sixteen  feet  in  the  inter- 
mediate corridor,  and  ten  by  twelve  feet  in  the  upper,  is 
somewhat  greater  than  that  of  the  Bird  Habitat  groups 
in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New 
York,  whose  installation  as  reported  by  Mr.  Brewer  is 
given  in  Diagram  19  as  an  arrangement  for  a  low  window; 
and  their  method  of  lighting  is  like  that  of  the  Aquarium 
at  Detroit,  Michigan,  mentioned  with  special  approval 
by  this  critic.  Mr.  Brewer  notes  l  that  the  Aquarium  at 
Detroit,  a  city  of  half  a  million  inhabitants,  has  a  million 
visitors  a  year,  although  three  miles  from  the  city  proper. 
"  These  figures  should  give  museum  directors  seriously  to 
think;  and  they  should  ask  themselves,  especially  those 
in  charge  of  natural  history  collections,  whether  methods 
of  display  and  lighting  more  akin  to  those  employed  in 
aquaria  —  for  instance  the  alcove  group  system  with  over- 
head lighting  —  might  not  add  enormously  to  the  popular- 
ity of  their  collections."  It  would  appear  that  such  series 
of  room  exhibits  might  include  many  other  kinds  of  ob- 
jects than  those  of  natural  history:  historical  remains, 


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GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  215 

fragments  of  interiors,  or  ethnological  specimens.  Accord- 
ing to  the  present  scheme  these  two  corridor  suites  would 
be  lighted  from  a  continuous  skylight  just  outside  the 
parapet  of  the  ambulatory  on  the  roof,  through  two  series 
of  wells.  The  wells  lighting  the  upper  suite  are  about 
eight  by  ten  feet  and  six  feet  deep;  those  lighting  the 
lower  suite  about  six  by  ten  feet  and  twenty  feet  deep. 
Each  of  these  latter  passes  between  two  of  the  upper  suite 
of  cabinets  and  lights  two  of  the  lower  and  larger. 

As  the  attic  lighting  of  the  chief  galleries  in  the  present 
scheme  practically  reproduces  the  lighting  of  the  alcoves 
in  the  central  corridor  form  of  the  reservation  of  light  — 
shown  in  Diagram  19  and  lately  advocated  as  "top  side" 
light  by  Mr.  Seager  —  and  as  the  device  of  the  solid  velum 
used  in  the  Rottman  Gallery  has  not  since  found  approval 
or  imitation,  there  remains  but  one  desirable  form  of  the 
six  shown  in  the  diagram  which  has  not  yet  been  taken 
advantage  of  here.  This  is  the  method 
of  reserving  light  for  exhibits  under  a 
high  window  employed  in  the  Stockholm 
Museum,  and  described  by  Dr.  Bather.1 
Diagram  26  shows  an  application  which 
might  be  made  of  this  method  in  the 
chief  galleries  of  the  present  scheme.  The 
window  wall  of  the  gallery  below  the  cor- 
nice is  occupied  by  a  construction  like  a 
high  case  —  or,  if  open,  a  niche.  The  in- 
clined back  of  the  upper  framework  serves  DIAGRAM  26 
as  a  reflecting  surface  to  shield  the  visitor  from  light  coming 
from  an  opening  below  the  cornice,  and  direct  it  through 
a  diffusing  medium  upon  the  exhibits  hung  or  set  below. 
The  window  wall  up  to  eleven  feet  or  above  could  in  this 
way  be  specially  lighted  without  any  direct  glare  reach- 

1  F.  A.  Bather,  Museumskunde,  vol.  iv  (1908),  pp.  66 /. 


216  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ing  the  visitor's  eyes.  It  must  be  admitted  that  illumina- 
tion from  an  unseen  source  directly  above  the  object  in- 
spected is  top  light  in  a  pronounced  form.  While  in 
special  instances  it  might  be  justified,  a  certain  unearth- 
liness  of  aspect  would  appear  inseparable  from  it,  and 
its  availability  for  museum  objects  in  general  may  be 
doubted.  In  the  attic- lighted  galleries  of  the  present 
scheme  the  need  of  such  a  device  might  never  be  felt. 
The  large  and  bright  reflecting  surface  above  the  oppo- 
site cornice  would  insure  a  considerable  illumination  on 
the  window  wall,  and  the  eyes  of  the  visitor  would  retain 
a  degree  of  sensibility  at  present  unknown  in  museums. 

The  entrance  section  of  the  building  shown  in  Diagram 
20  is  conceived  as  a  large  mass  fronting  the  rest  of  the 
structure  after  the  manner  of  the  towers  and  their  con- 
nection in  a  cathedral.  It  is  supposed  constructed  in  four 
floors,  from  twenty-two  feet  downward  in  height,  to  con- 
tain all  the  various  minor  facilities  now  offered  by  large 
museums.  The  entrance  hall  is  flanked  by  a  cloak-room 
and  an  office  for  the  sale  of  catalogues  and  photographs, 
and  gives  access  by  stairways  downward  to  the  public 
lavatories,  and  upward  by  stairways  and  an  elevator  to 
the  offices  and  library  immediately  above,  the  lecture 
hall  above  this,  and  the  restaurant  and  kitchen  on  the 
top  floor.  The  indicated  size  of  these  main  rooms,  forty- 
four  by  fifty-five  feet,  gives  an  ample  reading-room  and 
restaurant,  and  a  lecture  hall  seating  perhaps  three  hun- 
dred people,  and  capable  of  extension.  All  the  upper 
rooms  being  central  in  the  front  of  the  building  may  be 
given  unobstructed  light  from  along  one  side.  The  serv- 
ice stairway  and  the  freight  elevator  provided  for  at- 
tendants and  supplies  in  the  transverse  corridor  at  the 
rear  of  the  building  would  be  accessible  from  these  rooms 
through  the  upper  corridors  on  either  side  of  the  nave. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  217 

The  entrance  hall  would  be  lighted  both  from  the  nave 
over  the  screen  and  from  or  over  the  vestibule  in  front. 
It  is  large  enough  to  be  the  general  meeting  place  of  visi- 
tors, and  for  that  purpose  its  central  section  is  provided 
with  seats  about  the  columns  and  against  the  adjacent 
walls.  The  cloak-room  has  a  window  directly  opposite 
the  entrance  turnstile,  and  a  long  counter  opening  on  the 
transverse  passage,  where,  on  crowded  occasions,  a  num- 
ber of  persons  could  stand  out  of  the  way  of  passers  and 
get  their  wraps  from  several  attendants.  A  telephone 
booth  adjoins.  The  publication  office  is  in  the  correspond- 
ing position,  where  intending  purchasers  could  inspect 
photographs  undisturbed  and  under  ample  light  from  a 
high  side  window.  As  all  of  these  utilities,  including  the 
elevator,  are  placed  in  the  transverse  passages,  the  en- 
trance hall  itself  could  be  designed  and  used  as  a  digni- 
fied hall  of  reception,  containing  nothing  to  distract  the 
visitor  from  the  essential  purpose  of  his  visit. 

An  excess  provision  is  made  in  this  entrance  section 
for  the  various  subsidiary  needs  of  a  museum,  in  antici- 
pation of  the  inevitable  expansion  toward  which  every 
museum  must  look.  A  museum  by  its  nature  as  an  accu- 
mulation of  objects  worth  keeping  in  sight  is  liable  to 
grow  as  other  buildings  are  not,  and  in  its  design  should 
be  accommodated  to  this  fact.  A  theatre  has  a  limit  of 
size,  even  a  railway  station  may  be  adjusted  to  all  rea- 
sonable expectation  of  traffic,  but  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
desire  of  a  community  to  possess  in  its  museum  an  epit- 
ome of  the  surrounding  world  of  nature  and  man.  In 
strictness,  no  plan  for  a  museum  building  which  contem- 
plates its  eventual  completion  is  an  adequate  plan.  The 
design  must  always  be  such  as  will  not  be  marred  by  addi- 
tions. Two  alternatives  are  possible. 

The  choice  of  a  plan  for  a  building  to  be  indefinitely 


218  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

extended  lies  between  a  single  conglomerate  structure  and 
a  number  of  buildings  connected  by  corridors  —  a  pile 
or  a  group;  and  two  considerations  in  the  present  case 
point  to  the  choice  of  a  group. 

If  growth  were  to  take  the  form  of  an  extension  of  the 
building  shown  in  Diagram  20,  its  nave  must  either  be 
prolonged,  or  extended  by  transepts  or  wings.  Prolonga- 
tion could  not  be  indefinitely  continued  both  for  artistic 
and  practical  reasons.  The  Museum  of  Natural  History 
in  Paris  is  probably  alone  among  museums  in  the  great 
length  —  1725  feet  —  anticipated  for  its  series  of  narrow 
halls  on  the  Rue  Buffon.  Even  the  long  wing  of  the 
Louvre  is  already  voted  a  weariness  to  the  traveller. 
Transepts  or  wings  would  violate  the  fundamental  ex- 
ternal requirement  of  good  museum  lighting,  that  there 
should  be  no  rooms  lighted  by  windows  at  internal  angles 
between  high  walls.  It  may  be  stated  as  a  canon  of  the 
external  conditions  of  light  for  a  museum  that  only  a 
minimum  of  light  in  the  exhibition  rooms  may  be  per- 
mitted to  come  by  reflection  from  facades  and  roofs  as  a 
half  of  it  does  in  an  internal  angle.  The  ideal  is  that  it 
should  be  impossible  from  any  space  devoted  to  exhibi- 
tion to  see  through  the  light  opening  anything  but  the 
sky.  As  museums  are  now  constructed,  even  top  light 
has  not  the  advantage  in  this  respect  that  might  be  anti- 
cipated, towers  and  higher  rising  walls  often  cutting  off 
large  sections  of  the  sky  from  the  gallery  below;  while 
side-lighted  rooms  are  placed  without  hesitation  in  the 
angles  of  wings,  behind  pillars,  or  on  courts  whose  oppo- 
site walls  may  block  off  the  sky  almost  completely.  Yet 
the  light  reflected  from  fagades  and  from  roofs  is  deficient 
for  museum  purposes  both  in  quantity  and  quality.  These 
surfaces  reflect  but  a  fraction  of  the  light  coming  from 
the  sky,  they  are  generally  colored  and  their  weathering 
is  never  within  control. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  219 

There  remains  the  alternative  of  a  group.  The  museum 
accommodations  shown  in  Diagram  20  may  be  indefinitely 
expanded  by  adding  other  buildings  at  a  distance  to  be 
determined  by  the  canon  of  good  external  lighting,  and 
connecting  them  with  each  other  by  low  corridors.  Such 
a  group  is  the  inevitable  outcome  if  a  museum  is  to  be 
planned  for  indefinite  expansion  according  to  its  essential 
need  of  white  light. 

The  possible  connection  of  other  buildings  with  that 
shown  in  Diagram  20  is  suggested  by  the  open 
ends  of  the  transverse  passage  through  the  en- 
trance hall  and  that  leading  out  from  the  nave. 
The  structure,  in  itself  of  very  modest  dimensions 
as  museums  go,  may  become  the  parent  building 
of  a  museum  group  of  any  size.  In  the  outline  DIAGRAM 
plan  of  Diagram  27  it  is  represented  as  Stage  I 
of  such  a  development.  Diagram  28  shows  an  immedi- 
ate descendant,  here  supposed  connected  with  its  pro- 
genitor by  a  prolongation  of  the  transverse  passage  as  an 
outside  corridor  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long.1  This 
connecting  corridor,  being  designed  for  daily  public  use 
and  not  as  an  auxiliary  passage  for  exceptional  occasions 
and  special  classes  of  persons,  is  planned  thirteen  feet 
wide.  In  the  Museum  of  Natural  History  at  Paris,  struc- 
tures on  either  side  the  main  building  are  connected  with 
it  by  corridors  fifty  feet  long  and  ten  feet  wide.  The  pres- 
ent corridor  is  conceived  as  a  low  cloister  about  thirteen 
feet  high  with  a  still  lower  service  passage  over  it  con- 
nected with  the  upper  system  of  the  parent  building. 

Except  for  the  entrance  section,  the  pavilion  repro- 
duces in  little  all  the  features  of  the  parent  building.  It 

1  To  guard  against  risk  from  fire,  Mr.  Weissman  thinks  that  a  space  of  140 
feet  should  separate  a  museum  on  all  sides  from  neighboring  houses.  "Gallery 
Building,"  Journal  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects^  vol.  xrv  (1907), 
p.  417. 


220 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


has  its  central  public  space,  like  the  crossing  and  lantern 
of  a  cathedral,  its  suite  of  environing  galleries,  its  public 
and  service  stairways,  its  department  rooms  or  galleries 


*  iff 


34'"  5  5' 


DIAGRAM  28 

above,  its  passenger  and  freight  lifts,  and  its  corridor  sys- 
tem. The  result  of  its  erection  would  be  the  group  of 
buildings  shown  in  the  outline  plan  of  Diagram  29  as 
Stage  II  of  a  progressive  development  from  the  incon- 
spicuous beginning  shown  in  Diagram 
20.  A  sound  architectural  result  might 
be  expected,  since  the  two  compo- 
nents of  the  group  would  illustrate 
the  same  general  type  of  design  on 
the  same  modules,  and  yet  with  suffi- 
cient variety  of  application  to  escape  monotony. 

On  account  of  this  general  similarity  —  only  the  gal- 
leries on  either  side  the  entrance  corridor  and  those  oppo- 


DlAGRAM  29 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM  GALLERIES  221 

site  contributing  a  new  unit  of  size  —  the  pavilion  may 
grow  by  expansion  toward  and  beyond  the  likeness  of  the 
parent  building.  Its  lantern  may  add  to  itself  two  trans- 
verse naves  in  opposite  directions,  about  which  the  corri- 
dors and  galleries  may  likewise  grow.  It  is  to  be  assumed 
that  appropriate  provision  in  the  foundation  and  walls 
involved  would  make  such  extension  an  easy  matter,  and 
something  to  be  undertaken  little  by  little,  as  the  needs 
of  the  collections  demanded. 

In  further  stages  of  growth,  other  pavilions,  reached 
by  the  other  two  corridors  left  open  in  Diagram  20,  might 
be  added,  and  expanded  in  their  turn.  In  Diagram  30 
the  scheme  is  represented  at  a  point  when  its  size  would 
approach  that  of  the  largest  museums  of  any  kind  either 
existing  or  planned  —  the  megalo-museum  as  now  built 
or  dreamed. 

The  space  occupied  by  the  buildings  and  grounds  shown 
in  Diagram  30  within  the  corners  indicated  is  a  square 
of  eight  hundred  feet,  or  sixteen  acres,  of  which  about 
seven  and  a  half  acres  are  covered  by  construction.  In  this 
proportion  the  scheme  differs  greatly  from  the  largest 
modern  museums.  In  all  cases  these  cover  more  and  some- 
times all  of  the  ground  area  they  occupy.  In  the  area  of 
the  buildings  the  scheme  is  still  below  the  largest;  but  its 
indefinite  extension  on  the  same  plan  is  possible,  and  as 
the  diagram  shows,  in  five  ways.  The  completed  plan  of 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in  New  York  calls  for  a 
building  nine  hundred  and  fifty  by  five  hundred  and  fifty 
feet,  covering  thirteen  acres  with  a  comparatively  small 
deduction  for  courts,  already  in  part  covered  by  construc- 
tion. The  British  Museum  as  built  and  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York  as  planned, 
each  cover  eight  acres  with  their  buildings,  the  courts  of 
the  American  Museum  adding  four  and  a  half  acres  to 


222  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

its  proposed  total  extent.  The  new  Field  Museum  of 
Natural  History  in  Chicago  covers  six  acres,  and  the 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  London  four  and  a  half 
acres,  the  buildings  in  each  case  extending  over  the  entire 
area  occupied.  The  building  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute 
of  Arts  and  Sciences  will  occupy  with  its  courts  as  planned 
an  area  of  eight  acres  and  cover  five  and  a  half  acres 
with  construction.  The  National  Museum  at  Washington 
covers  four  acres,  or  with  its  courts,  five. 

A  comparison  of  floor  space  yields  other  results  on  ac- 
count of  the  different  number  of  floors  in  the  building. 
In  the  National  Museum  at  Washington  the  floor  space 
devoted  to  exhibition  is  about  220,000  square  feet,  or 
five  and  a  half  acres,  and  that  devoted  to  department 
offices  and  storage  about  four  acres,  the  total  floor  space 
in  four  floors  being  nearly  twelve  acres.  The-  adminis- 
tration of  the  museum  is  reported  by  Mr.  Brewer  as 
thinking  the  exhibition  space  large  enough  for  any  mu- 
seum, but  the  department  space  too  small  for  their  pur- 
poses. According  to  this  judgment  a  megalo-museum  of 
the  present  should  not  devote  more  than  about  five  acres 
to  exhibition  space,  but  might  to  advantage  assign  at 
least  an  equal  area  to  department  purposes.  The  museum 
of  Diagram  30  meets  both  requirements;  but  by  reserv- 
ing the  first  floor  galleries  for  those  who  especially  wish 
to  enter,  gives  but  two  of  its  five  acres  of  exhibition 
space  to  the  public  as  a  whole.1  The  reduction  may  be 
regarded  as  a  wholesome  readaptation  of  the  amount  of 
things  shown  to  the  powers  of  those  who  are  to  see  them. 
A  walk  through  five  acres  of  floor  space  passing  within 

1  The  total  floor  area  of  the  buildings  represented  in  Diagram  30  is  about 
600,000  feet,  or  fifteen  acres.  The  basement  would  cover  215,000  feet,  the  en- 
trance block  in  its  four  floors  30,000,  the  naves  80,000,  the  first  floor  galleries 
135,000,  and  the  second  floor  also  135,000.  The  department  space  partly  in  the 
basement  and  partly  on  the  second  floor  would  easily  reach  and  pass  the  limit 
of  five  acres. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  223 

fifteen  feet  of  all  the  exhibits  might  be  expected  to  extend 
to  about  three  miles.  Through  the  naves  and  cloisters 
of  the  present  scheme  it  would  reduce  to  about  one  mile. 
A  pressing  need  of  a  better  adjustment  of  means  to  ends 
in  the  matter  of  public  exhibition  would  be  met  by  such 
a  limitation  of  primary  exhibition  space. 

Conceived  as  a  group  in  elevation,  the  scheme  would 
offer  opportunities  for  three  lantern  towers  disposed  sym- 
metrically about  the  parent  building,  whose  cathedral 
front  would  distinguish  it  in  appearance  from  the  rest. 
The  high  naves  would  announce  the  paramount  interest 
of  the  museum  in  the  community  generally.  The  use 
of  high  naves  meets  the  architectural  objection  Mr.  Weiss- 
man  expresses  to  top-lighted  museums.  "Buildings  like 
these  being  rather  low,  the  exterior  is  not  very  satisfac- 
tory." l  The  three  connecting  cloisters  are  each  given  open- 
ings at  the  centre  into  two  extensive  gardens  among  the 
wings.  The  main  entrance  would  be  approached  through 
a  wide  forecourt,  and  a  business  entrance  would  have  a 
driveway  of  its  own  at  the  side. 

A  park  is  the  natural  setting  for  a  large  museum,  since 
a  park  is  the  pleasure  ground  of  a  city  and  every  large 
museum  is  principally  a  holiday  house,  having  no  claim 
on  the  people  generally  except  in  their  hours  of  leisure. 
A  park,  too,  best  offers  the  quiet  and  exemption  from 
dust  and  risk  of  fire  which  every  museum  needs;  and  a 
park  alone  gives  it  freedom  to  expand  into  a  group  of 
structures  sufficiently  open  to  insure  the  predominance 
of  light  from  the  sky  in  the  galleries. 

In  the  naves  of  the  present  scheme  with  its  liberal  gar- 
dens and  forecourt,  the  ideal  of  pure  skylight  would  be 
everywhere  fulfilled  except  in  a  few  windows  of  the  par- 
ent building,  through  which  it  would  be  possible  to  see 

1  Weissman,  p.  417. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  225 

from  the  floor  a  part  of  the  rear  wall  of  the  entrance 
structure. 

In  the  galleries  fronting  outward  there  would  be  no 
obstruction  from  other  buildings  of  the  group.  The  con- 
ditions in  the  inward-fronting  galleries  are  represented 
in  Diagrams  31  and  32.  The  narrow  cross-hatching  indi- 
cates the  area  in  which  all  the  light  received  in  a  plane 
perpendicular  to  the  wall  of  the  room  is  reflected  from 
the  walls  and  roof  of  the  opposite  wing;  the  space  left 
blank  indicates  the  area  receiving  light  from  the  sky  only; 
and  the  wider  cross-hatching  indicates  the  area  receiving 
part  of  its  light  from  the  sky  and  part  by  reflection,  the 
proportion  of  skylight  increasing  as  the  blank  space  is 
approached.  The  sections  are  drawn  through  the  tunnel 
for  service  connecting  the  ends  of  the  largest  wing  with 
the  two  next  in  size,  because  at  this  point  the  buildings 
are  nearest  together  and  the  conditions  are  most  unfa- 
vorable. They  put  the  matter  unfavorably,  also,  in  that 
the  amount  of  obstruction  represented  obtains  through 
only  a  part  of  the  horizontal  angle  over  which  light  enters 
the  gallery  windows.  But  even  the  obstruction  as  shown 
is  negligible.  The  diagrams  indicate  that  all  parts  of  both 
opposite  and  transverse  walls  receive  light  only  from  the 
sky  up  to  ten  feet  in  the  thirty-four-foot  galleries,  to  eight 
feet  in  the  twenty-six-foot  second  floor  galleries,  and  up 
to  five  feet  in  the  twenty-one-foot  first  floor  galleries ;  and 
that  all  other  parts  of  the  exhibition  zone  get  some  sky- 
light and  most  parts  a  preponderance.  There  would  also 
be  some  slight  interference  with  light  from  the  sky,  due 
to  the  connecting  cloisters,  on  one  of  the  walls  of  the 
adjacent  twenty-nine-foot  square  galleries  in  each  wing. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  claim  that  in  a  building  such 
as  this,  while  the  light  would  be  ample  in  quantity  and 
practically  ideal  in  quality,  the  problem  of  glare  would 


226  MUSEUM  IDEALS 


be  completely  solved.  From  the  time  the  visitor  enters 
the  museum  until  he  leaves  it,  he  is  never  brought  face 
to  face  with  any  source  of  light.  If  he  keeps  to  the  public 
space  he  will  never  see  one  in  a  way  to  notice  it;  and  while, 
in  the  galleries,  at  one  doorway  at  each  corner  of  each 
wing  he  sees  a  window  at  an  angle  before  him,  it  would 
be  almost  wholly  above  the  range  of  his  normal  vision. 
It  is  to  be  particularly  remarked  that  he  enters  the  gal- 
leries through  a  corridor  but  dimly  lighted  by  a  window 
he  cannot  see.  In  the  City  Museum  of  Amsterdam,  where 
the  stairway  is  lighted  from  above  through  yellowish  glass, 
the  architect  thought  a  similar  provision  necessary.  Mr. 
Weissman  writes:  "As  it  would  not  be  well  to  enter  the 
gallery  rooms  at  once  from  this  warm  light,  compara- 
tively dark  rooms  were  arranged  through  which  the  visi- 
tors have  to  pass  before  entering."  l 

In  the  museum  of  Diagram  30  a  degree  of  visual  sensi- 
bility might  be  confidently  awaited  that  would  render 
its  main  lighting  problem  one  of  exclusion  and  not  of 
admission,  and  which  would  notably  lessen  the  fatigue 
of  a  visit. 

The  question  of  artificial  lighting  has  not  been  touched 
upon  for  two  reasons.  First,  a  museum  is  a  daylight  in- 
stitution. Any  works  of  fine  art  it  may  contain  were 
made  in  daylight  and  meant  to  be  looked  at  in  daylight; 
and  none  of  its  contents  have  an  appeal  that  can  com- 
pete with  the  more  restful  or  more  stirring  enjoyments 
or  means  of  improvement  to  which  our  evenings  are 
given.  Museum  objects  demand  to  be  seen  in  hours  of 
complete  relaxation,  and  not  in  hours  needed  for  recov- 
ery from  the  cares  and  excitements  of  full  days.  At  pres- 
ent Saturday  afternoons  and  Sundays  are  the  only  times 
during  which  people  in  general  can  be  expected  to  visit 

1  Weissman,  p.  443. 


GLARE   IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  227 

museums,  and  only  if  further  reductions  are  made  in 
hours  of  work  can  they  be  led  to  spend  more  of  their  time 
there  to  good  purpose.  Again,  a  striking  fact  has  been 
established  by  Professor  Ferree's  recent  inquiries.  Arti- 
ficial lighting  proves  a  source  of  eye-strain  hitherto  un- 
suspected. His  experiments  show  that  while  after  several 
hours  of  work  under  daylight  the  capacity  of  the  eye  re- 
mains practically  what  it  was  at  first,  the  same  period 
of  work  under  artificial  light  is  marked  by  a  steady  and 
rapid  decline  in  visual  powers.1  Artificial  illumination  of 
museum  exhibits  adds  a  new  and  all-important  kind  of 
weariness  to  what  is  already  one  of  the  most  exhausting 
of  occupations. 

The  search  for  the  best  internal  conditions  of  light  in 
museums  led  to  the  substitution  of  naves  for  courts  in 
the  buildings  of  which  the  scheme  of  Diagram  30  is  com- 
posed; and  the  search  for  the  best  external  conditions 
determined  it  as  a  group  instead  of  a  conglomerate.  There 
is  another  consideration  of  great  importance  which  would 
of  itself  suffice  to  incline  the  choice  toward  the  radial 
plan  of  buildings  with  cloister  connections  instead  of  the 
cellular  plan  of  a  building  with  interior  courts.  A  museum 
building  needs  to  be  comprehensible  as  a  whole  to  its 
visitors.  They  must  know  where  they  are  at  any  time, 
what  remains  before  them  and  whither  to  turn  to  reach 
it.  The  need  is  felt  by  every  one  in  a  museum  with  which 
he  is  not  familiar.  It  is  felt  by  the  majority  of  people  in 
the  museum  of  their  own  town,  and  by  all  without  ex- 
ception in  the  museums  of  other  places.  Every  one  in 
most  museums  and  most  people  in  every  museum  want 
to  be  able  to  see  all  its  departments  and  all  its  chief 
treasures  in  one  visit  of  an  hour  or  a  few  hours.  In  order 

1  C.  E.  Ferree,  "Tests  for  the  Efficiency  of  the  Eye,"  Transactions  of  the 
Illuminating  Engineering  Society,  vol.  vin,  no.  1  (January,  1913),  pp.  51  and  52. 


228  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

that  they  should  be  able  to  do  this  without  bewilderment, 
difficulty  and  waste  of  time,  there  should  be  an  easily 
comprehensible  circuit  through  the  whole  space  devoted 
to  the  public.  Such  a  circuit  is  possible  and  easy  in  a 
museum  on  the  radial  plan  here  adopted,  and  difficult 
or  impossible  in  a  museum  on  the  usual  cellular  plan. 
One  simple  rule  without  any  map  or  plan  would  guide 
the  visitor  through  the  whole  public  space  of  the  scheme 
of  Diagram  30  or  its  further  developments,  and  carry  him 
back  to  his  starting-point  without  bringing  him  twice 
before  the  same  exhibits  —  "Keep  to  the  right  when  you 
can."  The  broken  line  shows  whither  this  rule  would  lead 
him  on  starting  from  the  entrance.  Keeping  it  in  mind, 
there  is  no  alternative  presented  at  any  point;  no  oppor- 
tunity to  say,  "Have  we  seen  this  before?"  or  "Which 
shall  we  take  first?"  If  there  is  any  turn  to  the  right 
before  him  he  has  not  seen  the  collection  to  which  it  leads, 
and  there  is  no  need  of  deciding  what  to  see,  for  all  will 
be  seen  in  course  by  following  the  rule.  With  a  cellular 
plan,  it  may  be  impossible  to  see  all  the  galleries  without 
seeing  some  twice;  and  when  possible,  none  but  a  com- 
plicated set  of  directions  will  enable  the  visitor  to  do  it. 
This  appears  from  the  consideration  that  from  any 
junction  of  three  wings  at  right  angles,  of  which  there  are 
two  on  opposite  sides  of  the  building  in  a  museum  about 
two  courts,  four  in  a  museum  about  four,  and  so  on  for 
more  complex  schemes,  there  are  three  paths  which  sooner 
or  later  must  be  traversed  if  all  the  exhibits  are  to  be 
inspected.  A  single  line  representing  the  visitor's  path 
has  but  two  ends;  and  one  of  these  ends  must  lie  at  each 
of  the  triple  points,  the  line  being  continuous  at  that 
point  in  the  other  two  possible  directions.  Hence,  start- 
ing at  the  entrance  as  one  triple  point,  a  single  journey 
through  a  museum  about  two  courts  will  end  at  the 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES 


229 


r 
f 
t 

! 
L 

^r--v- 

-I 

1 
4- 

i 
_l 

1 
t 

1 

_4-_  J_«-_ 

opposite  triple  point,  and  to  reach  the  entrance  he  must 
traverse  the  central  wing  again,  as  shown  in  Diagram  33. 
It  is  true  that  he  might  then  ascend  the  stairs  and  visit  the 
next  floor  in  the 
contrary  sense;  so 
that  if  the  exhi- 
bition space  con- 
sisted of  an  even 
number  of  floors 
the  visitor  might 
return  finally  to  DIAGRAM  33 

the  entrance  by  the  elevator  or  stairway  without  seeing 
the  same  exhibits  twice.  It  is  also  true  that  a  double 
journey  up  one  side  and  down  the  other  in  each  wing 
is  possible  without  passing  the  same  side  twice,  but 
the  process  proves  complicated.  The  visitor  may,  for 
example  in  a  building  with  four  courts,  make  twice  the 
circuit  of  the  outer  wings  of  the  building  as  shown  in 
Diagram  33,  and  then,  proceeding  up  the  central  wing 
to  its  crossing  with  others,  from  this  point  out  go  up 
and  back  through  each  of  these,  taking  his  way  back  to 
the  entrance  as  his  second  trip  through  the  central  wing. 
But  beside  exalting  the  purpose  to  get  through  the  mu- 
seum over  the  purpose  to  see  its  contents  as  far  as  may 
be  in  connected  fashion,  this  rule  presupposes  a  capacity 
of  orientation  and  a  memory  for  locality  which  would  be 
sorely  tested  at  each  of  the  four  points  where  alternative 
ways  opened,  and  of  which  the  public  in  general  is  far  from 
capable.  As  a  popular  circuit,  the  journey  would  probably 
be  prolific  of  repeated  visits  to  the  same  exhibits  and  the 
missing  of  many;  while  the  rule  given  for  the  museum  of 
Diagram  30  would  lead  to  no  such  annoyance  because  of 
its  simple  content  and  orderly  result.  At  the  entrance 
there  would  be  the  choice  which  of  the  three  ways  open 


230  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

to  follow  first.  Diagram  30  supposes  the  right  hand  wing 
chosen,  but  the  choice  of  the  parent  building  would  give 
the  same  result.  The  visitor  would  enter  the  nave,  since 
the  right  hand  passage,  leading  to  the  galleries,  would  not 
be  open.  Passing  through  the  nave  and  into  the  corridor 
beyond,  he  must  turn  to  the  left  because  the  right  hand 
door  to  the  corridor  is  also  closed;  and  taking  the  first 
turn  to  the  right,  would  find  himself  in  the  cloister  lead- 
ing to  the  long  wing.  Traversing  this  wing,  first  on  one 
side  and  then  the  other,  by  the  same  rule,  he  would  even- 
tually find  himself  again  in  the  cloister,  and  after  making 
a  short  necessary  turn  to  the  left,  again  in  the  nave  of 
the  parent  building  and  back  at  the  entrance.  Here  a  way 
to  the  right  again  opens,  leading  to  one  of  the  smaller  wings 
through  both  of  which  the  same  rule  would  lead  him  even- 
tually again  to  the  entrance,  having  exhausted  his  three 
choices.  Meanwhile,  at  any  point  the  specially  interested 
visitor  could,  by  asking  an  attendant,  learn  the  way  to  such 
of  the  related  galleries  as  he  might  wish  to  see;  and  could 
inspect  their  contents  undisturbed  by  the  main  throng  of 
visitors.  This  exemption  would  be  especially  welcome  in 
museums  of  art.  Professor  Paul  Clemen  writes:  "Our 
modern  exhibition  buildings  have  shown  that  the  rooms 
which  do  not  lie  directly  in  the  way  of  the  throng  have 
the  happiest  and  most  intimate  effect  and  are  best  adapted 
for  the  quiet  and  contemplative  enjoyment  of  art."  1  In 
the  present  circuit  one  only  of  the  naves,  that  of  the  parent 
building,  would  have  been  seen  in  two  visits  separated 
by  an  interval.  In  default  of  special  measures  to  the  con- 
trary, the  collections  shown  here  would  doubtless  always 
retain  something  of  their  original  miscellaneous  charac- 
ter as  the  nucleus  of  all  the  collections.  The  others,  each 
supposedly  devoted  to  one  main  department  of  the  mu- 

1  Pad  Clemen,  Zeitschrift  fur  Bildende  Kunst  (1905),  p.  40. 


GLARE  IN   MUSEUM   GALLERIES  231 

seum,  would  have  been  seen  continuously.  These  continu- 
ous visits  would  be  spaced  each  from  the  other  by  prom- 
enades through  the  cloisters.  The  public  circuit  of  the 
museum  of  Diagram  30,  short  as  it  is,  would  not  consist 
of  an  unbroken  round  of  inspection  of  fresh  objects,  as 
in  almost  all  existing  museums,  but  of  a  series  of  separate 
visits  to  more  or  less  related  objects  with  short  walks 
between.  While  the  contents  of  the  museum  would  every- 
where be  presented  to  the  visitor  in  rooms  giving  no  view 
of  anything  else,  there  would  be  recurrent  opportunities 
and  time  for  a  return  to  the  outside  world,  and  in  fine 
weather  for  a  descent  into  the  gardens.  These  cloister 
promenades  would  at  once  rest  his  eyes,  vary  the  call  on 
his  muscles,  and  give  him  opportunity  to  turn  his  mind 
away  from  what  had  gone  toward  what  was  coming. 

In  another  way  the  fatigue  of  a  visit  to  the  museum  of 
Diagram  30  would  be  less  than  in  most  other  museums. 
The  whole  public  space  and  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  reserved 
exhibits  could  be  seen  without  climbing  any  stairs.1  A 
staircase  in  a  museum  confronts  the  visitor  with  a  phys- 
ical task  of  a  kind  he  may  wish  to  avoid  and  which  in 
consideration  of  the  mental  tasks  before  him,  he  may 
well  be  spared  if  it  can  so  be  arranged. 

The  structure  of  the  scheme  lends  itself  to  the  division 
of  the  collections  into  seven  departments  under  three 
heads.  It  is  tempting  to  fill  out  such  a  division  in  accord- 
ance with  the  possibilities  of  gathering  tangible  objects 
worth  keeping.  In  the  general  museum  the  three  wings 
may  represent  man,  other  forms  of  life  and  the  planet  we 
inhabit;  or  Anthropology,  Biology,  and  Geology,  as  they 
do  in  the  National  Museum  at  Washington.  In  an  art 

1  "...  Every  one  I  believe  greeted  with  joy  the  idea  of  a  museum  where 
weary  mounting  of  stairs  was  to  be  wholly,  or  to  a  large  extent,  eliminated." 
R.  Clipston  Sturgis,  Report  on  Plans  Presented  to  the  Building  Committee  of  the 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  (Boston,  1905),  p.  11. 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


DIAGRAM  34 


museum,  they  may  represent  the  graphic  arts,  the  ancient 
art  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  modern  art  of  East  and 
West,  as  they  do  at  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston. 
But  a  museum  is  born,  not  made;  its  collections  mainly 
grow,  not  by  taking  thought,  but  by  the  grace  of  Heaven; 
and  any  large  plan  for  its  development  is  foredoomed  to 
disappointment. 

At  first,  it  may  be  assumed,  any  collections  the  parent 
building  was  erected  to  contain  would  be  insufficient 
to  fill  it,  and  some  of  the  space  could,  pending  their 

growth,  be  lent  to 
other  enterprises, 
classes,  clubs,  or 
other  organizations 
for  public  welfare. 
This  is  the  situation 
represented  by  the 
blank  spaces  in  out- 
line plan  I  of  Dia- 
gram 27,  where  the 
public,  and  most  of 
the  gallery  space,  is 
indicated  as  filled. 
Outline  plan  II  of 
Diagram  29  repre- 
sents the  addition 
of  a  pavilion  to  ac- 
commodate one  of 
the  departments  grown  beyond  the  available  space  in 
the  parent  building.  Its  transfer  vacates  space  in  both  the 
nave  and  the  galleries  of  the  parent  building,  and  in 
the  pavilion  there  is  space  which  it  must  grow  to  fill. 
Outline  plan  III  of  Diagram  34  represents  the  transplant- 
ing of  another  department  into  a  second  pavilion,  and 


DIAGRAM  35 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  233 

the  enlargement  of  the  first  to  accommodate  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  department  first  moved.  At  this  point  in 
the  supposed  growth  of  the  museum,  a  large  endowment, 
a  government  grant,  extraordinary  success  in  some  ex- 
pedition, or  other  unforeseeable  event,  suddenly  reduces 
the  symmetric  plan  of  Diagram  30  to  an  impossibility. 
The  department  first  moved  now  turns  out  to  be  the  main 
museum.  Long  discussions  ensue,  and  the  architects  are 
called  upon  to  devise  a  substitute.  Nevertheless,  the 
principle  adopted  proves  equal  to  the  emergency,  as  ap- 
pears in  outline  plan  IV  of  Diagram  35.  The  first  pavilion 
expands  into  a  great  double  wing,  like  that  planned  to  be 
entered  from  the  end  of  the  parent  building.  Other  pavil- 
ions follow  in  due  course,  leaving  the  group  still  a  har- 
monious architectural  mass,  if  an  unsymmetrical  one,  with 
further  unlimited  possibilities  of  extension.  Such  a  com- 
bination of  naves,  corridors,  and  galleries  in  a  way  to 
meet  unexpected  forms  of  museum  growth,  may  be  lik- 
ened to  the  farmstead  type  of  Lombardy,  capable  of  end- 
less new  forms  of  shelter  for  a  family,  its  stock,  its  tools, 
and  its  harvests,  each  a  satisfactory  composition;  or  to 
a  tree  like  the  pine,  from  which  almost  any  branch 
may  be  cut  without  destroying  its  picturesque  complete- 
ness.1 

1  The  nave  plan  in  all  its  stages  illustrates  in  detail  the  requirements  of 
museum  design  thus  stated  by  Mr.  Clipston  Sturgis:  "The  ideal  for  the  arrange- 
ment of  each  department  taken  in  connection  with  the  previous  ideals  of  a 
single  main  floor  and  independent  departments  would  be  (1)  that  each  should 
have  its  entrance  on  a  main  artery  of  the  group;  (2)  that  the  visitor  should  be 
given  a  short  circuit  of  the  most  important  galleries,  in  which  everything  shown 
should  be  good  of  its  kind,  should  be  given  plenty  of  space,  and  exhibited  under 
the  very  best  circumstances  of  light  and  surroundings;  (3)  that  the  route  should 
be  made  perfectly  clear  .  .  .  giving  the  visitor  the  opportunity  to  go  on  to  the 
other  rooms  of  the  department,  or  if  he  prefers,  leave  the  department  where  he 
entered  it  on  the  main  artery.  ...  (4)  that  a  longer,  but  equally  clear  circuit 
should  embrace  the  reserve  galleries  which  should  be  readily  accessible  for  all 
who  desire,  and  yet  in  a  measure  withdrawn;  (5)  and  that  finally,  there  should 
be  the  last  group,  clear  of  either  circuit,  through  which  there  is  no  thorough- 
fare, for  the  work  and  study  of  the  department."  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Bos- 


234  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

The  scheme  of  Diagram  30  is  an  invention  only  in 
the  Patent  Office  sense  of  a  possible  "improvement  in 
the  art."  It  may  be  regarded  as  a  step  in  a  development 
of  which  the  Naples  Museum  (1587),  the  Old  Pinacothek 
in  Munich  (1826),  the  Kelvingrove  Museum  in  Glasgow 
(1901),  and  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  (1909), 
offer  successive  illustrations.  The  museum  at  Naples 
laid  the  foundation  in  its  double  row  of  rooms  around  large 
spaces  on  either  side  a  block  devoted  to  access.  The  Old 
Pinacothek  settled  the  unit  of  plan  for  museums  as  an 
exhibition  space  plus  a  corridor  adjoining.  The  Kelvin- 
grove  Museum  adopted  the  principle  of  lighting  a  large 
interior  space  from  a  clerestory.  The  Boston  Museum 
chose  a  radial  lay-out' about  garden  courts.  These  steps 
have  been  summed  by  reducing  one  of  the  two  exterior 
spaces  of  the  Naples  Museum  to  a  corridor,  as  in  the  Pina- 
cothek, and  devoting  the  interior  space  to  primary  exhi- 
bition, while  doubling  the  secondary  space  in  accordance 
with  the  modern  tripartite  division  of  museum  functions: 
further,  by  extending  the  clerestory  light  of  the  Kelvin- 
grove  Museum  to  all  the  exhibition  space,  the  large  in- 
terior courts  becoming  naves,  and  the  galleries  about 
receiving  attic  windows;  finally,  by  carrying  on  the  radial 
principle,  since  illustrated  also  in  the  University  Museum 
at  Philadelphia,  the  connecting  links  becoming  cloisters. 

ton,  Report  on  Plans  Presented  to  the  Building  Committee,  by  R.  Clipston  Sturgis 
(1905),  p.  15. 

These  five  requirements  are  met  as  follows  in  the  diagrams:  (1)  the  entrance 
of  each  building  of  the  group  is  on  the  corridor  system  connecting  all;  (2)  the 
naves  offer  a  clear  circuit  through  the  most  important  exhibits  shown  under 
the  best  conditions;  (3)  the  route  through  them  brings  the  visitor  to  the  point 
where  he  entered,  and  offers  him  the  alternative  of  returning  to  the  main  en- 
trance without  seeing  anything  else;  (4)  a  longer  but  equally  simple  route  leads 
through  the  outlying  or  subsidiary  galleries,  which  are  entirely  independent  of 
the  naves  though  no  less  accessible;  (5)  the  work  and  the  study  of  the  depart- 
ment go  on  in  rooms  reached  by  stairs,  and  hence  wholly  aside  from  either  the 
primary  or  secondary  thoroughfares  for  visitors.  It  is  a  fortunate  circumstance 
that  a  museum  scheme  aiming  at  ideal  lighting  should  prove  to  embody  also 
an  ideal  of  arrangement  reached  irrespective  of  lighting. 


GLARE  IN  MUSEUM   GALLERIES  235 

The  result  is  a  scheme  which  appears,  and  has  reason  to 
claim  itself,  adapted  to  the  needs  of  museums  generally, 
scientific  or  artistic,  large  or  small. 

The  solution  of  the  lighting  problem  in  museums  has 
been  halted  for  a  century  by  a  datum  of  mistaken  erudi- 
tion. The  choice  of  the  Classical  type  —  based  ultimately 
on  columns  against  a  blank  wall  —  for  buildings  devoted 
to  vision  would  be  an  absurdity  were  it  not  a  blunder. 
The  hypethral  myth  is  gone,  and  reasoning  should  re- 
place it.  Which  way  should  light  come  in  a  room  where 
people  walk  about  to  use  their  eyes  by  it?  Neither  verti- 
cally, nor  horizontally,  but  diagonally. 

A  fundamental  objection  interposes  itself.  There  is 
another  psychological  factor  as  important  as  glare.  How- 
ever advantageous  to  the  visitor's  eyes,  are  not  the  high 
windows  depressing  to  his  spirits?  Things  are  better  seen, 
but  are  they  as  much  enjoyed?  Yet  to  be  enjoyed  is  what 
they  are  seen  for.  In  our  preoccupation  with  the  objects, 
have  we  not  taken  the  heart  out  of  the  spectator? 

Two  answers  may  be  made  to  this  objection.  It  may 
be  charged  first  with  confusing  the  effect  of  vertical  light, 
which  is  really  depressing,  with  that  of  diagonal  light, 
which  is  only  quieting.  A  small  courtyard  with  high 
walls  is  almost  invariably  dismal;  and  as  far  as  lighting 
goes,  every  top-lighted  museum  gallery  is  such  a  small 
courtyard.  But  a  cathedral  never  depresses;  it  only  sol- 
emnizes us.  A  high-windowed  banquet  hall  is  not  gloomy; 
it  is  only  stately.  The  Pantheon  at  Rome,  centrally 
lighted  from  the  sky,  may  be  cheerless;  but  St.  Peter's, 
though  no  more  abundantly  lighted  from  its  high  lu- 
nettes, is  almost  a  jubilant  place.  Unquestionably  the 
reputation  of  museums  as  mausolea  of  art,  cold  storage 
warehouses  for  their  contents  as  they  have  been  called, 


236  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

is  partly,  perhaps  wholly,  due  to  their  predominant  use 
of  top  light.  Their  usual  architectural  type  derives  indeed 
from  the  style  of  which  the  Mausoleum  of  Halicarnassus 
was  a  capital  example.  No  wonder  that  they  retain  the 
association  of  the  tomb.  But  high  side  light  is  associated 
only  with  the  most  dignified  interiors  of  all  kinds. 

The  second  answer  is  that  museums  are  after  all  asso- 
ciated with  death,  in  that  they  are  the  resurrection  places 
of  things  which  were  made  for  other  surroundings,  but 
whose  natural  life  is  ended.  The  pictures  come  from 
churches,  public  buildings  or  private  dwellings  now  de- 
stroyed or  put  to  other  uses.  The  sculptures  come  from 
architectural  monuments  now  dismembered.  The  objects 
of  minor  art  once  graced  all  the  scenes  and  occasions  of 
every  day,  from  balls  to  battlefields.  Hence  to  see  them 
as  it  was  intended  they  should  be  seen  requires  an  imag- 
inative effort,  a  detachment  from  the  here  and  now, 
and  an  immersion  in  the  there  and  then.  A  system  of 
their  lighting  which  shall  hold  away  from  us  the  distrac- 
tions of  the  present  moment,  and  enable  us  to  concentrate 
ourselves  upon  each  individual  thing  and  live  into  its 
departed  atmosphere  is  an  essential  of  good  seeing.  Far 
from  taking  the  heart  out  of  the  spectator,  windows 
which  show  him  only  treetops  or  the  sky  help  to  put  into 
him  the  heart  he  needs  to  see  them  as  they  still  may 
be  seen.  Gloom  hinders,  but  peace  of  mind  helps.  The 
Salle  de  Travail  of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  in  Paris 
is  adorned  above  the  bookshelves  with  frescoed  lunettes 
depicting  only  foliage;  and  to  lift  one's  eyes  to  these  is 
just  the  featureless  distraction  the  reader  needs.  So  Wag- 
ner, in  designing  his  theatre  at  Bayreuth,  arranged  that 
orchestra  and  audience  should  disappear  for  every  hearer, 
leaving  only  the  scene  before  him  massively  framed  like 
a  great  painting.  A  true  psychological  instinct  inspired 


GLARE    IN   MUSEUM    GALLERIES  237 

this  arrangement,  and  would  be  followed  by  museums 
that  should  raise  the  light  openings  of  their  galleries  out 
of  the  view  of  the  visitor,  without  choosing  for  them  the 
dispiriting  form  of  apertures  overhead.  "  //  y  a  deux  choses" 
wrote  La  Rochefoucauld,  "quon  ne  doit  pas  regarder 
en  face:  le  soleil  et  la  mort";  —  but  the  maxim  demands 
completion,  "excepte  en  regardant  Vun  a  travers  1'autre" 
A  mausoleum  looks  straight  at  death;  but  a  cathedral 
through  death  at  immortality:  and  a  museum,  which  does 
the  same,  may  claim  the  right  to  pattern  after  the  cathedral. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  overgrowth  in  museums 
is  as  simple  as  Columbus's  egg.  They  must  not  be  allowed 
to  become  so  large.  It  has  been  proposed  that  smaller 
museums,  each  with  its  different  scope,  should  be  scat- 
tered about  our  newer  cities  as  they  have  already  grown 
up  without  design  in  older  centres.  The  idea  of  small 
museums  is  most  attractive,  but  one  does  not  just  see 
why  the  modern  world  should  seek  to  imitate  the  chance 
result  of  former  times. 

Why  not  gather  the  museums  of  a  town,  or  most  of 
them,  together  in  its  most  favorable  spot,  keeping  them 
just  far  enough  apart  not  to  obstruct  each  other's  light, 
but  still  near  enough  together  to  be  managed,  and  on 
occasion  used,  as  one?  This  is  the  group  system  here  pro- 
posed. 

It  may  be  replied  to  this  entire  argument,  and  with 
truth,  that  apart  from  isolated  and  more  or  less  far-off 
examples,  attic  lighting,  together  with  the  multiple  scheme 
developed  from  it,  is  purely  a  theory.  The  question  then 
arises  whether  it  would  not  reward  some  museum  with 
great  expectations  to  spend  five  thousand  dollars  in  con- 
structing and  testing  an  experimental  attic-lighted  room 
as  a  premium  of  insurance  against  the  possible  waste  of 
five  million  dollars  in  unsatisfactory  buildings. 


m 

THE  SKIASCOPE 


THE  SKIASCOPE  IN  USE 

A  LONG  and  unfamiliar  name  for  a  small  and  not  un- 
familiar thing.  The  word  means  "  shadow-seer,"  the  seer 
from  and  into  shadows  (cneta,  shadow;  a/coirec*,  to  see) .  The 
skiascope  uses  looking  from  shadow  as  a  means  of  looking 
into  shadow.  It  has  been  devised  for  the  purpose  of  dem- 
onstrating a  visual  principle  not  yet  given  the  importance 
it  deserves  by  museum  people. 

For  good  seeing,  it  is  more  important  that  the  eyes  should  be  suf- 
ficiently shaded  than  that  the  object  should  be  abundantly  lighted. 

To  prove  this  principle  we  must  provide  some  means 
of  diminishing  our  field  of  view  so  that  the  eyes  are  shaded 
approximately  from  everything  except  the  object  looked 
at.  The  skiascope  does  this  in  handy  fashion,  with  the 
result  that  we  see  things  well  through  it  in  almost  any 
lighting.  The  instrument  has,  therefore,  at  once  a  prac- 
tical and  a  theoretical  value.  The  user  not  only  sees  bet- 
ter with  it  but  also  learns  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  seeing 
things  well  is  generally  glare  from  elsewhere. 


THE  SKIASCOPE  239 

In  artificial  lighting  the  importance  of  keeping  sources 
of  light  out  of  the  eyes  is  now  admitted.  The  lesson  was 
taught  conspicuously  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition, 
and  later  at  the  Statue  of  Liberty  in  New  York  Harbor. 
We  have  found  that  the  best  way  to  show  things  at  night 
is  not  to  light  them  up  in  the  old  fashion,  by  distributing 
sources  of  light  over  them  to  dispute  the  observer's  visual 
strength  with  the  objects  to  be  seen,  but  to  show  them 
in  a  glow,  which,  though  it  may  be  dimmer,  contains  no 
brilliant  points  to  deaden  the  susceptibility  of  the  eyes. 

In  natural  lighting  it  may  be  impossible  to  conceal  the 
sources  of  light :  for  example,  the  low  windows  or  the  ceil- 
ing lights  of  a  side-  or  top-lighted  museum  gallery.  An 
alternative  in  case  of  need  is  to  shade  the  visitor's  eyes; 
and  this  the  skiascope  does. 

The  instrument  consists  essentially  of  a  small,  light  box 
with  flexible  sides,  open  at  the  ends,  lined  with  black  and 
divided  longitudinally  by  a  central  black  partition;  one 
end  of  the  box  being  shaped  to  fit  closely  against  the  eyes, 
and  the  other  broadened  to  give  a  sufficient  field  of  view. 
The  flexible  sides  permit  of  shutting  the  skiascope  up 
when  not  in  use.  Wires  forming  a  handle  turn  up  out  of 
the  way,  reducing  the  instrument  to  about  the  size  of  a 
small  thin  book,  capable  of  being  carried  in  a  good -sized 
pocket. 

Eye-shades  of  various  forms  are  common.  The  skia- 
scope is  a  novelty  only  in  the  handy  way  in  which  it  re- 
stricts the  observer's  view  to  a  small  part  of  the  normal 
field  of  vision.  At  a  distance  of  six  or  eight  feet  from  a 
wall  he  sees  only  a  patch  of  it  perhaps  four  feet  high  and 
three  feet  broad.  If  the  space  between  two  adjacent  win- 
dows of  a  side-lighted  room  is  not  too  narrow,  he  can 
inspect  an  object  hung  between  them  without  getting  the 
glare  from  either.  The  view  of  an  object  so  placed  which 


240  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  skiascope  gives  is  a  revelation.  Generally,  the  window 
wall  of  a  gallery  is  regarded  as  so  much  space  lost  for  seri- 
ous exhibition  purposes;  or  at  best  as  appropriate  only 
for  things  not  needing,  perhaps  not  deserving,  to  be  seen 
in  detail.  The  skiascope  makes  the  space  on  a  window  wall 
as  valuable  within  limits  as  any.  A  window  wall  is  lighted 
(unless  there  is  cross-lighting)  only  indirectly  and  by  re- 
flection from  the  rest  of  the  room;  but  this  illumination 
proves  in  most  cases  quite  enough.  Not  lack  of  light  but 
lack  of  sight  accounts  for  its  unavailability  to  the  un- 
shielded eye. 

But  the  value  of  an  eye-shade  like  the  skiascope  is  not 
confined  to  window  walls.  Raising  it  to  the  eyes  in  a  top- 
lighted  gallery,  a  noticeably  deeper  tone  spreads  over  the 
pictures,  and  accentuated  lights  and  shadows  appear  on 
the"  sculptures.  We  realize  that  generally  the  fraction  of 
ceiling  light  within  our  view  and  perhaps  also  illuminated 
parts  of  walls  and  floors,  have  robbed  the  canvases  and 
marbles  of  a  share  of  their  designed  effectiveness. 

The  museum  use  of  an  eye-shade,  however  handy,  will 
doubtless  always  be  a  restricted  one.  For  the  occasional 
advantages  it  gives,  people  will  hardly  care  to  burden 
themselves  with  an  apparatus  conspicuous  in  use  and  need- 
ing to  be  carried  about.  Yet  in  galleries  abroad  the  old- 
fashioned  tubular  eye-shades  are  sometimes  handed  visi- 
tors for  use  in  inspecting  individual  masterpieces.  In 
certain  galleries  skiascopes  might,  it  would  seem,  be  added 
to  the  facilities,  such  as  chairs  and  catalogues,  offered  for 
the  visitor's  comfort  and  information.  When  not  in  use, 
the  skiascope  might  hang  at  the  doorways.  Specially  in- 
terested persons  would  certainly  appreciate  an  aid  to 
good  seeing;  and  the  offer  of  it  would  give  the  museum  a 
wider  freedom  in  the  use  for  exhibition  purposes  of  any 
parts  of  the  interior  particularly  subject  to  glare. 


THE  SKIASCOPE 


241 


The  theoretic  value  of  the  skiascope  is  incontestable. 
The  demonstration  it  gives  that  avoidance  of  glare  in  the 
visitor's  eyes  is  a  prime  necessity  in  museum  planning 
and  installation  will  surely  in  future  lead  to  the  adoption 
of  means  to  minimize  the  evil.  The  skiascope  is  here 
offered  as  a  factor  in  an  anti-glare  propaganda. 


THE  SKIASCOPE  CLOSED 


As  the  skiascope  will  very  likely  never  become  a  commercial 
proposition,  it  may  be  of  use  to  describe  its  make  and  making 
in  detail. 


Parts 

1 .  Two  pieces  of  three-sixteenths  inch  board  six  and  one  half 
inches  long  by  five  inches  wide,  one  end  shaped  as  shown  (full 
size  for  convenience  of  tracing)  in  Figures  1  and  1  bis.   Each  is 
stained  oak  on  one  side  and  the  edges.   These  are  respectively 
the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces  of  the  instrument.  The  forehead 
piece  has  two  grooves,  one  sixteenth  inch  deep,  on  the  raw  side, 
and  the  cheek  piece  one,  as  shown. 

2.  A  piece  of  black  flannel,  not  too  heavy,  shaped  as  shown  in 
Figure  2.  This  makes  the  flexible  sides,  the  middle  partition  and 
the  lining  of  forehead  and  cheek  pieces. 

3.  Two   wire   attachments    (size    14)    forming   together   the 
handle  of  the  skiascope,  shaped  as  shown  in  Figure  3.  The  three 
ends  of  these  wires  are  secured  in  the  grooves  of  the  boards  by 
minute  staples  driven  through  and  clinched. 


Q 

2* 


\/ 


THE   SKIASCOPE 


245 


Construction 

4.  The  pair  of  lining  blocks  each  shaped  as  in  Figure  4  and 
with  three-sixteenths  inch  central  holes  from  end  to  end  are  used 
as  forms  over  which  to  stretch  into  position  the  flannel  lining  of 


the  instrument  while  it  is  being  cut  and  glued  together  as  here- 
after described;  and  also  later  in  glueing  the  forehead  and 
cheek  pieces  to  the  lining. 

5.  The  bed-block  shaped  as  shown  in  Figure  5  is  used  in  glue- 
ing the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces  to  the  lining  when  this  is 


o  3" 


formed  up  over  the  lining  blocks.  It  brings  the  upper  surface  of 
the  lining  blocks  to  a  level  position  in  order  to  hold  a  weight  or 
clamps  conveniently. 


246 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


6.  The  two  wire  clamps,  each  shaped  as  shown  in  Figure  6, 
are  used  in  the  process  of  covering  the  lining  blocks  with  the 
flannel  used  as  lining  in  order  to  hold  them  closely  together  as 


hereafter  described.  The  two  prongs  of  one  are  inserted  into 
the  central  holes  of  the  larger  ends  of  the  two  blocks  and  those 
of  the  other  into  the  holes  at  the  smaller  ends. 

To  form  up  the  lining 

Cut  a  piece  of  the  flannel  somewhat  larger  than  the  pattern 
shown  in  Figure  2:  as  there  indicated  by  dotted  lines.  Flannel 
being  a  stretchy  material,  the  attempt  to  fit  it  if  previously  cut 
according  to  the  pattern  is  likely  to  give  trouble.    Flannel  is 
chosen  rather  than  any  stiff  material  for  the  less  disturbing  lines 
with  which  it  frames  the  field  of  view.  Cut  a  piece  off  the  flannel 
along  the  line  AB.   With  a  red  crayon  draw  a  line  on  the  flan- 
nel parallel  to  and  half  an  inch  back  of  the  line  AB.   Fasten  the 
flannel  along  this  line  to  one  edge  of  one  of 
3 ''  the  rectangular  sides  of  one  of  the  lining 

blocks  with  a  few  thumb  tacks.  The  small 
end  of  the  block  should  lie  toward  A,  the 
large  end  toward  B.  Wrap  the  block  tightly 
in  the  flannel.  When  wholly  covered  with 
one  thickness,  place  the  other  lining  block 
against  the  covered  block,  small  end  to 
small  end,  and  its  rectangular  sides  in  a 
plane  with  the  rectangular  sides  of  the  covered  block.  Insert 
the  two  clamps  in  the  two  ends  of  the  blocks,  thus  fastening 
them  firmly  together.  Now,  with  the  rest  of  the  flannel,  cover 


THE  SKIASCOPE  247 

the  second  block  tightly,  securing  it  at  the  last  edge  reached 
by  another  set  of  thumb  tacks.  The  flannel  being  larger  than 
the  pattern  will  lap  over  the  ends  of  the  blocks  and  more  than 
cover  the  last  face  of  the  second  block.  Trim  off  the  superfluous 
flannel  at  the  four  edges  of  both  ends  and  also  at  the  last  edge 
secured  by  the  thumb  tacks,  leaving  here  also  a  border  half 
an  inch  wide  as  on  the  front  edge  AB.  Now,  glue  the  two  flannel 
borders  down,  letting  the  glue  run  closely  along  the  interstice 
between  the  blocks.  This  secures  the  line  CD  of  the  finished 
lining  shown  in  Figure  2  to  the  line  C'D'  in  that  figure,  and  the 
line  EF  to  the  line  E'F'.  When  the  glue  has  set  under  pressure, 
remove  the  thumb  tacks.  With  pieces  of  pasteboard  cut  to  the 
two  lining  curves  shown  by  dotted  lines  in  Figures  1  and  1  bis, 
mark  out  these  curves  in  red  crayon  at  the  smaller  end  of  the 
covered  blocks,  now  secured  together,  one  curve  on  each  rec- 
tangular face.  Run  the  crayon  also  along  all  four  longitudinal 
edges  of  the  covered  double  block.  This  is  necessary  because 
the  lining  must  be  taken  off  the  double  block  to  be  further  cut 
and  needs  to  be  replaced  in  exactly  the  same  position  for  the 
final  glueing  on  of  the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces.  Now  take 
the  clamps  out  of  the  blocks  and  slip  the  lining  from  them. 
Then,  at  the  larger  end  of  the  lining,  cut  the  central  partition 
away  from  the  top  (forehead  face)  and  bottom  (cheek  face)  of 
the  lining  to  a  point  one  and  a  half  inches  from  the  end.  Then, 
cut  straight  across  the  central  partition  from  the  end  of  one  of 
the  previous  cuts  to  the  end  of  the  other.  Repeat  the  process  at 
the  small  end  of  the  lining,  with  this  difference:  the  cut  along 
the  top  (forehead  face)  of  the  lining  should  extend  to  a  point 
one  and  three  eighths  inches  from  the  end,  and  the  cut  along 
the  bottom  (cheek  face)  to  a  point  two  and  one  eighth  inches 
from  the  end.  After  the  central  partition  has  thus  been  cut 
away  at  both  ends,  cut  out  the  lunettes  marked  out  in  red  crayon 
on  each  face  of  the  lining.  Carefully  replacing  the  lining  blocks 
in  the  lining  and  clamping  them  and  seeing  that  the  ends  and 
the  marked  edges  are  exactly  in  place,  put  the  whole  on  the 
bed-block  as  shown  in  Figure  5  in  readiness  for  the  final  glue- 
ing on  of  the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces. 

To  glue  on  the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces 

As  the  wires  in  the  grooves  project  slightly  above  the  surface 
of  the  forehead  and  cheek  pieces,  it  is  well  to  have  two  shallow 
grooves  in  corresponding  places  on  that  side  of  the  lining  blocks 
to  which  the  forehead  piece  is  to  be  glued  and  one  on  the  other 


248  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

side.  Mark  out  the  lining  curve  which  appears  on  the  upper 
face  of  the  covered  block  on  the  wired  side  of  the  corresponding 
forehead  or  cheek  piece.  Spread  an  even  coat  of  glue,  neither  too 
thin  nor  too  thick,  over  the  whole  wired  surface  up  to  the  lining 
curve  and  place  this  piece  upon  the  covered  double  lining  block, 
taking  care  that  it  is  exactly  in  place.  Turn  the  whole  over  on 
the  bed-block  and  glue  the  other  piece  to  the  other  flannel  sur- 
face of  the  lining  in  the  same  way.  When  the  glue  has  set,  re- 
move the  weight  or  clamps  used  in  the  process,  take  out  the  lin- 
ing blocks  and  trim  out  the  strip  of  flannel  which  forms  the 
lunette  and  which  has  been  left  as  a  stay.  The  skiascope  is 
then  finished.  If  the  pressure  has  forced  some  of  the  glue 
through  the  flannel  and  caused  it  to  stick  to  the  blocks,  they 
may  be  freed  by  carefully  inserting  a  thin  knife.  But  much 
the  better  way  is  to  Insert  strips  of  paraffin  paper  in  advance 
between  the  lining  blocks  and  the  flannel.  The  glue  will  not 
penetrate  the  paper  strips,  and  they  can  easily  be  removed 
after  removing  the  blocks. 


Ill 

INSTALLATION 
THE  IDEAL  OF  RESTFUL  INSPECTION 


Ill 

INSTALLATION 
THE  IDEAL   OF  RESTFUL  INSPECTION 


MUSEUM  FATIGUE1 

THE  museum  in  which  the  photographs  here  reproduced 
were  taken  no  longer  exists;  but  the  conditions  depicted 
are  still  well-nigh  universal.  The  museum  was  the  first 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston,  of  which  the  present 
great  structure  on  the  Fenway  became  in  1909  the  suc- 
cessor. The  conditions  are  those  resulting  from  the  type 
of  museum  case  and  of  museum  installation  widely  ac- 
cepted as  standards  among  us. 

The  photographs  were  taken  with  the  object  of  deter- 
mining by  actual  observation  just  what  kinds  and  amount 
of  muscular  effort  are  demanded  of  the  visitor  who  en- 
deavors to  see  exhibits  as  museum  authorities  plan  to 
have  them  seen.  "Museum  fatigue"  is  an  admitted  evil, 
hitherto  tacitly  accepted  as  admitting  only  relief.  May 
not  a  study  of  how  it  comes  about  suggest  some  means 
of  prevention? 

The  method  adopted  in  the  inquiry  was  the  following. 
A  series  of  simple  questions  was  devised  relating  to  cer- 
tain objects  mostly  installed  at  higher  or  lower  levels  and 
in  cases;  and  an  observer  was  photographed  in  the  act  of 
answering  them.  The  observer,  an  intelligent  man  with 
good  eye-sight,  and  well  accustomed  to  museums  and  their 
contents,  was  instructed  to  answer  the  questions  with  the 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Scientific  Monthly,  January,  1916. 


252  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

least  possible  exertion  and  to  hold  the  positions  he  needed 
to  assume  for  the  purpose  until  he  could  be  photographed. 

The  pictures  obtained  indicate  that  an  inordinate 
amount  of  physical  effort  is  demanded  of  the  ideal  visitor 
by  the  present  methods  in  which  we  offer  most  objects  to 
his  inspection.  It  is  at  once  evident  that  these  methods 
form  an  effective  bar  to  the  adequate  fulfilment  by  mu- 
seums of  the  public  function  they  aim  to  perform.  Not 
even  the  hardiest  sight-seer  will  long  go  through  with  the 
contortions  which  the  pictures  indicate  are  needed  for  any 
comprehension  of  much  of  what  we  display  to  him.  After 
a  brief  initial  exertion  he  will  resign  himself  to  seeing 
practically  everything  imperfectly  and  by  a  passing  glance. 
If  the  public  is  to  gain  more  than  a  minute  fraction  of  the 
good  from  museum  exhibits  which  is  theirs  to  give  and 
which  now  can  be  gained  by  the  private  student,  radical 
changes  in  our  methods  of  exhibition  are  imperative.  As 
at  present  installed,  the  contents  of  our  museums  are  in 
large  part  only  preserved,  not  shown. 

Indeed,  we  may  even  go  further  and  claim  that  in  some 
proportion  of  the  objects  put  on  public  view  in  every  mu- 
seum the  qualities  for  which  they  are  shown  are  rendered 
wholly  invisible  by  the  way  they  are  shown.  They  are  so 
placed  and  in  such  lighting  that  it  is  a  physical  impossi- 
bility by  any  exertion  of  limb  or  eye  to  descry  the  partic- 
ular characteristics  to  which  they  owe  their  selection  for 
show.  This  is  literally  an  absurd  state  of  things;  yet  there 
would  be  little  risk  in  offering  to  point  out  to  any  museum 
curator  objects  so  concealed  by  their  installation  in  his 
own  museum. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  proportion  of  the  objects  in  every 
museum  may  be  adequately  seen  without  any  marked 
exertion.  These  are  the  instances  in  which  objects  are 
installed  approximately  on  a  level  with  and  near  to  the 


MUSEUM  FATIGUE  253 

eye  of  the  visitor  as  he  stands  upright  before  them.  They 
constitute  a  minor  fraction  of  museum  installations,  and 
are  not  represented  in  the  accompanying  illustrations. 
Our  present  purpose  is  to  inquire  into  the  larger  pro- 
portion of  instances  in  which  adequate  seeing  demands 
exertion. 

The  questions  and  answers  here  follow,  grouped  ac- 
cording to  the  types  of  attitude  represented  in  the  illus- 
trations. The  cases  called  floor  cases  are  from  six  to  seven 
feet  high,  two  and  one  half  to  three  feet  broad,  five  feet 
long,  with  a  main  floor  at  about  thirty  inches  from  the 
ground,  and  supported  either  on  legs  or  on  a  closed  lower 
compartment. 

These  pictures  indicate  that  the  principal  sources  of 
that  part  of  museum  fatigue  which  comes  from  muscular 
effort  to  see  objects  well  are  two:  (1)  low  installations  in 
upright  cases;  (2)  broad  installations  in  flat  or  desk  cases. 
High  installation  may  put  objects  out  of  sight,  but  is  a 
minor  source  of  fatigue;  while  to  bring  the  eye  within  seeing 
distance  of  low  shelves  is  apt  to  demand  bending  the  knees; 
and  the  effort  to  see  objects  at  the  back  of  wide  desk  or 
flat  cases  requires  bending  at  the  hips.  The  pictures  in- 
dicate further  two  ways  in  which  objects  may  be  exhib- 
ited in  museum  cases  so  as  to  make  invisible  some  or  all 
of  the  features  which  warrant  their  exhibition.  They  may, 
first,  be  concealed  in  part  by  others.  They  may,  second, 
be  placed  too  far  back  from  the  glass  to  be  seen  in  the 
necessary  detail.  The  effort  of  the  eye  muscles  cannot 
be  directly  shown  in  pictures,  but  is  evidently  consider- 
able and  may  be  hopeless. 

The  inferences  are  that  museum  fatigue  would  be 
greatly  helped  were  upright  cases  to  stand  higher,  flat  and 
desk  cases  to  be  made  narrower,  and  all  cases  shallower 
from  front  to  back.  This 'shallowing  would  put  an  end  to 


254  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

the  concealment  of  one  object  by  another  by  putting  an 
end  to  the  exhibition  of  multiple  rows  of  objects  on  the 
same  shelf.  All  cases  would  be  single  row  cases.  The  shal- 
lowing would  further  bring  all  the  contents  of  a  case  within 
the  limits  of  close  scrutiny.  These  inferences  from  the 
present  experiment  may  be  made  more  precise  by  others 
based  on  measurements  of  the  human  body  and  of  the 
contents  of  museum  shelves.  Estimating  the  height  of  the 
average  visitor  at  sixty-three  inches,  his  eye  will  be  about 
sixty  inches  above  the  floor  and  his  hip  joint  about  thirty- 
eight  or  thirty-nine  inches.  For  the  minutest  inspection 
of  a  work  of  art,  as  for  reading  fine  print,  the  eye  should 
not  be  more  than  about  twelve  inches  from  it.  The  dis- 
tance forward  of  a  perpendicular  from  the  feet,  to  which 
the  eye  may  easily  be  carried  by  bending  the  body  from 
the  hips,  is  not  over  about  fifteen  inches.  Of  the  objects 
commonly  preserved  in  cases  in  our  museums,  but  a  small 
fraction,  perhaps  hardly  more  than  a  twentieth,  are  over 
twelve  inches  in  diameter.  Of  objects  of  the  nature  of 
ornamented  surfaces  in  frames  or  settings,  or  otherwise 
needing  to  be  seen  only  on  one  side,  but  a  smaller  propor- 
tion are  more  than  two  or  three  inches  from  front  to  back. 
From  these  figures  approximate  dimensions  for  cases 
which  shall  reduce  the  muscular  effort  of  good  seeing  to 
a  minimum  may  be  deduced  as  follows :  The  lowest  exhi- 
bition level  for  case  objects  should  not  be  more  than 
eighteen  inches  below  the  average  eye,  or  forty-two  inches 
from  the  ground  instead  of  thirty  inches  or  less,  as  often 
at  present.  This  would  be  the  indicated  height  for  the 
bottom  of  upright  cases  and  the  front  level  of  desk  or  flat 
cases.  The  use  of  the  base  compartment  of  cases  for  ex- 
hibition should  be  given  up.  The  breadth  of  flat  cases 
should  not  be  greater  than  about  eighteen  inches,  in- 
stead of  twenty-eight  inches  or  more  as  at  present.  Desk 


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MUSEUM  FATIGUE  265 

(inclined)  cases  may  be  somewhat  wider.  Beyond  these  lim- 
its the  eye  cannot  easily  be  brought  within  close  seeing 
distance  of  the  back  of  the  case.  The  depth  of  flat  or  desk 
cases  from  the  glass  to  the  bottom  should  not  be  greater 
than  from  two  to  four  inches,  instead  of  from  six  to 
twelve  inches  as  at  present.  A  depth  from  front  to  back 
of  four  inches  would  often  also  suffice  for  wall  cases,  in- 
stead of  from  sixteen  to  twenty -four  inches  as  at  present. 
Six  inches  might  be  regarded  as  their  maximum  supposing 
them  used  to  receive  only  objects  seen  to  full  advantage 
from  one  side.  The  depth  of  upright  floor  cases  from  front 
to  back  should  not  exceed  twelve  inches.  A  smaller  stand- 
ard depth  of  eight  inches  would  probably  also  be  found 
useful.  Upright  floor  cases  or  wall  cases  might  be  seventy- 
eight  inches  high  instead  of  one  hundred  or  more  as  at 
present.  It  is  true  the  bottom  of  an  object  twelve  inches 
high  installed  at  the  top  of  such  a  case  with  three  inches 
above  to  spare  would  be  three  inches  above  the  average 
eye,  and  the  top  fifteen  inches.  But  since,  on  the  twelve- 
inch  shelf  assumed,  all  parts  of  the  object  would  be  within 
six  inches  of  the  glass,  it  would  all  be  within  practicable 
seeing  distance,  although  only  the  lower  part  could  be 
closely  examined. 

The  stability  of  floor  cases  a  foot  or  less  in  breadth  and 
six  feet  six  inches  high  would  require  to  be  secured  by 
special  means.  If  the  legs  were  perpendicular,  they  would 
need  to  be  fastened  to  the  floor,  otherwise  they  would 
need  a  wider  bearing  by  extended  feet;  or  a  removable 
bar  at  the  top  of  the  case  connecting  it  with  another  might 
be  given  a  design  in  harmony  with  their  framing  and  join 
the  two  into  a  stable  pair. 

One  result  of  the  use  of  shallower  cases  would  be  that 
there  would  be  less  waste  space  within  them.  At  present 
the  space  within  a  floor  case  of  the  usual  broad  dimensions 


266  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

is  only  very  partially  used.  The  exhibit  is  generally  ar- 
ranged in  a  pyramidal  form  of  which  the  lower  levels  are 
seen  against  the  successive  steps  of  an  interior  pedestal 
and  only  the  top  row  is  shown  above  it  and  can  be  seen  on 
all  sides.  All  the  space  above  the  lower  rows  of  objects  is 
empty.  In  the  narrow  case  proposed  there  would  be  in 
general  no  pedestal,  but  shelves  alone.  There  would  be  no 
empty  space  above  any  row  of  objects  and  every  object 
would  be  visible  from  all  sides.  Since  a  larger  number  of 
cases  could  be  placed  in  a  given  area,  another  result  would 
be  that  a  greater  proportion  of  museum  objects  would  be 
exposed  to  view  on  all  sides.  An  economy  of  case-space 
would  be  coupled  with  a  completer  showing  of  case- 
contents. 

Such  changes  would  make  a  radical  difference  in  the 
appearance  of  museum  galleries.  They  would  be  fitted 
with  a  number  of  small  cases,  very  shallow  and  standing 
but  not  reaching  high,  instead  of  a  few  large  ones,  broad, 
set  low  and  rising  higher.  Wall  cases  would  shrink  to  one 
quarter  their  present  depth,  upright  floor  cases  to  one  third 
their  present  depth  and  to  a  less  average  height,  and  desk 
and  flat  cases  to  three  quarters  their  width  and  one  third 
their  vertical  depth.  Delicate,  instead  of  heavy,  construc- 
tion would  be  the  rule.  The  exhibits  would  be  shown 
spaced  and  unobstructed  instead  of  grouped  into  decora- 
tive pyramids  or  serried  ranks.  The  small  fraction  of 
objects  which  are  over  twelve  inches  in  diameter  would  be 
installed  either  in  the  open  or  each  in  its  separate  case. 

Nevertheless,  there  would  remain  opportunity  within 
the  cases  for  the  more  or  less  advantageous  showing  of 
more  or  less  meritorious  objects.  The  upright  cases  on  the 
floor  and  the  wall  would  still  have  a  piano  nobile,  or  main 
level,  in  the  space  directly  opposite  the  eye.  Between  a 
bottom  at  forty -two  inches  above  the  floor  and  a  top  at 


MUSEUM  FATIGUE  267 

seventy-eight  inches,  there  would  be  thirty-six  inches  of 
space  which,  if  divided  by  two  shelves  giving  three  spaces 
of  about  a  foot  each,  would  offer  three  gradations  of  prom- 
inence: first,  the  middle  at  fifty-four  to  sixty-six  inches, 
because  seen  without  effort  by  the  average  eye  at  sixty 
inches;  second,  the  lowest,  because  perfectly  seen  at  forty- 
two  to  fifty -four  inches  by  inclining  the  body  a  few  inches; 
and  third,  the  uppermost,  from  sixty-six  to  seventy-eight 
inches,  because  seen  simply  by  raising  the  glance,  although 
inaccessible  to  the  closest  inspection.  If  divided  by  a  cen- 
tral shelf  at  sixty  inches,  the  upper  space  of  eighteen  inches 
would  be  the  piano  nobile,  because  the  lower  and  generally 
more  important  part  of  the  object  would  be  open  to  close 
inspection  without  fatigue.  On  the  under  shelf,  only  the 
upper  and  generally  less  important  part  of  an  object  could 
be  studied  without  bending. 

In  cases  such  as  these  museums  would,  for  the  first 
time,  possess  veritable  show  cases.  Hitherto  these  in- 
dispensable protective  devices  have  in  reality  been  glazed 
storage  chests  valuable  primarily  for  their  capacity.  Their 
wide  shelving  with  double  or  triple  or  multiple  rows  of 
objects  is  a  survival  from  the  days  when  museums  were 
thought  of  as  magazines  where  things  were  kept  in  safety 
ready  for  inspection  when  needed.  Such  shelving  has  no 
real  place  in  these  days  of  serious  attempts  to  deal  with 
the  problems  of  public  show. 

The  present  argument  is  not  the  first  that  has  been 
offered  in  support  of  narrow  cases;  nor  are  they  unknown 
in  newer  museum  installations.  Mr.  Lewis  Foreman  Day 
wrote  a  few  years  ago:  "Museum  cases  are  nearly  always 
too  big  —  and  especially  they  are  much  too  wide."  One 
argument  against  deep  cases  is,  "that  the  things  at  the 
back  of  them  (and  in  the  centre  of  square  cases)  are  re- 
duced to  background.  Another  is,  you  cannot  get  close 


268  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

enough  to  see  things  properly.  .  .  .  Think  what  a  big  vase 
you  can  put  on  a  mantel-piece  from  nine  to  twelve  inches 
wide,  and  you  will  realize  how  seldom  it  is  necessary  to 
have  cases  much  wider  than  that.  .  .  .  Some  of  the  cases 
at  Munich  are  not  more  than  nine  inches  deep,  and  it  is 
astonishing  the  size  of  the  objects  they  hold."  * 

The  smaller  shelf-widths  which  Mr.  Day  notes  at 
Munich  have  come  into  occasional  use  also  in  other  mu- 
seums, American  and  foreign.  In  Boston  the  show-space 
tends  also  to  be  set  higher. 

The  reduction  in  the  cubic  contents  of  museum  cases 
here  advocated,  in  harmony  with  Mr.  Day's  suggestion 
and  newer  practice,  is  the  second  radical  improvement  in 
these  fixtures  since  public  museums  were  instituted.  The 
first  is  an  improvement  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mu- 
seum; the. second  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  visitor. 
The  device  known  in  Europe  as  the  Reichenberger  case 
(due  to  Dr.  Gustav  E.  Pazaurek,  Director  at  the  time  of 
the  North  Bohemian  Museum  of  Industrial  Art),  and  in 
America  as  the  Boston  case  (independently  invented  with 
a  different  mechanism  by  Mr.  W.  W.  MacLean  of  the 
Boston  Museum),  consists  in  opening  a  case  by  lifting  its 
top  with  a  windlass  instead  of  unlocking  its  doors  with  a 
key.  This  was  a  proposal  in  the  interest  of  the  security  of 
the  contents  from  dust,  damp,  and  theft.  The  reduction 
of  the  size  and  particularly  of  the  depth  of  cases  is  a  pro- 
posal in  the  interest  of  the  easy  visibility  of  their  contents. 
By  making  also  this  second  advance  in  the  construction 
of  these  necessary  fixtures,  the  museum  would  be  in  a  po- 
sition to  fulfil  more  perfectly  both  of  its  essential  functions, 
first  as  guardian  and  then  as  expositor  of  the  treasures 
committed  to  its  charge. 

1  Lewis  Foreman  Day,  F.S.A.,  "How  to  Make  the  Most  of  a  Museum,"  Jour- 
nal of  the  Society  of  Arts  (January  10,  1908),  p.  153/. 


MUSEUM  FATIGUE  269 

The  use  of  smaller  cases  has  for  a  corollary  a  reduction 
in  the  number  of  objects  shown  simultaneously.  It  would 
be  another  step  in  the  pathway  which  modern  museums 
have  already  entered  upon  in  dividing  their  contents  into 
show  and  study  series  and  in  alternating  objects  between 
the  two.  The  era  of  smaller  and  changing  exhibits  is  also 
an  era  of  better  exhibition. 


riV  V, 


i   ' 


A  MUSEUM  TABOURET 


II 
SEATS  AS  PREVENTIVES  OF  FATIGUE 

WE  are  at  sea  on  the  question  of  the  best  way  to  provide 
seats  in  a  museum  until  we  catch  sight  of  the  truth  that 
their  foremost  office  is  not  to  restore  from  fatigue,  but  to 
prevent  its  advent.  They  are  most  useful,  not  when  they 
afford  the  greatest  ease  and  when  they  most  exempt  the 
visitor  from  the  temptation  to  go  on  examining  things, 
but  when  they  afford  just  enough  ease  to  make  it  comfort- 
able to  go  on  looking  and  are  conveniently  distributed 
among  the  exhibits  for  this  purpose.  Do  we  attend  plays 
and  concerts  to  stand  up  during  the  performance  and  sit 
down  during  the  entr'acte  ?  Is  not  the  reverse  the  case? 
Why,  then,  should  we  go  to  see  pictures  and  statues  ex- 
pecting to  stand  while  looking  at  them  and  sit  down  when 
nature  demands  an  interval  of  rest?  To  come  into  the 
clear  about  the  proper  kind  and  placing  of  seats  in  mu- 
seums, we  must  get  rid  of  this  exclusively  therapeutic 
theory  of  their  office  and  take  up  the  prophylactic  theory 
generally  adopted  when  we  inspect  works  of  art  elsewhere. 
People  have  long  thought  prevention  better  than  cure;  but 


SEATS  AS  PREVENTIVES  OF  FATIGUE        271 

have  neglected  the  patent  opportunity  to  apply  the  maxim 
which  the  fatigues  of  museum  visits  offer.  To  embrace 
this  opportunity  is  to  work  for  efficiency  in  exhibition: 
the  next  forward  step  in  museum  management,  succeed- 
ing the  epoch  when  immensity  and  multifarity  of  exhibits 
were  the  aims  heedlessly  sought.  In  this  limited,  but  all- 
important  matter  of  provision  to  keep  the  perceptive 
powers  of  visitors  in  all  possible  freshness,  we  must  see  to 
it  that  seats  should  in  the  main  be  supports  rather  than 
lounging  places  and  should  be  abundantly  distributed 
where  exhibits  can  be  adequately  seen  from  them. 

The  seats  customarily  provided  in  museums  meet 
neither  of  these  requirements.  They  are  apt  to  be  cush- 
ioned ottomans  inviting  to  repose;  and  to  be  so  placed 
either  in  the  centre  of  galleries  or  along  walls  that  nothing 
but  a  general  view  of  the  exhibits  can  be  obtained  from 
them.  So  placed  they  have  their  manifest  use.  Yet  the 
positions  chosen  are  often  such  that  sitting  down  one  be- 
comes a  cynosure;  when  one  wants  and  ought  to  remain 
a  neighboring  eye. 

The  failure  hitherto  of  museums  to  regard  seats  as 
means  preventive  of  fatigue  has  a  very  evident  cause.  We 
do  not  stand  up  during  concerts  or  plays  because  they 
can  be  easily  brought  before  our  ears  and  eyes  as  we  sit. 
We  do  stand  up  generally  in  looking  at  museum  exhibits 
because  we  must  wander  among  them  to  see  them.  But 
this  handicap  on  museums  need  not  prevent  their  pro- 
vision of  seats  in  convenient  positions  for  looking  at 
chosen  objects;  nor  the  provision  of  movable  seats  for 
the  use  of  those  who  may  wish  to  make  their  own  choice 
of  what  they  shall  see  at  their  ease.  There  must  be  def- 
inite efforts  in  two  directions:  first,  the  provision  of  a 
new  unit  of  exhibition  consisting  of  exhibit  plus  seat  from 
which  to  inspect  it  in  comfort;  second,  the  provision  of 


272  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

easily  movable  seats  scattered  among  the  exhibits  in  such 
a  way  as  to  permit  of  their  use  at  will  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. 

Unless  by  rare  exception  these  simple  expedients  have 
as  yet  never  been  attempted  in  museums;  another  in- 
stance of  the  rudimentary  stage  in  which  the  art  of 
public  exhibition  yet  lingers.  The  discussion,  therefore, 
cannot  yet  appeal  to  experience;  and  the  immediate 
task  is  that  of  suggestions  toward  reducing  theory  to 
practice. 

The  establishment  of  the  new  unit  of  exhibition  —  an 
exhibit  plus  a  seat  —  apparently  would  call  for  a  consider- 
able modification  of  existing  methods  of  arranging  cases. 
The  unit  must  be  so  placed  as  not  to  obstruct  the  free 
passage  of  other  visitors.  This  demands  space  and  an 
outlying  position,  either  central  or  along  a  wall.  The 
position  along  a  wall  has  the  advantage  of  possible  near- 
ness to  a  window  in  the  wall  and  suggests  the  possibility 
of  lowering  its  sill  so  as  to  give  light  both  stronger  and 
more  pleasantly  directed.  Nevertheless,  an  almost  in- 
superable objection  exists  to  the  use  of  low  side  light  in 
museums,  in  the  dazzling  and  often  insupportable  glare, 
direct  and  reflected,  which  it  throws  into  the  eyes  of  visi- 
tors moving  about.  It  is  evident  that  any  low  window 
used  for  lighting  the  proposed  unit  must  be  alcoved  or 
otherwise  prevented  from  destroying  the  visibility  of 
other  objects  beside  that  shown  in  the  unit. 

Movable  seats  in  museums  are  commonly  provided  in 
the  form  of  chairs  arranged  along  walls  or  placed  in  groups 
in  the  centres  of  galleries.  The  arrangement  along  walls 
presupposes  either  that  the  visitor  will  be  willing,  for  pur- 
poses of  rest,  to  make  himself  an  animate  exhibit,  or  will 
take  the  trouble  and  has  the  assurance  to  move  the  chair. 
This  presupposition  attributes  more  initiative  and  more 


SEATS   AS   PREVENTIVES  OF  FATIGUE        273 

boldness  to  visitors  than  most  possess.  The  chairs,  more- 
over, are  apt  to  be  heavier  than  can  conveniently  be  moved. 
Their  usefulness  along  walls  may  therefore  be  regarded 
as  minimal;  and  experience  confirms  this  judgment.  Cen- 
tral in  a  room,  the  backs  of  chairs  are  conspicuous  and 
may  interfere  with  the  view  of  objects  among  which  they 
are  placed.  What  is  wanted  in  the  way  of  movable  seats 
is  some  form  of  tabouret  or  chair  without  a  back.  This 
would  at  once  be  lighter  and  less  conspicuous.  It  would 
also  be  less  restful ;  but  if  what  we  seek  is  a  means  of  fore- 
stalling fatigue  rather  than  recovering  from  it,  tabourets 
need  not  be  condemned  on  this  account.  Further,  it  is 
the  backs  of  chairs  that  suggest  the  absurd  plan  of  ar- 
ranging them  along  walls  where  no  ordinarily  constituted 
person  would  ever  want  to  use  them.  Seats  without 
backs,  or  tabourets,  are  equally  in  place  in  any  part  of  the 
room.  Moreover,  in  a  room  like  a  museum  gallery  which 
is  apt  to  contain  more  or  fewer  show  cases  standing  on 
legs,  a  place  offers  itself  under  the  cases  for  storing  the 
tabourets  when  not  in  use.  So  put  away,  they  would  be 
near  at  hand  when  needed,  while  practically  out  of  sight 
meanwhile.  Doubtless  it  would  take  years  for  museum 
visitors  to  become  as  accustomed  to  finding  and  making 
use  of  tabourets  under  cases  as  they  now  are  to  other  mu- 
seum appliances,  such  as  catalogues  or  labels.  Perhaps 
the  guardians  in  the  galleries  would  have  to  offer  them  at 
first,  or  perhaps  an  occasional  placard  would  suffice  to 
make  visitors  aware  of  the  new  facility.  The  plan  seems 
on  the  face  of  it  worth  trying,  particularly  if  some  make 
of  tabouret  could  be  found  that  would  at  once  be  light 
and  strong.  A  form  consisting  of  a  willow  or  rattan  seat 
shaped  like  an  hour-glass  suggests  itself.  That  pictured 
at  the  head  of  this  article  has  been  tried  with  good  results 
at  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston.  It  is  two  feet  high 


274  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

and  weighs  but  four  pounds.1  Such  tabourets  could  by 
staining  be  given  any  color  that  the  tone  of  the  gallery 
demands.  It  would  be  the  guardians'  duty  to  replace  them 
under  the  cases,  or  elsewhere,  after  use. 

The  part  of  wisdom  would  seem  to  be  to  add  these  two 
new  provisions  for  rest  —  the  unit  of  exhibit  plus  seat  and 
the  movable  seat  or  tabouret  —  to  the  settees,  benches,  and 
chairs  already  in  use.  These  latter  have  their  indispen- 
sable office  also  as  places  of  rest  and  reflection  upon  what 
has  gone  or  is  coming.  But  used  thus  they  answer  only  a 
third  of  the  need  they  were  intended  to  meet. 

The  question  of  seats  in  museums  has  an  important 
bearing  upon  one  of  the  chief  puzzles  of  museum  manage- 
ment. The  authorities  of  our  art  museums  have  hitherto 
felt  more  or  less  helpless  before  the  problem  of  the  use  of 
the  museum  by  the  general  public.  Daily  watching  the 
tired  and  listless  wanderers  that  chiefly  populate  our  gal- 
leries, we  see  plainly  how  little  they  gain  compared  with 
what  can  be  gained.  We  become  impatient  of  the  sta- 
tistics that  show  the  comparatively  feeble  drawing-powers 
of  exhibitions  of  pictures,  statues,  and  decorative  art.  Are 
such  things  the  affair  of  the  exceptionally  educated  only? 
Unfortunately  for  this  belief,  the  exceptionally  educated 
neglect  our  museums  even  more  conspicuously  than  the 
unlettered.  There  must  be  general  underlying  causes 
hindering  the  effectiveness  of  our  permanent  exhibitions 
of  art.  Pondering  this  question  we  have  surmised  that  the 
great  need  of  the  public  was  preparation  of  mind  for  what 
is  shown;  and  we  have  accordingly  multiplied  labels  and 
catalogues  and  guides ;  and  of  late  years  have  developed  a 
new  museum  service  in  the  guise  of  personal  companion- 
ship by  docents,  instructors,  and  demonstrators.  All  these 

1  This  tabouret  has  been  manufactured  for  the  Museum  by  the  Heywood 
Brothers  and  Wakefield  Company  of  Boston. 


SEATS  AS  PREVENTIVES  OF  FATIGUE         275 


things  help.  Nevertheless,  what  is  more  needed  is  that  the 
works  of  art  themselves  shall  have  the  opportunity  of 
making  their  impression. 

To  do  this  they  require,  among  other  things,  time. 
Looked  at  in  leisurely  fashion,  most  museum  exhibits 
would  prove  objects  of  profitable  interest,  even  to  those 
to  whom  all  books  of  interpretation  may  be  sealed  and  all 
lecturing  a  weariness.  No  one  can  remain  long  among 
beautiful  things  arranged  in  stately  halls  and  wholly  fail 
to  enjoy  and  admire  both  —  that  is,  to  be  influenced  by 
them  and  influenced  to  the  identical  good  purpose  for 
which  they  were  made. 

Viewed  from  this  angle,  the  problem  of  the  use  of  the 
museum  by  the  public  becomes  a  problem  of  inducing 
visitors  to  stay.  To  make  them  wish  to  stay  is  to  make 
them  wish  to  come  for  the  reward  they  receive  by  staying. 
It  does  not  yet  seem  to  have  occurred  to  museum  officials 
to  envisage  the  problem  thus,  else  they  would  have  al- 
ready united  in  a  movement  to  change  their  galleries  from 
places  to  stand  about  in  to  places  to  sit  down  in.  To  in- 
duce a  man  to  stay  anywhere,  he  must  be  made  comfort- 
able while  there.  With  a  development  in  the  seating  ac- 
commodations of  museum  galleries,  we  may  expect  to  see 
fewer  wanderers  gradually  becoming  exhausted  and  more 
spectators  gradually  becoming  interested.  Museums  will 
be  more  efficient  with  the  public  both  because  people  in 
general  will  get  more  from  them  and  because  more  people 
will  come  to  get  it. 

Hence,  every  museum  building  and  installation  should 
be  especially  studied  with  a  view  to  a  judicious  placing 
of  as  many  seats  as  possible  therein.  Niches  and  bays 
must  be  utilized  for  chairs  and  benches.  Any  furniture 
exhibited  must  be  distinguished  from  seats  for  use  by 
installation  upon  low  pedestals.  Central  vacant  places 


276  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

must  become  vantage-points  from  which  to  look  about 
while  seated.  Single  exhibits  must  be  arranged  for  study 
from  seats  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  Under  all  cases  con- 
taining objects  demanding  minute  inspection  there  must 
be  light  stools  which  visitors  can  draw  out  and  drop  into 
for  a  moment.  For  the  purpose  of  a  movable  seat  the 
tabouret  here  proposed  promises  well. 


IV 

EXEGESIS 

THE  IDEALS  OF  OFFICIAL  COMPANIONSHIP 
AND   THE  INTERPRETATIVE  CATALOGUE 


IV 

EXEGESIS 

THE  IDEALS  OF  OFFICIAL  COMPANIONSHIP 
AND   THE  INTERPRETATIVE  CATALOGUE 

I 
THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT i 

The  Church  here  is  taken  for  the  Church  as  it  is  decent  and  regent;  as  it 
teaches  and  governs.  —  Century  Dictionary,  art.,  " Decent";  from  Archbishop 
Laud  (1573-1645). 

As  decent,  the  museum  is  the  interpreter  of  its  contents. 
The  docent  office  in  museums  of  art. 

The  permanence  of  museum  collections  makes  interpretative  instruction 
necessary  — Their  excellence  makes  formal  methods  unavailable  —  The 
teacher  and  pupil  are  unprepared  for  it  —  The  disciplinary  atmosphere 
is  unfavorable  to  it  —  The  museum  is  unfitted  either  to  be  a  cradle  of 
artistic  capacity  or  a  guide  to  artistic  progress  —  Summary. 
A  model  interpretation  of  poetry. 

Gleanings  left  for  the  disciple  — •  A  fundamental  doubt. 
Canons  deducible. 
Negative. 

No  gossip  —  No  generalities  —  No  praise  —  No  comparisons  —  No  aesthet- 
ics. 

Positive. 
The  removal  of  misapprehension  —  The  direction  of  attention:  sensory  and 

imaginative. 

Maxims  for  museum  use. 
History  of  official  interpretation  in  museums. 
Subordinate  status  of  the  docent  office  in  museum  economy. 

A  MUSEUM  is  an  institution  founded  to  keep  things  for 
show.  In  the  English  of  the  seventeenth  century  it  might 
be  said  to  fulfil  its  purpose  as  it  is  gardant  and  monstrant; 
as  it  preserves  and  exhibits. 

To  exhibit  objects  is  to  do  the  needful  to  make  them 
visible.  But  there  are  two  ways  in  which  things  become 
visible  —  to  the  bodily  eye  and  to  the  spiritual  sight. 
Gazing  upon  them  is  one  thing,  understanding  them 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
vol.  ix.  (1915.) 


280  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

another.  To  fulfil  its  complete  purpose  as  a  show,  a  mu- 
seum must  do  the  needful  in  both  ways.  It  must  arrange 
its  contents  so  that  they  can  be  looked  at;  but  also  help 
its  average  of  visitors  to  know  what  they  mean.  It  must 
at  once  install  its  contents  and  see  to  their  interpreta- 
tion. 

Hence,  to  express  the  full  duty  of  museums  it  will  be 
convenient  to  use  three  adjectives,  and  not  two  only. 
Reserving  the  word  monstrant  for  presentation  to  the 
bodily  eye,  we  need  another  for  the  sharpening  of  the  spir- 
itual sight.  The  business  of  mental  preparation  is  called 
teaching,  and  the  appropriate  adjective  is  given  in  the 
quotation  above.  A  museum  performs  its  complete  office 
as  it  is  at  once  gardant,  monstrant,  and  docent. 

The  docent  office  differs  in  museums  of  science  and  mu- 
seums of  art.  We  understand  a  fossil  or  a  machine  when 
we  grasp  the  scientific  or  technical  principles  it  is  shown  to 
illustrate;  but  whatever  historical  or  professional  interest 
a  work  of  art  may  have,  we  do  not  understand  it  until  we 
receive  from  it  the  impression  the  artist  meant  it  should 
make  upon  beholders.  Objects  called  works  of  art  have 
meanings  in  the  literal  sense.  They  are  one  of  the  forms 
of  human  speech,  one  of  the  ways  in  which  men  utter  their 
minds  to  one  another.  A  fossil  or  a  machine  has  meaning 
only  figuratively.  The  one  was  not  made  by  man  at  all, 
and  the  other  was  made,  not  to  tell  something  to  us  but 
to  do  something  for  us.  It  is  not  enough  therefore  to 
understand  an  imaginative  creation  as  we  may  under- 
stand a  discovery  or  an  invention.  We  must  know  beside 
what  its  maker  intended  it  to  tell  us ;  and  in  order  to  grasp 
it  as  a  work  of  art,  this  is  all  we  need  to  understand  from 
it.  Its  historical  or  professional  significance  is  no  part  of 
the  meaning  it  was  made  to  communicate,  however  much 
—  or  little  —  either  may  aid  towrard  the  apprehension  of 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  281 

that  meaning.  The  decent  duty  of  a  museum  dedicated  to 
art  is  summed  up  in  the  revelation  of  the  moods  of  sense 
and  thought  and  feeling  of  which  its  contents  are  the  rec- 
ords. In  so  far  as  it  recognizes  an  independent  teaching 
office,  historical  or  professional,  it  treats  itself,  not  as  a 
museum  of  art,  but  as  a  museum  of  science  or  industry. 
With  a  certain  danger  to  its  usefulness,  let  us  remember; 
for,  in  importance,  a  knowledge  of  the  historical  and  pro- 
fessional principles  illustrated  in  a  masterpiece  are  to  an 
acquaintance  with  the  masterpiece  itself  as  the  crack- 
ling of  thorns  under  a  pot  to  the  meal  cooked  by  their 
burning. 

The  art  museum  as  decent  aims  to  help  us  read  works 
of  art  as  we  would  read  books;  that  is,  to  help  us  divine 
what  their  authors  meant  to  say.  A  sensible  remark  of  an 
old-time  museum  official  was  in  effect  a  call  for  the  serv- 
ice: "The  larger  the  number  of  those  who  can  appreciate 
art.  the  broader  and  surer  the  foundations  on  which  the 
future  of  its  excellence  can  rest."  l  For  the  understand- 
ing of  this  office  two  facts  are  of  prime  importance.  The 
decent  duty  of  a  museum  of  art  is  not  an  accidental  obliga- 
tion, which  it  may  or  may  not  be  called  upon  to  fulfil  ac- 
cording as  its  community  is  more  or  less  instructed.  It 
is  a  necessary  obligation  grounded  in  the  nature  of  a  mu- 
seum as  a  permanent  exhibition.  Further,  the  docent  duty 
of  a  museum  of  art  is  not  of  a  piece  with  the  education 
of  the  school,  but  radically  distinguished  from  it  by  the 
selective  nature  of  museum  contents. 

A  museum  is  ultimately  responsible  for  certain  teaching 
because  it  preserves  things  indefinitely.  Any  permanent 
exhibition  comes  sooner  or  later  to  contain  objects  out  of 
date,  and  the  older  it  grows,  the  more  it  contains  and  the 

1  Edward  Edwards,  Administrative  Economy  of  the  Fine  Arts  (London,  1840), 
p.  98. 


282  MUSEUM   IDEALS 

more  out  of  date  some  of  them  become.  The  fullest  un- 
derstanding of  these  objects  demands  in  the  spectator 
a  sympathy  with  the  past;  a  sympathy  in  part,  and  al- 
ways in  major  part,  spontaneous  and  not  to  be  attained  by 
taking  thought,  but  in  part  also,  and  often  in  necessary 
part,  capable  of  attainment  by  premeditated  effort,  by 
what  we  call  instruction.  Such  instruction  it  is  the  duty 
of  a  museum  to  assure  to  its  visitors,  whether  by  impart- 
ing it  directly  or  by  seeing  that  they  can  obtain  it  other- 
wise. Every  museum  of  art,  by  its  nature  as  a  keeper  of 
things  for  show,  creates  a  certain  educational  need,  and 
assumes  a  certain  educational  obligation  auxiliary  to  its 
ultimate  purpose. 

Again,  the  education  obligatory  on  a  museum  of  art 
because  of  the  stability  of  its  collections  differs  radi- 
cally from  the  education  of  the  school  because  of  their 
quality. 

The  school  stands  by  its  nature  for  relative  excellence. 
School  teaching  is  at  once  constrained  to  a  secondary 
aim,  and  adapted  to  secondary  powers.  Collective  in- 
struction, or  teaching  imparted  to  a  number  of  persons 
at  once,  cannot  convey  to  all  an  equal  comprehension  of 
its  theme,  owing  to  the  different  teachableness  of  differ- 
ent intelligences.1  President  Wilson,  quoting  a  former  col- 
league, has  just  reminded  us  that  "the  human  mind  has 
infinite  resources  for  resisting  the  introduction  of  knowl- 
edge"; and  within  the  finite  resources  of  the  teacher  of  a 
class  is  only  the  introduction  of  so  much  as  may  qualify 
his  scholars  generally  to  answer  a  limited  set  of  ques- 

1  Rene  Bazin,  in  L'ceuvre  litter  air  e  d 'Eugene  Fromentin,  writes:  "He  never 
suffered  from  that  premature  pruning  to  which  we  are  subjected  by  school  life 
—  shut  in,  common  to  all,  identical  for  natures  so  profoundly  diverse  that  no 
one  ever  had  the  idea  of  sowing  in  one  flower  bed  so  many  species  of  tulips,  beets, 
mignonette,  poppies,  onions,  primroses,  heliotropes,  as  there  are  temperaments 
grouped  in  a  class  of  children.  A  necessity,  I  willingly  admit.  But  so  much 
the  better  for  those  that  escape." 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  283 

tions.  The  instruction  of  the  school  tends  unavoidably 
to  aim  not  at  education  but  at  graduation.  A  man  of 
science  uses  the  expression, "  a  teacher  only,  with  no  ambi- 
tions beyond  enabling  his  classes  to  pass  their  examina- 
tions." 1  Again,  the  recipients  of  school  instruction  are 
customarily  the  young.  It  is  addressed  not  to  intelli- 
gences at  the  height  of  their  powers,  but  to  intelligences 
in  process  of  development.  Education,  technically  so- 
called,  aims  both  at  applying  incomplete  tests,  and  at 
applying  them  to  immature  minds.  As  well  by  its  method 
as  by  its  field,  the  school  from  primary  to  professional 
stands  for  relative  excellence. 

The  museum  of  art  stands,  on  the  contrary,  for  absolute 
excellence.  It  seeks  to  preserve  only  the  best  of  the  past. 
As  docent,  its  duty  is  to  aid  its  visitors,  by  the  use  of 
whatever  means  prove  most  effective,  to  assimilate  cer- 
tain of  the  highest  achievements  of  minds  at  once  mature 
and  especially  gifted.  This  purpose  implies  a  docent  and 
a  disciple  but  neither  a  teacher  by  profession,  nor  class  nor 
course  nor  recitation  nor  examination.  It  can  be  fulfilled 
only  by  a  return  to  the  natural  sequence  of  question  and 
answer  between  pupil  and  instructor. 

The  order  is  reversed  in  the  attempt  to  teach  classes 
in  courses.  The  education  of  the  school  consists  in  an- 
swering questions  before  they  are  asked.  Education 
really  efficient  consists  in  letting  answers  follow  ques- 
tions. This  is  the  method  of  all  the  greater  teachers 
of  mankind.  The  distinction  lies  between  collective 
teaching,  compelled  to  aim  at  examination,  and  indi- 
vidual teaching,  impelled  to  aim  at  explanation.  The 
method  of  examination  disregards,  the  method  of  ex- 
planation observes,  the  mental  principle  according  to 
which  we  see  only  what  we  are  looking  for.  It  is  the  ques- 

1  Professor  E.  C.  Pickering  in  Science,  vol.  XLI  (1915),  no.  1051. 


284  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

tion  in  the  mind  of  the  learner  that  makes  what  he  learns 
part  and  parcel  of  his  mental  equipment.  The  preliminary 
act,  that  of  the  delivery  of  the  message,  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  sowing  of  seed,  in  itself  a  barren  deed.  Edu- 
cation proper  does  not  begin  until  the  seed  germinates  in 
the  arrest  of  some  pupil's  attention.  The  question  follows, 
not  as  in  the  school,  from  the  teacher,  but  from  the  pupil; 
and  the  answer  to  the  question,  not  as  in  the  school, 
given  by  the  pupil,  but  contributed  by  the  teacher,  is  the 
fostering  care  under  which  the  seed  once  germinated 
may  bring  forth,  some  thirty,  some  sixty,  some  an  hundred 
fold. 

The  use  of  this  natural  method  hampers  the  school  in  dis- 
charging its  obligation  to  graduate;  but  forwards  the  mu- 
seum in  discharging  its  obligation  to  educate.  The  highest 
achievements  of  men  at  once  mature  and  especially  gifted 
are  what  the  museum  has  to  impart;  and  the  watchword 
of  its  docent  task  must  be:  "He  that  hath  ears  to  hear  let 
him  hear."  Uttered  on  behalf  of  beauty,  this  summons  has 
the  same  universal  range  it  had  when  first  spoken.  The 
museum  offers  itself  as  docent  not  to  a  privileged  few,  but 
to  every  one  according  to  his  points  of  contact  with  the 
treasures  it  displays;  and  such  points  of  contact,  of  one  or 
another  kind  in  infinite  variety  exist  in  every  one.  Amiel 
has  said :  "The  supreme  finesse  in  teaching  consists  in  know- 
ing how  to  suggest;  and  for  this  the  teacher  must  divine 
what  it  is  that  interests."1  The  museum  cannot  teach 
under  all  conditions,  but  alone  when  one  or  another  interest 
is  awake  in  one  or  another  visitor.  In  the  nurture  of 
these  individual  interests  lies  its  office  as  docent. 

The  inappropriateness  of  school  methods  —  the  pro- 
fessional instruction  of  a  class  in  a  course  by  recitations 
and  examinations  —  to  this  office  manifests  itself  in  four 

1  Journal  Intime,  vol.  i,  p.  203. 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  285 

ways.  First,  in  the  dulling  of  the  sense  of  perfection  in  the 
decent  representatives  of  the  museum.  The  hard  intellec- 
tual labor  of  applying  halfway  standards  to  undeveloped 
minds  inures  the  spirit  to  imperfection;  and  whoever  the 
disciples  and  however  taught,  the  docent  function  cannot 
to  good  advantage  be  performed  as  an  exclusive  office.  The 
education  given  by  a  museum  of  art  should  always  be  the 
partial  occupation  of  persons  engaged  also  in  productive 
labor  in  competition  with  equals.  Even  the  whole  body 
of  those  whose  daily  duty  it  is  to  keep  and  augment  and 
study  its  collections  may  not  suffice  for  the  work.  The 
appeal  of  every  object  of  art  is  to  the  spiritual  kin  of  the 
artist,  and  he  may  often  lack  blood  relatives  on  the  staff. 
Is  any  outsider  available  to  whom  the  work  speaks  in  a 
mother  tongue,  and  who  can  to  practical  effect  speak  of 
it  to  others,  the  museum  must  seek  him  also  as  its  repre- 
sentative. Only  thus  can  the  sense  of  perfection,  which  is 
the  condition  of  the  understanding  of  a  work  of  art,  spread 
from  its  teachers  to  their  hearers. 

Second,  the  use  of  school  methods  by  a  museum  misdi- 
rects its  docent  work.  School  methods  are  adjusted  to  the 
needs  of  youth;  works  of  art  are  not.  They  were  not  made 
by  children,  nor,  unless  by  exception,  for  children;  and  no 
aid  can  enable  children  to  comprehend  them  fully.  Car- 
lyle's  description  of  a  boy's  awakening  to  the  beauty  of 
nature  applies  still  more  pointedly  to  the  beauty  of  art. 
It  was  "still  a  Hebrew  speech  for  me;  nevertheless  I  was 
looking  at  the  fair  illuminated  Letters  and  had  an  eye  for 
their  gilding."  1  The  museum  that  treats  its  docent  office 
as  a  duty  chiefly  owed  to  youth  stints  the  children  of  a 
larger  growth  who  could  best  profit  by  its  instruction. 
Dr.  Goode  writes  of  museums  in  general:  "I  should  not 
organize  the  museum  primarily  for  the  use  of  the  peo- 

1  Sartor  Resartus. 


286  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

pie  in  their  larval  or  schoolgoing  stage  of  existence.  .  .  . 
School  days  last,  at  the  most,  only  from  five  to  fifteen 
years,  and  they  end  with  the  majority  of  mankind  before 
their  minds  have  reached  the  stage  of  growth  most  fa- 
vorable for  the  reception  and  assimilation  of  the  best  and 
most  useful  thought."  1  School  classes  marshalled  through 
museum  halls  may  afford  gratifying  statistics,  but  the 
invisible  census  of  educational  result  would  make  the 
judicious  grieve.  The  practice  in  museums  of  art  has  the 
same  foundation  and  the  same  limitations  as  the  attempt 
to  make  monuments  of  literature  into  subjects  of  school 
instruction.  Jules  Lemaitre  has  written:  "The  soul  of  a 
little  child  well-endowed  is  nearer  Homer  than  the  soul  of 
this  or  that  bourgeois  or  this  or  that  mediocre  academi- 
cian." The  remark  accuses  modern  life,  both  the  business 
and  the  scholastic  life,  of  destroying  the  freshness  of  feel- 
ing and  naivete  of  apprehension  which  inspired  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey.  Freshness  and  naivete  are,  indeed, 
conditions  necessary  for  any  understanding  of  a  work  of 
art;  but  they  are  not  conditions  sufficient  for  its  assimila- 
tion. The  soul  of  an  artist  can  be  evoked  from  his  work 
only  by  his  spiritual  peers.  Dante,  addressing  Virgil, 
says:2  "Thy  noble  words  honor  both  thyself  and  those 
who  hearken  to  them."  But  school  boys  since  have  sel- 
dom hearkened.  Many,  like  Byron,  lose  even  the  capacity 
to  hearken.3 

"Then,  farewell,  Horace;  whom  I  hated  so, 

Not  for  thy  faults  but  mine;  it  is  a  curse 
To  understand,  not  feel,  thy  lyric  flow, 

To  comprehend,  but  never  love,  thy  verse." 

An  Indian  saying  compares  the  artist  to  the  moon  which 
can  draw  the  sea  but  makes  no  appreciable  difference  in 


1  G.  Brown  Goode,  "The  Museum  of  the  Future,"  Annual  Report  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  (1897),  part  n,  p.  249. 

2  Inferno,  n,  113,  114.  3  Childe  Harold,  Canto  iv. 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  287 

the  level  of  a  well;  and,  it  may  be  added,  can  move  neither 
if  frozen.  The  dulling  of  the  sense  of  perfection  which 
handicaps  the  teacher  by  profession  needs  no  proof  more 
irrefragable  than  is  given  by  school  editions  of  many  lit- 
erary classics.  To  attempt  to  put  within  adolescent  grasp 
masterpieces  embodying  the  utmost  reaches  of  thought  and 
refinements  of  expression,  the  fruit  of  the  richest  experi- 
ence, is  treachery  to  art  in  the  museum  as  in  the  class  in 
literature.  The  practical  necessity  of  expurgation  in  both 
cases  should  be  warning  enough  of  the  unwisdom  of  the 
enterprise.  To  the  adolescent  the  sex-impulse  is  but  just 
beginning  the  long  course  of  its  irradiation  through  the 
whole  of  life  which  fills  the  consciousness  of  the  adult  with 
ineffable  echoes  "from  Heaven  across  the  World  to  Hell'5 

—  as  Goethe  describes  the  action  of  Faust. 1  To  place 
before  a  boy  or  girl  a  work  of  art  containing,  as  most  do, 
ingredients  from  this  all-compelling  and  all-comprehend- 
ing fact,  is  to  invite  its  misunderstanding.  Whether  the 
process  may  not  morally  weaken  also  is  often  an  open 
question.  There  is  solid  psychological  ground  for  the 
objection,  intemperately  voiced  from  time  to  time  by  a 
few  fanatics,  to  indiscriminate  museum  visits  by  school 
classes.  The  peril  should  not  be  blinked  by  museum  au- 
thorities, but  should  suggest  the  inquiry  whether  the  whole 
"educational  racket"  —  as  the  profane  might  term  the 
attempt  to  turn  school  children  into  habitues  of  museums 

—  does  not  rest  upon  an  assumption  due  simply  to  men- 
tal inertia  —  the  assumption,  namely,  that  whatever  the 
adult  can  assimilate  to  his  profit,  can  and  should  be  pre- 
sented and  expounded  to  the  young. 

Third,  the  use  by  a  museum  of  school  methods  devital- 
izes its  decent  work.  The  purpose  of  the  docent  is  to  lead 
his  disciples  on  to  enjoyment.  A  work  of  art  is  the  em- 

1  Conversations  with  Eckermann. 


288  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

bodiment  of  a  creative  joy,  or  as  a  work  of  art  it  is  worth- 
less; and  to  get  it  enjoyed  as  it  was  made  to  be  enjoyed 
is  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  of  museum  instruction  proper. 
The  purpose  of  the  teacher  is  to  impart  knowledge;  a 
divergent  aim,  and  under  school  conditions  in  a  measure 
incompatible.  The  "Cicerone"  of  the  Swiss  critic  Burck- 
hardt  in  its  original  form  was  the  written  discourse  of  a 
docent-at-large  in  Italy.  The  decent  purpose  is  exactly 
expressed  in  the  sub-title  of  the  volume — "Eine  Ein- 
leitung  zum  Genuss  der  Kunstwerke  Italiens":  "a  leading- 
on  to  (or  introduction  to)  the  enjoyment  of  Italian  art." 
But  in  posthumous  editions  the  accumulated  erudition  of 
many  editors,  succeeding  the  free  play  of  a  sensitive  mind, 
obscures  to  the  reader  the  happy  temper  in  which  it  first 
was  written.  The  scholastic  atmosphere  is  in  three  ways 
hostile  to  the  mood  of  joy.  The  contagion  from  the  in- 
structor is  more  or  less  in  default.  To  guide  learners  along 
well-trodden  paths  of  truth  is  far  from  the  thrilling  pleasure 
that  Bacon,  after  Lucretius,  found  in  standing  on  its  van- 
tage ground.  Again,  the  scholastic  atmosphere  is  an  at- 
mosphere of  more  or  less  compulsion,  and  again,  of  more 
or  less  self -consciousness.  Collective  instruction  presup- 
poses uniform  exercises,  none  exactly  responding  to  the 
needs  of  any  pupil;  and  the  shadow  of  the  pedagogic 
disapproval  chills  the  spirit  turned  inward  upon  the 
thought  of  its  own  relation  to  a  standard.  Unless  a  mu- 
seum is  to  fail  essentially  in  its  teaching  office,  its  in- 
struction must  be  accomplished  in  holiday  mood,  without 
drudgery  for  the  docent,  and  without  tasks  or  tests  for 
the  disciple. 

Finally,  the  use  of  school  methods  in  a  museum  fosters 
a  misconstruction  of  its  docent  obligation.  Since  schools 
are  founded  to  impart  systematic  knowledge  or  practical 
skill,  the  museum  may  easily  be  thought  bound  as  docent 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  289 

to  teach  the  history,  principles,  and  practice  of  the  arts  it 
represents,  or  even  to  exert  a  commanding  influence  on 
their  current  development.  Yet  both  ideas  are  miscon- 
ceptions, the  first  excusable,  the  last  egregious.  As  a  per- 
manent public  exhibition  a  museum  is  bound  to  see  that 
its  community  has  access  to  means  of  understanding  its 
exhibits.  But  the  teaching  of  the  various  disciplines  they 
illustrate,  theoretical  and  practical,  is  a  wholly  different 
business,  without  basis  either  in  gardant  or  monstrant  func- 
tions. The  mistake  of  confusing  it  with  them  is  excusable 
because  the  obligation  to  see  that  works  of  art  are  pub- 
licly understood  has  awaited  the  creation  of  institutions 
to  preserve  them  for  public  benefit.  Before  museums 
existed  the  artistic  public,  the  spectator,  the  other  half 
of  the  incomplete  being  we  call  an  artist,  had  no  official 
representative.  Instruction  in  art  meant  only  the  incul- 
cation of  art  history  and  theory  and  the  training  of  em- 
bryo painters  and  sculptors.  The  fine  art  of  beholding 
grew  wild.  To-day  museums  are  founded  everywhere  in 
this  country  in  younger  communities  with  only  the  scant- 
iest opportunities  for  the  upbuilding  of  permanent  col- 
lections of  fine  art.  So  placed  a  museum  becomes  less  an 
exhibition  than  a  centre  for  artistic  interests  of  all  kinds; 
and  its  decent  office  presents  itself  as  the  duty  of  theoret- 
ical and  technical  instruction.  Nevertheless,  the  condi- 
tion is  ephemeral,  the  sign  of  an  undeveloped  machinery 
of  civilization.  It  joins  functions  alien  in  method  and 
scope,  and  in  a  measure  antagonistic.  The  museum  as 
docent  teaches  objects;  it  instructs  toward  its  exhibits. 
As  the  purveyor  of  general  knowledge  about  art,  it  teaches 
subjects;  it  instructs  from  its  exhibits.  Again,  a  museum 
official's  duties  cover  many  fields  beside  the  history  and 
theory  of  art;  and  the  history  and  theory  of  art  cover 
many  fields  beyond  the  collections  in  his  care.  A  further 


290  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

radical  difference  separates  an  exhibition  from  a  school  of 
practice.  The  one  belongs  to  the  contemplative  life;  the 
other  to  the  active  life.  The  museum  is  the  home,  not  of 
the  artist  —  the  creator  —  but  of  the  critic  —  the  spec- 
tator. The  museum  is  catholic  in  spirit;  the  technical 
school  separatist.  The  judgments  of  artists,  one  upon 
another,  are,  as  Stendhal  suggested,  so  many  "certificates 
of  resemblance."  l  Technical  instruction  tends  to  make 
the  museum  one-sided;  the  museum  to  make  technical 
instruction  superficial.  These  are  the  conclusions  of  ex- 
perience. Of  the  combination  of  other  functions  with  that 
of  the  museum,  Mr.  Hedley  writes:  "Museum  evolution 
tends  toward  specialization;  the  narrower  its  limits,  the 
higher  the  grade  an  institution  generally  reaches."  2  Of 
museum  buildings  Dr.  Pazaurek  writes:  "It  is  a  question 
seriously  to  be  discussed  whether  in  planning  art  build- 
ings de  now  the  union  of  school  and  museum,  by  some 
thought  absolutely  essential,  is  really  to  be  recommended. 
Experience  seems  often  to  teach  otherwise,  for  where 
they  have  been  under  one  roof  either  one  or  other  has 
suffered.  .  .  .  Either  the  museum  has  flourished  and  the 
school  vegetated  in  secret,  or  —  under  another  manage- 
ment —  the  school  has  taken  a  great  start  while  the  mu- 
seum has  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  neglected  school-collec- 
tion. When  this  subject  is  considered  dispassionately  and 
thoroughly,  these  twins  that  only  too  easily  grow  together 
will  in  many  cases  be  separated  betimes,  and  two  entirely 
distinct  buildings  erected."  3  From  this  counsel,  as  from 
the  principles  involved,  the  inference  is  that  while  freely 
offering  its  aid  to  schools,  both  theoretical  and  technical, 

1  Histoire  de  la  peinture  en  Italic,  vol.  n  (Index). 

2  Charles  Hedley,  Museum  Administration  in  the  United  States,  Australian 
Museum,  Sydney,  Miscellaneous  Series,  vol.  VTII  (1913),  p.  30. 

3  G.  A.  Pazaurek:  "Museumsbauten,"  Wiener  Bauindustrie  Zeitung,  Jahr- 
gang  20,  no.  40.    (1903.) 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  291 

the  museum  will  best  perform  its  essential  duty  under 
separate  management. 

The  other  misconception  of  the  docent  office  of  museums 
—  that  which  assigns  them  the  high  duty  of  presiding  over 
the  artistic  production  of  their  time  and  place  —  rests 
upon  a  beclouded  notion  of  how  the  artist  works.  He  sees 
through  other  eyes  only  to  use  his  own  to  better  advan- 
tage thereafter.  Only  in  the  measure  in  which  he  can  take 
up  into  himself  what  others  have  wrought  will  his  own 
work  bear  comparison  with  theirs.  To  guide  him  after 
preparatory  years  would  be  a  fatal  impertinence  in  any 
institution.  These  are  commonplaces  of  the  psychology 
of  fancy,  illustrated  in  the  past  at  every  alternation  of 
artistic  decadence  and  rebirth.  Lowell  writes  of  "the  fact, 
patent  in  the  history  of  all  the  fine  arts,  that  every  at- 
tempt at  reproducing  bygone  excellence  by  external  imi- 
tation of  it,  or  even  by  applying  the  rules  which  analytic 
criticism  has  formulated  from  the  study  of  it,  has  resulted 
in  producing  the  artificial  and  not  the  artistic."  l  The 
return  of  the  artist  to  nature  means  a  transition  from  the 
contemplation  of  that  which  has  pleased  others  to  the 
discovery  of  that  which  pleases  himself,  and  out  of  this 
immediate  joy  every  viable  product  of  fancy  springs. 
Museum  officials  as  arbiters  of  what  he  should  paint  or 
carve  would  be  even  more  hopelessly  out  of  place  than 
students  of  literature  as  arbiters  of  what  he  should  write. 
Museums  have  no  mission  to  make  the  fame  of  artists. 
They  are  founded  to  secure  it  when  made  by  the  interested 
public. 

The  docent  office  of  the  museum,  conditioned  by  these 
results,  thus  outlines  itself.  Mindful  of  its  purpose  to  aid 
toward  the  spiritual  assimilation  of  some  of  the  highest 
things,  it  should  aim  not  at  attainment,  but  at  progress, 

1  J.  R.  Lowell,  Literary  Essays,  "Swinburne's  Tragedies." 


292  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

not  at  graduation,  but  at  education.  It  should  be  carried 
on,  not  as  the  sole  office  of  a  few  persons,  but  as  the  duty 
on  occasion  of  many  chosen  representatives.  It  should 
address  itself  chiefly  to  minds  already  mature  and  only 
under  restrictions  to  children.  It  should  be  undertaken 
in  the  spirit  of  free  intercourse,  not  in  that  of  compulsion, 
in  the  spirit  of  play  and  not  of  work,  seeking  to  offer  not 
what  the  docent  wants  to  teach  but  what  the  spectator 
wants  to  know.  It  should  not  ally  itself  with  technical 
instruction,  and  above  all  should  renounce  the  ambition  to 
control  the  productive  artist  whether  through  patronage  or 
criticism. 

What,  then,  shall  the  museum  as  docent  say?  Of  what 
subject  matter  shall  its  speech  consist?  Let  us  take  as 
a  guide  the  words  in  which  a  living  poet  leads  on  his  read- 
ers to  the  enjoyment  of  a  poem  by  a  foregoer.  Having  the 
work  of  art  itself  before  us  we  can  follow  his  method  as 
we  could  not  were  we  to  quote  the  exposition  of  a  picture 
or  a  statue. 

The  introductory  chapter  of  M.  Auguste  Dorchain's 
volume,  "L'Art  des  Vers"  l  instead  of  beginning  at  once 
the  technical  study  of  versification  to  which  the  book  is 
to  be  devoted,  essays  by  an  example  to  quicken  the 
reader's  sense  of  the  nobility  and  power  of  poetry.  Be- 
fore seeking  to  impart  a  knowledge  of  the  art,  the  author 
seeks  to  awaken  a  love  of  it. 

Compose  yourself  a  moment.  Close  your  ears  to  the  noises 
which  rise  from  the  street;  forget  some  of  your  petty  cares; 
let  subside  within  your  soul  like  dregs  everything  which  since 
you  woke  has  cumbered,  defiled,  or  at  least  dissipated  your 
mind  —  the  reading  of  a  useless  newspaper  or  empty  book, 
trifling  talk,  an  idle  call.  Then  go  to  your  bookcase;  take 
from  its  shelf  the  Orientates  of  Victor  Hugo;  open  it  at  the 
thirty-seventh  number;  and,  deliberately  articulating  each 
syllable,  observing  each  period  and  comma  as  you  would  the 

1  Paris,  1905. 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  293 

rests  and  glides  of  a  musical  notation,  read  this  poem  in  two 
strophes : 1 

EXTASE 

J'etais  seul  pres  des  flots,  par  une  nuit  d 'etoiles 
Pas  un  nuage  aux  cieux,  sur  les  mers  pas  de  voiles. 
Mes  yeux  plongeaient  plus  loin  que  le  monde  reel. 
Et  les  bois,  et  les  monts,  et  toute  la  nature, 
Semblaient  interroger  dans  un  conf  us  murmure 
Les  flots  des  mers,  les  feux  du  ciel. 

Et  les  etoiles  d'or,  legions  infinies, 
A  voix  haute,  a  voix  basse,  avec  mille  harmonies, 
Disaient,  en  inclinant  leurs  couronnes  de  feu; 
Et  les  flots  bleus,  que  rien  ne  gouverne  ni  n'arr^te, 
Disaient,  en  recourbant  1'ecume  de  leur  cr£te: 
—  C  'est  le  Seigneur,  le  Seigneur  Dieu! 

M.  Dorchain  then  examines  each  line: 

J'etais  seul  pres  des  flots,  par  une  nuit  d'etoiles 

In  this  first  line,  which  could  not  be  imagined  more  perfectly 
simple,  the  whole  scene  is  already  evoked  and  established;  the 
man,  the  place,  and  the  hour.  And  this  line,  delayed  in  the  mid- 
dle by  a  considerable  pause,  and  indefinitely  prolonged  as  by 
an  organ  point,  thanks  to  the  final  word  etoiles,  is  all-sufficient 
in  itself  to  balance  any  developments  with  which  it  might  please 
the  poet  to  follow  it.  Suppose  a  moment  that  he  had  begun  the 
poem  thus : 

Pres  des  flots  j' etais  seul,  sous  un  ciel  etoiU 

This  would  have  the  same  sense,  yet  there  would  be  left  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing,  of  what  could  be  called  poetry.  Flots  and 
etoiles  are  the  two  essential  words  of  the  poem,  those  whose  ap- 

1  The  poem  may  be  verbally  rendered  as  follows: 

I  was  alone  by  the  waves  on  a  starry  night 
Not  a  cloud  in  the  skies,  not  a  sail  on  the  seas. 
My  eyes  saw  beyond  the  real  world. 
And  the  woods,  and  the  mountains,  and  all  nature 
Seemed  to  question,  in  a  confused  murmur, 

The  waves  of  the  seas,  the  stars  of  the  sky. 

And  the  golden  stars,  infinite  legions, 
With  voices  loud  and  low,  in  a  thousand  harmonies, 
Answered,  bending  their  crowns  of  fire; 
And  the  blue  waves,  that  nothing  governs  nor  stays, 
Answered,  curving  the  foam  of  their  crests: 
It  is  the  Lord,  the  Lord  God! 


*    294  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

position  and  opposition  are  to  form  its  whole  architecture.  The 
word  flots  falls  on  the  hemistich  (halfway  point)  only  in  the  line 
of  the  master,  and  the  comma  which  follows  separates  the  two 
elements,  sea  and  sky.  In  the  supposed  verse,  in  the  second  half, 
the  words  are  hard  in  sound,  and  hammered  out  uniformly  in 
each  of  their  syllables  sous-un-ciel-e-toi-lS.  In  Victor  Hugo's 
line,  in  the  second  half,  thanks  to  the  e  mute  of  une,  and  to  the 
fascinating  alliteration  formed  by  the  two  successive  ns  —  une 
nuit  —  the  voice  glides  on  easily,  to  rest  and  dilate  upon  the 
second  syllable  of  etoiles,  and  to  die  away  finally  in  prolonging 
the  mute  syllable  which  ends  the  word  and  the  line. 

J'etais  seul  pres  des  flots,  par  une  nuit  d'etoiles. 
Only  compare  them! 

Going  on  to  the  second  line:  will  the  poet  try  to  define,  by  a 
detail,  by  something  noticed  and  depicted,  the  picture  formed 
by  the  first  line?  Another  would  not  have  failed  to  do  it.  But 
Victor  Hugo  does  just  the  contrary;  he  does  not  add  but  can- 
cels suggestions  already  given. 

Pas  un  nuage  aux  deux,  sur  les  mers  pas  de  voiles. 

For  he  wants  to  bring  us  as  quickly  as  possible  from  the  con- 
crete to  the  abstract,  from  external  to  internal  things,  in  order 
finally  to  lead  us  from  internal  to  supernal  things.  And  remark 
in  passing  the  elegance  of  this  second  line,  parallel  to  the  first 
through  its  central  comma,  and  by  the  correspondence  of  the 
objects  described  but  parallel  by  inversion,  as  one  may  say, 
because  here  the  sky  is  in  the  first  hemistich  and  the  sea  in 
the  second:  a  parallelism  of  two  scales,  one  ascending,  played 
by  the  left  hand,  one  descending,  played  by  the  right. 
Mes  yeux  plonqeaient  plus  loin  que  le  monde  reel 

—  the  real  world  being  already  reduced  to  its  simplest  expres- 
sion by  the  preceding  line.  What  is  the  essential  word  here?  It 
is  plus  loin;  and  you  see  that  the  poet  has  placed  it  at  the  point 
in  the  line  which  is  necessarily  the  most  accented  —  the  hemi- 
stich. 

And  now  the  poet  is  about  to  invoke  all  the  voices  that  he 

hears  with  the  spirit,  just  because  he  has  passed  beyond  the 

world  of  sense.  But  he  is  already  quarter  way  in  his  poem;  how 

can  he  voice  them  all  without  destroying  its  just  proportions? 

Et  les  bois,  et  les  monts,  et  toute  la  nature. 

This  conjunction  et,  repeated  three  times,  proves  to  suffice  by 
the  indefiniteness  it  adds  to  the  enumeration;  twice  in  the  first 


THE  MUSEUM  DOCENT  295 

half  of  the  line  for  the  particular  voices,  once  in  the  second  for 
the  entire  chorus.  I  seem  to  see  the  leader  of  an  orchestra,  call- 
ing, by  a  sign  toward  the  left,  upon  the  strings;  by  a  sign  toward 
the  right,  upon  the  brasses;  and  then  with  both  arms  extended 
in  a  broader  gesture  unchaining  all  the  instruments  of  the  or- 
chestra. 

Unchaining  them?  Rather  summoning  them,  not  in  all  their 
strength  but  in  all  their  gentleness,  and  muted.  For  these  are 
voices  that  sing  in  silence,  and  as  it  were,  add  to  the  majesty 
of  silence. 

Et  les  bois,  et  les  monts,  et  toute  la  nature, 
Semblaient  interroger  dans  un  confus  murmure. 

And  here  instinctively  the  poet  has  used  words  in  which  three 
successive  syllables  are  formed  with  the  letter  u:  that  one  which 
it  is  impossible  to  sing  loud  on  a  high  pitch,  that  one  which 
cannot  be  pronounced  otherwise  than  with  compressed  lips, 
and  by  hardly  uttering  a  sound. 

Semblaient  interroger  dans  un  confus  murmure 
Les  flats  des  mers,  les  feux  du  del. 

Try  a  moment  to  lengthen  this  line  out  to  the  measure  of  the 
others;  by  saying,  for  example: 

Lesflots  profonds  des  mers,  les  feux  Ugers  du  del. 

Marvellous!  It  seems  as  if  in  adding  these  epithets,  instead  of 
lengthening  it,  we  had  shortened  it.  It  is  longer  in  the  matter  of 
time,  and  smaller  for  the  imagination,  for  thought;  for  with  these 
parasitic  words  it  no  longer  awakens  any  idea  of  grandeur.  As 
it  was,  on  the  contrary,  reduced  to  the  four  parallel  substantives 
which  are  the  framework  of  the  strophe,  see  how  it  girds  up  the 
strophe  by  tying  the  last  line  to  the  first,  and  how  it  concludes 
it  by  concentrating  it. 

But  we  are  already  half  way  through  the  poem;  and  the  theme 
of  it  has  only  been  set  forth.  The  poet  has  only  six  more  lines 
with  which  to  bring  it  to  its  conclusion,  when  one  would  think 
it  would  take  several  more  strophes.  Not  at  all.  Six  lines  will 
answer.  See,  the  poet  has  not  let  drop  the  initial  movement. 
He  has  indeed  put  a  period  at  the  end  of  the  first  strophe,  but 
here  he  is  starting  off  again  with  the  conjunction  ett  thereby 
linking  the  second  strophe  to  the  first,  and  even  beyond  the 
terminal  point  of  the  latter,  rejoining  the  line  in  which  already 
it  is  found  three  times: 

Et  les  bois,  et  les  monts,  et  toute  la  nature. 


296  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

The  two  strophes  are  no  longer  two,  but  a  single  musical  phrase, 
destined  to  broaden  and  grow  in  sonority  and  majesty  up  to 
the  end. 

Et  les  etoiles  d'or,  legions  infinies. 

Avoix  haute,  a  voix  basse,  avec  mille  harmonies. 

This  second  line,  by  a  proceeding  natural  to  poetry,  passes 
from  one  sense  to  another;  the  visual  impression  has  become 
an  auditory  one.  The  waves  and  the  stars  must  respond  to  the 
woods  and  the  mountains  that  have  questioned  them,  and  they 
need  a  voice.  The  stars  shine  more  or  less  brightly  according 
to  their  distance  and  size,  and  they  form  the  groups  we  call 
constellations.  Well,  the  more  or  less  intense  scintillation  of 
the  stars  becomes  voices  more  or  less  sonorous,  and  the  thousand 
figures  of  the  constellations  become  a  thousand  harmonies,  per- 
ceptible no  longer  to  the  eyes  but  to  the  ears : 

Et  les  etoiles  d'or,  legions  infinies, 

A  voix  haute,  a  voix  basse,  avec  mille  harmonies, 

Disaient,  en  inclinant  leurs  couronnes  de  feu. 

What  do  they  say?  Will  their  answer  fill  the  remaining  lines? 
No,  that  would  leave  out  the  answer  of  the  waves,  and  rupture 
the  whole  equilibrium  of  the  poem.  By  a  boldness  unexampled 
in  poetry,  and  perhaps  in  language,  by  an  inspiration  truly  sub- 
lime, the  poet  arrests  his  phrase  then  and  there,  leaves  it  hang- 
ing as  it  were  in  the  void,  and  descending  from  the  sky  to  the 
sea,  seeks  in  turn  the  response  of  the  waves,  to  combine  it  with 
that  of  the  stars  in  a  stupendous  unison,  by  means  of  the  re- 
peated word  disaient;  and  to  swing  them  together,  like  the  min- 
gled smoke  of  two  censers,  toward  Him,  whose  name  by  a  last 
artifice  he  delays  to  utter  until  the  final  line,  in  order  that  it 
may  be  the  last  word  of  this  last  strophe,  as  He  is  in  the  poet's 
eyes,  the  last  word  of  creation  and  humanity. 

Et  les  fiots  bleus,  que  rien  ne  gouverne  ni  n'arretei 
Disaient,  en  recourbant  Vecume  de  leur  crete, 
—  C'est  le  Seigneur,  le  Seigneur  Dieu  I 

The  three  similes  with  which  this  exposition  is  adorned 
are  the  involuntary  contribution  of  a  poet,  not  the  de- 
liberate choice  of  an  expositor.  M.  Dorchain  gives  more 
than  an  exposition,  but  like  a  good  decent,  also  leaves  other 
patent  details  to  be  discovered  by  his  disciple.  (1)  The 
poem  describes  a  question  and  its  answer,  the  question 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  297 

wholly  contained  within  the  first  strophe,  the  second 
strophe  wholly  devoted  to  the  answer.  (2)  There  is  a  fifth 
conjunction  et  which  binds  the  answer  of  the  waves  to  the 
answer  of  the  stars,  as  that  which  precedes  binds  both  to 
the  question  of  the  woods  and  mountains.  (3)  The  phrase 
"confused  murmur"  seems  to  lay  bare  the  genesis  of  the 
poem  in  sounds  of  the  wind  through  trees  and  over 
heights  that  fell  on  the  poet's  ear  like  the  voice  of  the 
land  in  a  question.  (4)  In  the  strophe  devoted  to  the  an- 
swer, the  epithets  chosen  for  the  stars  and  waves  are 
not  indifferent  adjectives  but  those  which  display  them  in 
their  proper  and  contrasted  colors,  gold  and  blue.  (5)  As 
stars  but  twinkle,  while  waves  crumble,  so  the  poet  fancies 
the  one  but  bending  while  the  others  curve  downward 
as  if  prostrating  themselves.  (6)  The  two  actions,  con- 
tained and  abandoned,  correspond  to  the  heavenly  peace 
and  the  earthly  turbulence  of  which  sky  and  sea  are  ac- 
cepted representatives.  (7)  The  reason  for  dignity  on  the 
one  hand  and  humility  on  the  other  is  suggested  in  de- 
scribing the  stars  as  crowned  heads  moving  in  order,  and 
the  waves  as  unruly  subjects,  whose  anarchic  fury  is  em- 
phasized by  the  position  of  the  word  rien  at  the  hemistich 
of  the  line.  The  little  poem  is  a  consummate  gem,  and 
turn  it  as  we  may,  new  facets  dazzle  us  with  their  precision 
and  brilliancy. 

A  first  doubt  that  rises  to  the  mind  in  considering  this 
exposition  lays  an  axe  at  the  root  of  the  whole  theory  of 
the  docent  office.  Is  it  not  to  destroy  the  power  of  a  work 
of  art  to  make  it  the  subject  of  open  conference?  To  point 
out  sources  of  joy  acts  admittedly  to  dry  them  up.  The 
mental  law  by  which  pleasure  vanishes  under  reflective 
analysis  has  been  a  tale  retold  in  all  ages  —  in  antiquity 
by  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche,  in  the  middle  ages  by 
stories  like  that  of  Lohengrin  and  Elsa.  It  would  appear 


298  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

then  a  folly  to  attempt  by  any  verbal  comment  on  a  work 
of  art  to  lead  another  on  to  joy  in  it.  Schiller's  lines 

Mit  dem  Guertel,  mit  dem  Schleier 
Reisst  der  schoene  Wahn  entzwei! l 

are  then  a  parable;  and  the  nearest  to  a  work  of  art  is  he 
who  apprehends  it  from  afar.  Without  question  the  mood 
in  which  a  disciple  is  left  by  any  exposition  differs  ma- 
terially from  the  mood  which  the  artist  has  sought  to 
convey  by  it.  No  exposition  is  more  than  a  skeleton  of 
complete  assimilation;  and  none,  moreover,  is  through 
traffic  with  the  artist's  mind,  but  a  traffic  by  change  of 
trains  with  all  its  possibilities  of  error.  Yet  every  perti- 
nent exposition  contains  elements  of  real  assimilation; 
nuclei  of  understanding  which  when  we  turn  to  the  work 
again  and  forget  them  may  lead  toward  it.  The  wind  of 
doctrine,  while  it  dampens  the  fire  kindled  by  the  artist, 
fans  sparks  therein  from  which,  when  it  dies  away,  the 
whole  may  again  spring  into  flame.  The  full  truth  seems 
to  be  that  although  analysis  temporarily  deadens  apprecia- 
tion, it  tends  to  drop  out  of  mind,  while  the  understanding 
which  it  both  quickens  and  adulterates  tends  to  remain. 
Within  closely  guarded  limits,  only  to  be  observed  by  a 
spirit  of  instinctive  reverence,  it  would  appear  then  that 
the  docent  office  has  a  real,  if  modest,  right  to  exist. 

M.  Dorchain's  exposition  is  a  guide  to  the  docent  as 
well  by  what  it  omits  as  by  what  it  includes.  It  gives 
nothing  of  Victor  Hugo's  personal  history,  of  his  time,  or 
of  the  special  circumstances  under  which  the  poem  was 
written.  These  all  belong  to  the  real  world;  the  poem  to 
one  "that  never  was  on  sea  or  land."  M.  Dorchain  might 
have  begun  thus:  "It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  emi- 
nence of  Victor  Hugo  (1802-85)  as  a  lyric  poet  was  un- 

1  Das  Lied  von  der  Glocke.  ("With  the  girdle,  with  the  veil,  the  fair  illusion 
falls  in  twain.") 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  299 

disputed  from  the  beginning,  while  his  novels  and  plays 
were  each  the  object  of  a  violent  polemic.  His  first  wide 
reputation  was  gained  by  the  publication  in  1829  of  the 
volume  entitled  'Les  Orientates9  —  in  effect  a  plea  for  the 
independence  of  Greece  —  from  which  the  poem  about 
to  be  examined  is  taken.  With  regard  to  the  scene  there 
portrayed,  it  is  related  of  the  poet,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,"  all  of 
which  items  serve  only  to  domesticate  us  before  the  look- 
ing-glass through  which  the  poem  aims  to  translate  us. 
An  English  workman,  a  passionate  admirer  of  Tennyson, 
urged  to  ask  an  introduction  to  the  poet,  exclaimed, 
pointing  upward:  "You  can't  reach  Tennyson!  He  lives 
there!"  Longfellow  once  aptly  compared  a  poet  in  his  life 
and  in  his  works  with  a  lighthouse  by  day  and  by  night. 
We  do  not  spend  time  over  the  lighthouse  buildings  if  our 
aim  is  to  pick  up  its  beam. 

M.  Dorchain,  again,  does  not  give  us  generalizations 
about  the  poem  as  a  whole,  but  observations  upon  its 
details.  The  one  method  comports  with  an  ignorance  of 
the  work  of  art  discussed  which  at  once  implies  and  en- 
genders indifference  to  it;  the  other  demands  an  ac- 
quaintance with  it  which  at  once  presupposes  and  com- 
municates enjoyment  of  it.  M.  Smile  Faguet  writes  of 
literary  criticism: 

General  ideas  and  philosophical  considerations  lead  one 
around  but  not  into  great  writers.  They  can  throw  a  little  in- 
direct light  on  great  works,  but  they  chiefly  divert  and  distract 
from  them.  A  propos  of  a  great  writer  is  not  of  him;  but  rather 
a  respectable  excuse  for  saying  nothing  of  him.  Criticism  by 
generalities  is  rather  a  means  of  shirking  the  task  than  of  under- 
taking it;  and  rather  a  means  also  of  setting  one's  self  forth 
than  of  interpreting  the  writer  that  one  is  supposed  to  have  read 
and  to  want  to  have  others  read.1 

In  the  field  of  the  objective  arts,  the  histories  are  a 
mine  of  illustrations.  Two  identical  and  empty  generali- 

1  In  Les  Annales,  no.  1591  (December  21,  1914). 


300  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

zations  are  the  sole  words  (in  translation)  of  one  work  of 
established  authority  upon  two  radically  unlike  master- 
pieces of  sculpture  —  the  famous  equestrian  statues  of 
Gattamelata  and  Colleoni.  One  is  "full  of  energetic  char- 
acter and  bold  life";  the  other  is  "characteristic  to  excess 
but  full  of  life  and  power."  Not  to  have  been  struck  by 
their  difference  is  not  to  have  penetrated  either.  Nor  does 
the  phrase  "absolute  relaxation  of  sleep,"  applied  in  the 
same  volume  to  Michel  Angelo's  figure  of  Night,  pene- 
trate the  meaning  of  an  attitude  in  which  one  hand  has 
already  slipped  from  beneath  the  forehead  and  the  elbow 
is  in  the  act  of  gliding  down  the  thigh.  The  figure  has  been 
compared  to  the  restless  Ariadne  of  the  Vatican,  and  is 
even  more  unrelaxed.  Plainly,  in  this  standard  book,  the 
broad  stroke  was  used  because  either  congenital  inca- 
pacity or  limitations  of  a  mistaken  task  hindered  the  use 
of  the  fine.  Generalities  may  be  good  servants  in  the 
docent  office  but  they  are  bad  masters. 

M.  Dorchain's  example  again  teaches  that  the  docent 
must  very  rarely  praise  directly.  To  affirm  that  some- 
thing is  beautiful  is  to  announce  that  the  speaker  takes 
pleasure  in  its  contemplation.  The  docent  either  cannot 
or  can  point  out  sources  of  that  pleasure.  If  he  cannot, 
the  announcement  will  not  tend  to  awaken  it,  but  rather 
will  emphasize  its  lack  in  the  disciple,  either  pique  him,  and 
dispose  him  away  from  enjoyment  or  invite  him  to  sham 
thereafter  a  pleasure  which  he  does  not  feel.  If  the  docent 
can  indicate  its  origin,  this  is  his  business,  and  the  pre- 
liminary statement  of  his  own  good  fortune  is  for  the  most 
part  a  gratuitous  futility.  To  awaken  a  sense  of  beauty 
it  is  essential  to  proceed  by  setting  causes  in  action,  not 
by  commanding  their  effect.  If  the  docent 's  enthusiasm 
is  real  —  and  if  not  he  is  no  docent  —  it  will  pierce  through 
the  soberest  language  he  may  choose.  The  familiar  his- 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  301 

tory  of  art  already  quoted  again  offers  examples  of  what 
to  avoid.  The  following  forty-six  words  constitute  one 
quarter  of  the  whole  number  devoted  in  this  volume  (in 
translation)  to  the  Sistine  Madonna:  "wonderful  form  — 
glorious  raiment  —  heavenly  apparition  —  lovely  angel- 
faces  —  majesty  of  his  eyes  —  saintly  Pope  —  lovely 
demeanor  —  graceful  head  —  revelation  of  power  and 
glory  —  enchanting  angel-boys  —  last  touch  of  beauty  to 
this  magnificent  work  —  deepest  thought  —  prof oundest 
insight  —  completest  loveliness  —  the  apex  of  all  reli- 
gious art."  In  all  M.  Dorchain's  exposition  on  the  con- 
trary there  are  but  four  phrases  which  can  be  called  open 
praise.  He  speaks  once  of  the  "fascinating"  alliteration 
in  une  nuit;  again  of  the  "elegance"  of  the  second  line; 
again  of  the  whole  poem  as  "destined  to  grow  in  sonority 
and  majesty  up  to  the  end";  and  finally  of  the  suspen- 
sion produced  by  the  repetition  of  the  word  disaient  as  an 
inspiration  "truly  sublime."  All  else  in  the  long  analysis 
is  a  plain  description  of  the  make  of  the  two  stanzas,  yet 
conceived  with  an  admiration  so  ardent  that  its  conta- 
gion is  irresistible. 

The  decent  must  be  even  more  circumspect  in  the  use 
of  dispraise  either  direct  or  indirect;  and  M.  Dorchain  is 
again  an  example  to  follow.  He  tells  us  neither  that  the 
poem  is  (or  is  not)  of  Victor  Hugo's  best,  nor  (unless  by 
a  single  playful  hint)  that  Victor  Hugo  is  the  greatest  of 
French  lyrists.  Such  statements  are  rife  in  all  descriptive 
books  on  art,  full  of  references  to  its  blossoming  and  de- 
cadence. Yet  they  convey  barren  statistical  information, 
empty  of  all  illuminating  force.  They  put  before  the  mind 
a  simple  quantitative  picture  made  up  of  heights  and 
depths.  The  sole  pointer  they  offer  a  disciple  may  be  thus 
expressed:  "A  given  amount  of  attention  will  be  best 
repaid  by  this  work  or  this  artist."  To  which  three  re- 


302  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

joinders  are  in  place:  first  —  Such  is  your  opinion,  but  who 
will  guarantee  its  justice?  Yesterday  proclaimed  Murillo 
the  greatest  Spanish  painter;  to-day  proclaims  Velasquez. 
Second,  admitting  the  infallibility  of  the  claim  you  rep- 
resent, what  are  the  merits  that  make  up  this  matchless 
sum?  Double  stars  do  not  constitute  a  guide  book.  The 
feast  of  which  we  also  wish  to  partake,  you  point  us  to, 
but  do  not  set  before  us.  It  has  been  acutely  remarked 
that  critics  sometimes  "use  works  of  art  only  as  a  stimulus 
to  their  memories  of  related  objects/'  Their  minds  are 
so  full  of  relations  that  they  are  incapable  of  apprehend- 
ing the  things  between  which  the  relations  subsist.  Third, 
supposing  your  opinion  infallible,  and  the  feast  partaken, 
are  there  no  other  viands  of  the  spirit  spread  on  other 
tables?  Toward  these  your  words  of  indirect  dispraise 
do  not  invite  us;  they  rather  disillusion  us  about  them. 
When  you  call  one  stage  of  art  still  imperfect,  or  another 
past  its  prime,  we  are  vexed  with  the  question  —  "What 
more? "  -  when  you  call  another  the  highest,  with  the 
equally  disappointing  query—  "Is  this  all? "  M.  Dorchain 
permits  himself  two  comparative  judgments,  neither  re- 
ferring to  other  poetry  generally,  but  to  specific  lines  of 
his  own  composition.  In  the  transposed  first  line  and  the 
lengthened  sixth  line  he  gives  us  the  materials  for  a  judg- 
ment, and  asks  us  to  render  it  for  ourselves.  This  method 
escapes  all  three  of  the  faults  of  the  customary  statistical 
procedure.  It  does  not  claim  infallibility;  it  minutely  de- 
scribes the  particular  merits  it  claims;  and  the  lines  dis- 
praised are  not  the  work  of  another  poet,  but  inventions 
for  the  occasion  as  corpora  vilia  of  comparison. 

Another  pitfall  of  artistic  exposition  is  wholly  avoided 
by  M.  Dorchain.  The  docent  must  not  fancy  it  any  duty 
of  his  to  teach  the  laws  of  beauty.  In  so  doing  he  would 
commit  a  psychological  solecism  of  the  first  order.  A  dis- 


THE  MUSEUM   DOCENT 


303 


ciple  may  easily  think  that  if  he  only  knew  the  general 
principles  according  to  which  certain  things  give  pleasure 
he  would  be  armed  to  perceive  their  beauty;  and  a  decent 
may  be  inclined  to  ask  of  what  else  can  a  course  of  prep- 
aration for  the  enjoyment  of  a  work  of  art  consist  than 
a  discourse  upon  the  laws  of  beauty  as  exemplified  therein. 
Yet  nothing  could  be  more  useless  and  in  fact  prejudicial 
to  the  docent  aim.  It  is  useless  because  there  is  no  causal 
connection  whatever  between  abstractions  and  the  phe- 
nomena they  collate.  To  inculcate  a  mental  law  does 
nothing  to  bring  about  its  fulfilment.  What  fulfils  it  is  the 
presence  in  the  mind  of  the  causes  whose  effect  the  law 
formulates.  Does  it  help  us  see  jokes  to  learn  that  the 
phenomenon  of  the  ludicrous  is  due  to  a  datum  unexpected 
under  a  certain  interpretation  of  circumstances  which 
prove  to  have  another  interpretation  in  which  the  datum 
becomes  expected?  Yet  this  is  the  content  of  theories  of 
the  Comic.  In  the  instance  of  beautiful  things,  it  is  the 
apprehension  of  those  aspects  of  them  that  give  pleasure 
which  furnishes  the  why  of  the  beauty  of  the  work  to  us. 
The  generalization  itself  according  to  which  they  do  so 
has  no  such  power,  and  our  ignorance  of  it  will  be  no  handi- 
cap to  our  enjoyment.  A  knowledge  of  it,  on  the  con- 
trary, will  be  such  a  handicap.  It  calls  the  mind  away 
from  the  concrete  object,  the  bearer  of  the  artist's  thought, 
to  a  region  of  abstract  and  colorless  idea  in  which  he  has 
had  no  part,  and  in  wrhich  if  we  wish  to  follow  him  we  will 
take  no  part.  In  M.  Dorchain's  exposition,  as  was  to  be 
expected,  the  enunciation  of  laws  of  beauty  is  conspicu- 
ous by  its  absence. 

The  chief  positive  factor  in  effective  exposition  is  the 
labor  of  directing  the  disciple's  attention  upon  vital  ele- 
ments in  a  work  of  art,  of  insuring  that  it  is  really  per- 
ceived in  detail,  and  taken  in  in  its  entirety.  Equally 


304  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

important  in  a  negative  way,  and  in  practice  naturally 
mingled  with  it,  is  the  labor  of  clearing  away  difficulties 
of  comprehension. 

Victor  Hugo's  lines  are  so  plain  that  M.  Dorchain  has 
almost  no  difficulties  to  elucidate.  Without  him  we  might 
possibly  have  mistaken  or  ignored  the  reference  to  brighter 
and  fainter  stars  in  the  "a  voix  haute,  d  voix  basse"  but 
all  else  is  clear  and  we  are  left  to  ourselves  to  understand 
it.  In  most  other  poems  there  would  be  far  more  to  ex- 
plain, and  in  many  there  would  be  insoluble  enigmas.  It 
is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  first  contact  of  any  one 
with  any  museum  object  —  any  picture,  any  statue,  any 
fragment  of  architecture,  any  product  of  minor  art  — 
has  its  share  of  the  disagreeable  state  of  mind  we  call  be- 
wilderment. To  be  bewildered  over  a  thing  is  to  make 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  understand  it,  and  here  as  every- 
where ill-success  is  not  a  pleasure  but  a  pain,  lighter  or 
severer  as  the  case  may  be.  Bewilderment  continued  be- 
comes more  and  more  a  load  on  the  spirits.  Failure  to 
understand  one  feature  after  another  in  the  work  we  are 
inspecting  first  produces  boredom  and  then  exasperation 
with  it  —  both  of  them  moods  which  are  to  the  creative 
joy  of  the  artist  as  oil  is  to  water.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
docent  to  prevent  this  untoward  outcome  at  all  hazards; 
but  as  evil  is  always  best  overcome  with  good,  the  negative 
effort  will  not  be  a  labor  by  itself,  but  a  by-product  of  the 
labor  of  stating  the  right  interpretations  at  once  and  before 
they  can  be  missed  by  the  disciple.  The  main  task  of  the 
docent  is  therefore  an  interpretation  which  shall  at  the 
same  time  be  an  explanation. 

His  general  method  will  consist,  as  M.  Dorchain's  does, 
in  going  over  the  work  of  art  in  detail  and  in  review,  and 
making  sure  that  it  is  thoroughly  apprehended  as  the 
artist  would  have  it,  both  by  eye  and  mind.  This  ideal  is 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  305 

rarely  even  approached.  Why  are  not  Michel  Angelo's 
expressions  of  the  fop  in  his  statue  of  Adonis  and  the  sot 
in  his  statue  of  Bacchus  matters  of  common  remark?  Be- 
cause students  of  him  do  not  look  at  his  works.  The 
docent  is  one  to  whom  "the  visible  world  exists,"  as  it  did 
to  Theophile  Gautier;  and  who  seeks  to  make  it  exist  to 
others.  By  a  convenient  distinction  the  purpose  of  an 
artist  may  be  divided  into  a  sensuous  and  an  imagina- 
tive intention.  He  may  mainly,  or  wholly,  aim  to  give 
the  beholder  certain  sensations  in  a  certain  arrangement, 
to  which  may  be  added  almost  invariably  the  emotional 
mood  which  these  sensations  awaken.  Or  he  may  mainly, 
though  never  wholly,  care  to  impart  the  inferences  which 
are  naturally  drawn  from  the  forms  and  colors  which 
make  up  his  work  as  an  object  of  sense.  The  first  alterna- 
tive is  that  of  direct,  or  free  beauty,  of  which  the  cardinal 
exemplar  is  music;  the  second,  indirect  or  representative 
beauty,  of  which  the  cardinal  exemplar  is  literature.  The 
direct  element  is  essential  also  to  belles  lettres,  especially 
to  poetry,  as  the  preamble  to  M.  Dorchain's  exposition 
indicates.  In  the  objective  arts  —  alone  represented  in 
a  museum  —  the  elements  of  sense  and  imagination  are 
more  nearly  equalized,  one  or  the  other  predominating  as 
the  artist's  temper  dictates.  Whistler's  "Nocturnes"  and 
"Arrangements"  illustrate  in  painting  the  gravitation 
toward  musical  structure  which  Walter  Pater  finds  in  all 
the  fine  arts.1  Interpretation  by  a  docent  will  therefore 
not  aim  exclusively,  or  even  in  many  cases  mainly  at  mak- 

1  Yet  his  art  inevitably  went  further.  "It  is  true  again  that  Mr.  Whistler's 
own  merest  'Arrangements'  in  color  are  lovely  and  effective:  but  his  portraits, 
to  speak  of  them  alone,  are  liable  to  the  damning  and  intolerable  imputation  of 
possessing,  not  merely  other  qualities  than  these,  but  qualities  which  actually 
appeal  —  I  blush  to  remember  and  I  shudder  to  record  it — •  which  actually 
appeal  to  the  intelligence  and  the  emotions,  to  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  spec- 
tator." A.  C.  Swinburne,  "Mr.  Whistler's  Lecture  on  Art,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
June,  1888. 


306  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ing  plain  to  a  disciple  the  so-called  "story"  of  the  picture 
or  the  statue.  But  he  will  include  both  elements  if  he  take 
care  to  see  that  every  vital  line  and  surface  and  shadow 
and  tint  is  at  least  perceived  by  the  disciple;  and  shall  be 
understood  as  well,  if  he  divine  an  intention  in  the  artist 
going  beyond  the  sense  impression  to  its  imaginative 
fruit.  He  must  say  not  only  "the  shadows  gather  here" 
or  "every  tone  in  the  picture  is  reddened "  but  "an  endless 
plain  stretches  beyond,  with  occasional  glimpses  of  the 
sea";  or  "the  saint  is  Catherine  and  the  wheel  a  symbol 
of  her  martyrdom."  By  this  guidance  the  burden  of  be- 
wilderment will  be  lifted,  and  the  work  of  art  seen  with  that 
degree  of  minuteness,  breadth,  and  deliberation  through 
which  alone  it  can  yield  its  impression,  and  which,  never- 
theless, is  habitually  denied  it  even  by  those  who  aspire 
to  speak  and  write.  Thus  only  are  works  of  art  both  rec- 
ommended and  taught.  The  disciple  grows  into  the  other 
half  of  the  incomplete  being  we  call  an  artist;  and  by  his 
beholding  gives  the  work  a  new  lease  of  life  in  another 
spirit. 

The  experience  of  decent  work  in  a  museum  suggests 
three  practical  rules.  The  essential  office  of  the  decent  is 
to  get  the  object  thoroughly  perceived  by  the  disciple. 
Hence,  draw  attention  to  the  object  first;  talk  about  it 
afterwards,  and  only  if  occasion  offers.  In  the  words  of 
Francois  Coppee, l  "Voir  d'abord;  ensuite,  savoir";  else 
your  auditor's  attention  will  be  divided  between  trying 
to  decipher  the  object  and  trying  to  follow  you.  Again, 
the  admiration  of  the  decent  is  like  the  latent  fire  of  a 
match,  imprisoned  in  his  head,  and  not  effective  without 
an  interlocutor  as  igniting  surface,  and  even  an  auditor 
beside  as  tinder.  When  these  are  seen  to  in  advance,  there 
will  nearly  always  be  an  extended  blaze.  Hence,  let  the 

1  Souvenirs  d'un  Parisien. 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  307 

decent  of  a  group  provide  himself  at  the  start  with  a  ques- 
tioner (to  be  kept  within  bounds)  and  a  hearer.  Again, 
a  formal  talk  upon  a  work  of  art  may  to  advantage  be 
repeated,  but  only  up  to  the  point  at  which  further  repe- 
tition does  not  improve  it.  This  point  will  be  reached 
after  not  very  many  repetitions.  Stendhal  has  some- 
where written  that  seventeen  was  about  the  number  of 
times  that  one  could  see  a  picture  before  it  began  to  lose 
its  effect.  Perhaps  we  may  be  said  to  know  a  work  of 
tangible  art  well  when  on  closing  the  eyes  we  can  repro- 
duce it  in  some  detail  in  imagination. 

The  official  recognition  by  museums  of  the  duty  of  oral 
instruction  upon  their  contents  dates  from  very  recent 
years.  The  initiative  was  taken  by  a  museum  of  art.  In 
Boston,  in  1895,  the  interpretation  of  museum  exhibits  by 
museum  officers  was  under  consideration  at  the  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts.  Expert  guidance  in  the  galleries  had  already 
been  privately  advocated.*1  In  the  following  year,  1896,  the 
Trustees  consented  that  volunteer  representatives  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  Club  of  that  city  should  meet  visitors 
in  the  galleries  of  casts  to  give  information  about  the 
reproductions  of  sculpture  shown.  The  experiment  was 
carried  on  for  three  months  under  the  supervision  of  an 
officer  of  the  Museum,  who  reported  to  the  Trustees  rec- 
ommending that  if  continued  the  service  be  made  official. 
For  ten  years  this  was  impossible.  The  studies  and  plans 
for  the  new  building  of  the  Museum  fully  absorbed  the 
energies  of  the  administration.  In  June,  1906,  the  Mu- 
seum Bulletin  at  last  announced  the  project,  and  applied 

1  Mr.  J.  Randolph  Coolidge,  Jr.,  a  Trustee  of  the  Museum  since  1899,  and 
during  1906  its  Director,  proposed  the  plan  to  a  friend  in  a  letter  written  in 
1892.  Since  the  official  adoption  of  the  method  by  the  Boston  Museum,  Mr. 
Coolidge  has  contributed  materially  to  its  success  by  his  personal  cooperation 
as  decent. 


308  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  forgotten  English  adjective  "docent"  to  the  future 
duty.  Meanwhile  a  similar  effort  had  been  undertaken  by 
volunteers  at  the  Louvre  in  Paris.  In  remarking  upon  it  in 
December,  1901,  the  "Chronique  des  Arts"  suggested  that 
officers  of  the  museum  should  conduct  the  instruction. 
"Thus  the  public  would  learn  to  see  better,  and  to  com- 
prehend better,  from  those  to  whom  long  familiarity  and 
laborious  achievement  have  given  the  privilege  of  be- 
coming the  intimate  friends  of  our  masterpieces."  Two 
years  later,  in  September,  1903,  the  Mannheim  Confer- 
ence of  Museum  Officials  received  a  number  of  reports  upon 
like  volunteer  movements  in  German  museums.  Finally, 
in  April,  1907,  gallery  instruction  was  made  an  official 
function  at  the  Boston  Museum.  The  Bulletin  of  that 
date  announced  that  an  assistant  in  the  administration 
had  been  appointed,  under  the  title  of  "docent,"  to  the 
additional  duty  of  giving  visitors  in  the  galleries  informa- 
tion about  the  exhibits.  Similar  appointments  with  the 
name  of  "museum  instructor"  followed  within  a  year  or 
two  at  two  museums  in  New  York,  one  a  museum  of  sci- 
ence —  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  —  the 
other  a  museum  of  art  —  the  Metropolitan.  The  oppor- 
tunity of  service  was  welcomed  by  other  museums  through- 
out the  country,  and  the  new  word  "docent"  has  since 
become  widely  accepted  among  us  in  the  new  sense  of  an 
official  commentator  on  things  shown.  A  docent  is  one  who 
explains  exhibits.  From  the  beginning  this  term  has  signi- 
fied not  an  official  post  but  an  official  duty;  not  a  func- 
tionary but  a  function.  All  of  the  officers  of  the  Boston 
Museum,  most  of  their  assistants,  and  many  friends  have 
taken  part  in  the  service  in  the  ten  years  since  it  was 
begun.  In  England,  in  pursuance  of  a  suggestion  offered 
in  1910  by  Lord  Sudeley,  an  official  "guide  demon- 
strator" was  in  1911  appointed  at  the  British  Museum, 


THE   MUSEUM   DOCENT  309 

and  the  system  was  later  under  consideration  at  the  Na- 
tional Gallery  and  other  museums  of  art  in  London.  Pro- 
fessor Reau,  in  France,  writes  that  it  is  their  "constant 
attention  to  popular  education  that  forms  the  chief  orig- 
inality of  American  art  museums,"  the  official  recogni- 
tion of  the  duty  "being  almost  unknown  in  the  museums 
of  France  and  Germany."1  It  would  be  vain  to  hope, 
he  writes  again,  that  the  words  of  a  decent,  "however 
eloquent,  could  transmit  a  sense  of  beauty  to  those  who 
have  not  been  endowed  with  it.  But  he  will  be  able,  in 
analyzing  a  work  of  art,  to  train  the  eyes  of  the  people, 
and  teach  them  to  see  better."2 

In  American  museums  of  art,  gallery  instruction  is  one 
factor  in  a  widespread  recent  movement  for  their  utiliza- 
tion for  educational  purposes.  Luther  is  credited  with  com- 
paring public  opinion  to  a  drunken  peasant  on  horseback. 
Righted  on  one  side  it  falls  toward  the  other.  The  rude 
comparison  has  an  aptness  illustrated  once  more  in  the 
history  of  museum  economy.  Museums  of  fine  art  began 
by  subordinating  their  role  of  showing  to  their  role  of 
keeping,  their  monstrant  to  their  gardant  office.  This  was 
the  magazine  era  of  museums,  when  they  were  built  and 
arranged  with  chief  reference  to  the  preservation  of  their 
contents.  These  were  the  days  of  closely  restricted  access, 
of  crowded  rooms  and  walls,  of  great  cases  with  multi- 
farious contents,  both  arranged  in  each  other's  way,  of 
light  openings  insufficient  and  dazzling.  In  large  measure 
awakened  since  to  the  absurdity  of  this  shortsightedness, 
museums  have  inclined  toward  the  other  possibility  of 
error:  that  of  subordinating  their  role  of  showing  to  their 
r61e  of  teaching,  their  monstrant  to  their  decent  office.  To 

1  "  L'Organization  des  Musses.   Les  Mus6es  AmeVicains,"  Revue  de  Synthese 
Historique.    (1909.) 

2  "Musees  Americains,"  Le  Chronique  des  Arts  (December  24,  1910),  no.  39, 
p.  308. 


310  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  magazine  era  has  succeeded  —  notably  in  this  coun- 
try —  a  school  era,  when  museums  of  art  are  managed 
with  conspicuous  reference,  if  not  chief  reference,  to  in- 
struction by  means  of  their  contents.  This  is  the  day  of 
the  employment  of  public  collections  as  apparatus  in 
school  and  college  courses,  of  omnipresent  and  obtrusive 
labels,  of  the  obstruction  of  galleries  by  copyists  and  by 
classes  under  preceptors,  of  lecture-rooms  and  classrooms, 
and  of  detailed  programmes  for  their  use  timed  to  the 
educational  year.  The  museum  of  fine  art  is  greeted,  in 
words  likewise  applicable  and  likewise  inappropriate  to 
the  church,  as  "the  crown  of  our  educational  system." 
An  end  will  come  in  time  to  this  opposite  and  equally 
absurd  shortsightedness.  The  primary  aim  of  exhibitions 
of  art  is  to  bring  it  about  that  certain  artistic  intentions 
shall  be  apprehended  by  the  spectator  of  the  objects 
fashioned  to  embody  them.  The  conservation  of  the  ob- 
jects and  the  instruction  of  the  spectator  are  subsidiary  to 
this  purpose;  their  simple  display  to  him  in  part  accom- 
plishes it.  A  museum  preserves  its  contents  in  order  that 
they  may  be  taken  in  by  eye  and  mind;  and  instructs  upon 
them  in  order  that  when  shown  to  the  eye  they  may  be 
grasped  by  the  mind.  Should  it  install  its  contents  even 
to  their  hurt  and  without  commentary,  it  would  still  in 
a  measure  attain  its  purpose;  while  if  it  kept  them  never 
so  safely  and  interpreted  them  never  so  wisely  without 
ever  letting  them  be  seen,  it  would  wholly  fail  in  its  aim. 
The  museum  gardant  and  the  museum  docent  are  means; 
the  museum  monstrant  an  end. 

The  beginnings  of  a  natural  treatment  of  public  exhi- 
bitions of  fine  art  may  be  descried  in  the  subordination 
by  museums  of  the  aims  of  safe  and  compact  stowage  and 
of  didactic  effectiveness  to  the  aim  of  display.  When  they 
install  fewer  objects  at  once,  in  more  congenial  surround- 


THE  MUSEUM   DOCENT  311 

ings,  with  a  greater  regard  for  the  limitations  of  the  human 
sight  and  muscles;  when  they  give  a  less  conspicuous 
place  to  labels  and  other  machinery  of  teaching  and  rec- 
ognize that  the  proper  educational  office  of  a  museum  of 
art  is  instruction  toward  and  not  from  exhibits,  and  the 
paramount  interests  in  their  keeping  those  of  the  adult 
public,  the  three  functions,  gardant,  monstrant,  and  docent, 
will  at  length  take  on  their  definitive  status. 


DOCENT  SERVICE  AT  THE  BOSTON  ART 
MUSEUM  i 

THE  day  has  long  gone  by  when  a  librarian  could  ex- 
claim with  glee,  as  a  librarian  of  the  old  school  is  said  to 
have  done:  "All  the  books  are  in  to-night  except  two,  and 
I  am  going  over  to  get  those."  Likewise,  the  day  is  pass- 
ing when  the  accumulations  of  museums  will  be  accepted 
as  a  measure  of  their  success.  They  will  be  asked  what 
they  are  doing  to  make  their  accumulations  tell  on  the 
community. 

Years  ago,  the  late  President  Oilman  of  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins University  made  in  conversation  the  suggestion  that 
public  libraries  should  invite  representative  men  in  vari- 
ous walks  of  life  to  be  present  at  stated  times  in  the  library 
to  help  all  comers  to  a  knowledge  of  books  in  their  vari- 
ous specialties.  Art  museums  offer  a  similar  opportunity. 
The  pulpit  has  long  ceased,  even  in  our  New  England 
communities,  to  be  the  all-sufficient  source  of  light  and 
leading.  Meanwhile,  all  classes  of  the  community,  church- 
goers and  non-church-goers  alike,  have  won  leisure  to 
devote  to  literature  and  art.  Why  should  they  not  gather 
in  libraries  and  museums  to  hear  works  of  literature  and 
art  commented  upon  by  those  who  know  and  love  these 
things?  In  the  spring  of  1907,  this  suggestion  of  a  quar- 
ter century  before  was  put  into  practice  in  Boston.  The 
Museum  Bulletin  announced  that  one  of  the  assistants  at 
the  Museum  had  been  assigned,  with  the  title  of  "do- 
cent,"  to  the  duty  of  meeting  visitors  in  the  galleries  and 
giving  information  about  the  exhibits.  The  service  has 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Nation  (New  York),  September  1,  1910. 


DOCENT  SERVICE  AT  BOSTON  313 

grown  from  this  beginning  until  it  now  occupies  several 
of  the  staff  during  parts  of  every  week  day,  and,  with  the 
aid  of  speakers  from  outside  the  Museum,  has  been  ex- 
tended to  Sunday  also. 

The  one  great  interest  present  to  all  hearers  alike,  the 
one  difficult  thing  to  comprehend,  is  the  faraway  source 
of  the  objects  before  them.  This  deep  and  singular  im- 
pression on  almost  every  attentive  beholder  is  due  to 
nothing  that  a  decent  can  say,  but  to  the  work  itself, 
which  thereby  prepares  to  make  itself  understood.  A 
sense  of  beauty  is  as  impossible  to  convey  by  word  of 
mouth  as  a  change  of  heart.  Indeed,  as  Professor  Reau  has 
just  written:  "Must  we  not  be  en  6tat  de  grace  (subjects 
of  grace  as  the  English  theologians  would  say)  in  order 
to  understand  a  work  of  art?"  In  the  words  of  Jacob 
Burckhardt,  a  decent  does  not  seek  to  "point  out  the 
fundamental  idea  or  conception  of  a  work  of  art.  Were  it 
possible  to  give  this  completely  in  words  at  all,  art  would 
be  superfluous  and  the  work  might  have  remained  un- 
built, unchiselled,  and  unpainted."  The  aim  of  a  decent 
is  "to  sketch  outlines  which  the  beholder's  own  percep- 
tions can  quicken  into  life." 

Of  course,  there  are  many  visitors  who  turn  away  list- 
lessly. And  of  those  who  stay  and  who  return,  by  no 
means  all  may  be  really  the  gainers.  Many  may  be  at- 
tracted by  the  novelty  or  by  an  idle  pleasure  in  something 
going  on.  One  sometimes  comes  back  from  a  tour  of  the 
galleries  with  the  doubt  whether,  after  all,  it  is  possible  to 
make  a  museum  of  fine  art  in  any  vital  sense  a  popular 
institution.  Does  not  the  after- world  for  past  civilizations 
consist  only  of  fewer  and  fewer  learned  men?  Are  mu- 
seums, then,  doing  the  general  public  any  real  service 
when  they  collect  objects  out  of  date  with  the  intention  of 
allowing  them  to  become  more  so? 


314  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

Against  so  formidable  a  doubt,  the  only  safety  is  an 
appeal  to  facts.  We  must  seek  actual  observation  as  to  the 
capacity  of  men  in  general  to  get  good  out  of  the  remains 
of  bygone  art.  We  know  that  the  museum  is  a  favorite 
weekly  resort  for  all  classes.  What  more  can  it  do  to  help 
all  its  visitors  to  that  share  in  the  life  of  the  imagination 
which  is  every  one's  birthright?  That  it  can  do  much  more 
seems  not  unlikely. 

But  at  once  other  doubts  arise.  We  are  told  that  talk 
about  the  subjects  of  pictures  and  statues,  and  upon  the 
men  and  times  that  produced  them,  does  not  elevate,  but 
flatters,  the  public  taste.  Let  it  be  replied  frankly  that  this 
opinion  is  due  to  defective  aesthetics  and  an  altogether 
mistaken  psychology.  Defective  aesthetics,  because  the 
subject  of  a  work  of  art  unquestionably  is  a  part  of  its 
artistic  content;  else  a  painting  of  an  ash-heap  might  rival 
a  portrait  in  artistic  rank.  The  fifteenth-century  Italians 
who  knew  something  of  fine  art  in  practice,  however  un- 
mindful of  its  theory,  had  no  other  word  than  stories 
(istorie)  for  the  sculptured  reliefs  that  have  since  been 
the  admiration  of  the  world.  Mistaken  psychologically, 
because  to  disapprove  of  using  the  historical  interest  of 
works  of  art  as  a  help  to  their  appreciation  is  to  ignore  the 
preeminent  value  of  indirect  mental  access.  Every  nurs- 
ery teaches  that  there  is  many  a  true  and  needed  word 
that  can  be  spoken  only  in  jest.  In  diplomacy  what  has 
not  the  salon  wrought,  and  in  business  the  smoking-room 
and  the  yachting  party?  Every  astronomer  knows  that 
fainter  objects  of  the  sky  can  be  seen  only  if  the  eye  is 
directed  a  little  aside.  So  it  is  with  the  more  delicate 
factors  with  which  the  artist  works.  While  a  historical 
memory  is  building  itself  up  in  the  mind  of  the  hearer, 
is  not  his  eye  opened  to  the  forms  and  proportions,  the 
balance,  and  the  harmony  before  him?  And  will  not  his 


DOCENT  SERVICE  AT  BOSTON  315 

attention  take  in  these  elements  quite  as  well  if  thus  held 
near  as  it  would  if  turned  directly  upon  them? 

Docent  service  has  been  organized  at  the  Boston  Museum 
to  meet  the  common  experience  of  travellers.  Any  one  who 
has  ever  looked  at  a  picture  or  a  statue  in  the  company  of 
an  appreciative  friend  knows  how  much  the  comprehen- 
sion of  it  can  be  aided  by  the  communication  of  another's 
interest  and  information.  Tennyson's  lines  express  the 
idea: 

And  what  delights^  can  equal  those 
That  stir  the  spirit's  inner  depths 
When  one  that  loves,  but  knows  not,  reaps 
A  truth  from  one  who  loves  and  knows. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  every  one  who  has  visited  places 
of  interest  like  Warwick  Castle,  where  the  "h'inlaid 
h'arrns  is  very  beautiful,"  or  the  tombs  of  the  Scaligers 
described  by  Anstey's  amusing  Italian  as  "very  grazioso, 
molto  magnifique,  joli  conserve,"  knows  also  what  un- 
utterable weariness  results  from  the  companionship  of 
most  professional  guides.  The  Italian  word  "cicerone"  — 
as  full  of  words  as  Cicero  himself  —  expresses  the  tedium 
of  generations  of  travellers.  Granting  that  it  is  fatal  to 
make  an  exclusive  business  of  talking  about  art,  neverthe- 
less it  remains  true  that  those  who  have  already  made 
friends  with  works  of  art  may  profitably  be  asked  to  de- 
vote a  fraction  of  their  time  in  introducing  others  to  the 
same  friendship.  This  is  what  has  been  done  at  the  Bos- 
ton Museum.  A  docent  is  a  companion  among  works  of 
art,  but  he  is  also  not  a  companion  by  profession.  Docent 
service  is  a  new  function  of  museum  officials  and  other 
interested  persons,  not  a  new  office  in  museums.  That 
those  invited  to  this  duty  should  be  otherwise  employed 
during  much  the  greater  part  of  their  time  is  its  cardinal 
feature.  A  museum  of  art  is  full  of  voices  worthy  to  be 
listened  to,  but  as  the  deaf  are  often  helped  by  other 


316 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


sounds,  so  we  who  wander  through  museum  galleries  often 
hear  the  silent  utterances  around  us  only  when  a  living 
voice  makes  them  audible.  In  every  museum  of  fine  art  the 
pulpit  and  the  texts  are  ready,  and  the  hearers  await  the 
speaker. 


m 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL1 

THE  problem  of  the  label  is  a  particular  case  of  the  gen- 
eral museum  problem  of  conveniently  associating  infor- 
mation with  objects  shown. 

To  merit  a  place  in  a  museum  an  object  must  have  in- 
terest either  for  its  own  sake  or  for  what  it  teaches.  Ac- 
cording as  a  museum  treats  its  contents  primarily  as 
treasures  or  primarily  as  teaching  material,  it  belongs  to 
one  or  the  other  of  two  classes,  which  may  be  called  re- 
spectively the  perceptive  and  the  reflective.  Museums  of 
art  exemplify  the  perceptive  type;  museums  of  science 
the  reflective  type.  Both  need  to  associate  information 
with  objects  shown;  but  the  museum  of  art  does  so  pri- 
marily in  order  to  foster  a  love  of  the  particular  concrete 
things  it  contains,  the  museum  of  science  primarily  in  order 
to  promote  a  knowledge  of  abstractions  they  illustrate. 
The  contents  of  the  one  are  sights,  of  the  other  signs.  The 
problem  of  the  label  differs  in  importance  accordingly  in 
the  two  kinds  of  museum.  In  the  museum  of  art  the  label 
is  a  means  to  the  end  of  enjoying  the  treasure  it  accompa- 
nies; in  the  museum  of  science  it  represents  the  end  of 
instruction  for  which  the  accompanying  teaching  material 
has  been  gathered.  In  the  museum  of  art  the  problem 
of  the  label  touches  indirectly,  in  the  museum  of  science 
immediately  upon  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  institution. 

In  the  following  discussion  the  problem  will  be  con- 
sidered only  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  museums  of  art.  Such 
is  the  museum  in  which  we  stand,  whose  governing  body 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
vol.  v.  (1911.) 


318  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

has  declared  that  "it  is  to  be  what  its  name  indicates  - 
a  museum  of  the  fine  arts;  that  its  primary  purpose  is  to 
gather  and  show  the  best  obtainable  works  of  genius  and 
skill;  that  the  application  of  its  contents  to  industry  and 
their  illustration  by  archaeology  are  both  within  its  scope, 
but  that  neither  of  them  is  its  first  object."  This  state- 
ment defines  the  perceptive  museum.  Accordingly,  the 
association  of  object  and  information  which  we  shall  here 
consider  is  one  in  which  the  information  is  offered  pri- 
marily for  the  sake  of  the  object.  We  shall  touch  only 
upon  what  may  be  called  the  art  side  of  the  label  prob- 
lem, remembering  that  for  museums  of  science  the 
problem  is  a  different  and  more  fundamental  one. 

Information  may  be  of  two  kinds  -  -  spoken  and 
written. 

Spoken  information  demands  a  speaker,  and  is  there- 
fore difficult  to  arrange  for.  Nevertheless,  let  a  play  on 
words  help  us  remember  that  the  best  possible  label  is 
labial;  heard  not  read.  President  Garfield's  idea  of  a 
university  —  a  log  with  Mark  Hopkins  at  the  other  end 
-  has  its  application  to  the  search  after  information  gen- 
erally. But  the  Mark  Hopkinses  are  oftenest  not  to  be 
found  and  the  log  is  oftenest  not  at  hand. 

Written  information  remains.  On  or  near  a  work  of  art 
and  confined  to  the  four  chief  questions  about  it  —  what, 
who,  when,  and  where  —  it  is  called  a  "  label." 

The  immediate  value  to  a  visitor  of  answers  to  these 
four  questions  is  twofold;  first,  a  negative  value,  that  of 
relief  from  bewilderment  over  the  work  —  in  other  words, 
the  satisfaction  of  his  chief  curiosities  about  it;  second,  a 
positive  value,  that  of  the  deepening  of  his  impression 
from  the  work  by  all  that  he  already  knows  about  its  sub- 
ject, artist,  time,  and  provenience.  Incidentally,  more- 
over, the  four  w's  provide  him  with  a  name  to  know  the 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  319 

work  by;  and  ultimately,  also,  the  memory  of  the  work 
is  vivified  by  what  the  visitor  may  hereafter  learn  about 
these  matters;  and  vice  versa. 

The  advantage  of  displaying  the  answers  on  a  printed 
form  affixed  to  the  object  is  that  the  visitor  receives  them 
in  pursuance  of  his  sight-seeing.  This  advantage  is  often 
thought  indispensable.  It  is  assumed  that  most  sight-seers 
would  rather  know  nothing  about  what  they  are  looking 
at  than  take  any  further  trouble  to  find  out  about  it.  Such 
an  opinion  is  nevertheless  a  patent  blunder  disproved  in 
the  experience  of  every  traveller.  What  information  about 
sights  abroad  has  any  one  ever  gained  from  reading  super- 
scriptions upon  them  compared  to  what  he  has  labored  to 
carry  away  by  reading  guidebooks  about  them?  Instead 
of  being  unwilling  to  turn  away  from  a  sight  to  learn  about 
it,  travellers  are  only  too  willing  to  do  so.  The  inatten- 
tion of  the  modern  man  to  the  visible  world  is  a  portentous 
cloud  on  the  future  of  the  objective  arts  generally.  The 
supposed  popular  alternative  —  label  or  nothing  —  is  a 
pseudo-dilemma.  If  fuller  information  is  accessible,  even 
at  greater  trouble,  sight-seers  who  accept  any  will  often 
prefer  it.  The  label  is  not  a  necessary  factor  in  exhibition, 
but  an  occasional  convenience  only. 

The  limited  sphere  of  the  label  in  the  machinery  of  show 
becomes  evident  in  considering  its  disadvantages. 

These  are  at  least  sevenfold.  First,  the  label  is  often 
unavailable.  In  a  collection  of  small  objects  the  descrip- 
tion, maker,  date,  and  source  of  some  may  have  to  go  un- 
specified therewith  for  lack  of  convenient  space.  The 
complete  labelling  of  any  miscellaneous  collection  of  ex- 
hibits may  be  said  to  be  in  general  a  physical  impracti- 
cability. 

Second,  it  is  unsightly.  Unlike  an  inscription,  which  is 
composed  with  the  object,  a  superscription  is  in  general 


320  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

an  unharmonious  addition  thereto,  and  unless  staring  is 
apt  to  be  illegible.  All  are  agreed  as  to  this. 

Third,  it  is  impertinent.  It  reflects  on  the  object  by 
proclaiming  it  unknown  and  on  the  beholder  by  proclaim- 
ing him  ignorant. 

Some  one  has  suggested  that  it  would  facilitate  matters 
at  public  gatherings  if  all  the  dignitaries  present  should 
wear  breastplates  with  their  names  and  other  personal 
particulars  distinctly  engraved  thereon.  All  comers  would 
then  know  at  once  whom  they  were  looking  at  and  would 
gain  immensely  more  from  the  occasion.  The  suggestion 
has  never  been  taken  up,  doubtless  for  two  reasons.  Every 
one  would  feel  that  distinguished  individualities  would 
lose  in  personal  dignity  by  becoming  pegs  on  which  to  hang 
information  about  themselves,  while  those  who  came  to 
greet  them  as  familiar  and  honored  friends  would  resent 
the  offer  of  a  table  of  facts  about  them  as  an  intrusive 
annoyance. 

The  case  is  similar  with  works  of  fine  art.  These,  too, 
are  distinguished  individualities  —  impersonal  and  im- 
mortal, it  is  true.  A  ticket  or  label  does  not  honor,  but 
rather  humiliates,  them,  and  when  they  become  familiar 
to  us  is  a  hindrance  to  friendly  relations.  The  fact  be- 
comes evident  on  considering  limiting  cases.  The  words 
"St.  Paul's  Cathedral"  carved  on  an  architrave  of  that 
church  or  displayed  in  electric  letters  about  its  dome;  the 
words  "The  Capitol"  similarly  placed  on  the  structure  in 
Washington  would  be  generally  thought  to  derogate  from 
the  unique  dignity  of  those  buildings ;  and  most  sight-seers 
would  doubtless  resent  the  implication  that  they  needed 
the  information.  Likewise,  the  labelling  of  museum  treas- 
ures will  be  felt  as  a  double  impertinence  in  proportion  as 
that  acquaintance  with  its  contents  grows  which  every 
museum  is  founded  to  conserve  and  foster. 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  321 

Fourth,  it  is  fatiguing.  Reading  labels,  far  from  being 
no  trouble,  is  generally  a  severe  exertion.  It  adds  so  greatly 
to  the  labor  of  a  museum  visit  that  those  visitors  who  con- 
scientiously attend  to  a  few  labels  are  apt  thereafter  to 
be  capable  of  little  more  than  passing  glances  at  anything. 

Fifth,  it  is  unsatisfactory.  The  description,  author, 
place,  and  time  given  in  a  label  are  for  the  most  part  little 
more  than  names  to  the  visitor,  often  soon  to  be  forgotten. 

Sixth,  it  is  atrophying  to  the  perceptions.  The  easy 
satisfaction  of  the  four  uppermost  questions  about  a  mu- 
seum object  dulls  interest  in  it,  and  confirms  the  habitude 
of  treating  things  made  to  be  looked  at  as  if  they  were  made 
to  be  read  about.  This  is  greatly  to  the  beholder's  loss; 
for,  as  a  jewel  to  its  case,  so  is  observing  a  work  of  art 
to  reading  about  it. 

Seventh,  it  is  misleading.  We  often  cannot  tell  the  close 
truth  on  a  label  without  making  it  impracticably  cum- 
bersome. A  proportion  are  forced  to  perpetuate  misin- 
formation. Again,  a  label  emphasizes  that  part  of  the 
content  of  the  object  which  is  describable  in  words  —  its 
motive  or  use  —  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest  of  its  content 
—  always  more  important.  The  difficulty  of  directing 
the  attention  of  a  spectator  to  the  fundamental  idea  of  a 
work  of  art  is  known  to  all  artists.  Was  it  not  Whistler 
who  covered  with  paint  some  absorbing  detail  in  a  picture 
in  order  that  his  general  purpose  in  its  color  and  signifi- 
cance should  not  escape  the  eye?  Of  the  novel  of  "  Ma- 
dame B  ovary  "  Flaubert  is  reported  to  have  said:  "People 
always  harp  on  the  'cotS  vaudeville9  of  the  story,  while 
all  that  I  sought  to  create  was  *  quelque  chose  de  gris ' ''' 
meaning  that  any  other  plot  and  setting  of  the  same 
melancholy  tone  would  have  served  his  purpose  as  well. 
The  fault  lay  with  the  label  of  the  tale,  which  indicated 
the  fortunes  of  a  woman  as  its  principal  interest.  At  the 


322  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

name  "St.  George"  under  the  well-known  statue,  the 
fancy  loses  itself  in  the  Asian  legend,  forgetting  the  young 
soldier  of  the  Florentine  streets  that  Donatello  trans- 
ported from  life  to  immortality.  In  a  word,  a  label,  while 
it  may  be  a  charming  ornament  to  a  work  of  art  —  wit- 
ness the  title,  "It  Never  Can  Happen  Again"  —and  a 
convenience  to  remember  it  by,  always  fails  to  express  and 
generally  tends  to  obscure  its  content. 

These  disadvantages  suggest  seeking  substitutes  for 
labels.  A  docent  is  the  best,  as  has  been  said,  but  in  gen- 
eral written  information  must  suffice.  The  problem  of  the 
label,  then,  becomes  that  of  connecting  a  given  object 
with  given  written  information  otherwise  than  by  affixing 
the  writing  to  the  object. 

What  are  the  possibilities  of  the  case? 

By  "connecting  the  written  information  with  the  ob- 
ject" is  meant  making  it  possible  and  easy  for  the  specta- 
tor of  the  object  to  find  the  writing  referring  to  it.  When 
the  writing  is  a  label,  that  is,  when  it  is  immediately  jux- 
taposed with  the  object,  the  spectator  cannot  go  astray; 
but  when  it  is  not  on  or  near  the  object,  he  must  in  some 
way  be  directed  to  it. 

1.  A  general  description  and  location  of  the  object  will 
suffice  and  is  often  used  in  guidebooks.    The  words  "In 
the  Lady  Chapel,  the  Altarpiece,"  will  enable  the  sight- 
seer to  apply  the  added  information,  "by  Rubens,  rep- 
resents the  martyrdom  of  St.  Stephen,"  infallibly  to  the 
right  object.   But  such  a  verbal  link  is  always  cumbrous, 
and  becomes  impracticably  so  in  a  museum. 

2.  A  pictorial  link  is  much  more  effective.  The  visitor 
may  be  provided  with  a  page  or  pages  of  illustrations 
of  what  he  is  to  see;  and  these  pages  may  bear  the  ap- 
propriate information.    But  how  connect  the  separate 
items  each  with  its  respective  illustration?  Either  (a)  by 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  323 

printing  each  thereon  or  thereunder,  labelling,  as  it  were, 
the  illustration  instead  of  the  object;  or  (6)  by  printing  the 
items  together  and  the  illustrations  together  and  refer- 
ring each  member  of  one  group  to  the  proper  member  of 
the  other  group  by  a  common  and  distinctive  sign  like  a 
number,  as  in  the  printed  keys  that  often  accompany  his- 
torical pictures. 

The  first  alternative,  that  of  information  on  or  under  an 
illustration,  is  open  to  none  of  the  objections  to  which  a 
similar  item  on  or  under  an  object  is  exposed.  Being  un- 
restricted in  matter,  it  is  not  properly  termed  a  label.  This 
method  has  only  its  cumbrousness  against  it;  and  in  spite 
of  this  has  a  wide  application. 

The  second  alternative,  that  of  grouping  the  illustra- 
tions together  and  the  items  together  and  referring  by 
numbers  from  one  to  the  other  group,  has  the  advantage  of 
compactness  but  pays  for  it  by  an  increase  in  complexity. 
The  chain  of  direction  from  the  object  to  the  information 
now  possesses  two  links.  In  the  earlier  case  the  spectator 
was  led  from  the  object  to  the  illustration  by  visual  rec- 
ognition and  from  the  illustration  to  the  information  by 
their  juxtaposition,  the  illustration  being  the  single  link. 
By  the  method  of  grouping  he  is  led  from  the  object  to 
the  illustration  by  visual  recognition;  from  the  illustra- 
tion to  a  number  by  their  juxtaposition  in  a  group  of 
plates,  and  from  the  number  to  the  information  by  their 
juxtaposition  in  a  group  of  texts.  The  illustration  and  the 
number  are  two  links  in  the  chain  of  direction. 

Both  these  methods  are  applied  in  the  hosts  of  books 
called  treasuries  or  monuments  of  art  which  the  late  ad- 
vances in  processes  of  pictorial  reproduction  have  brought 
forth.  The  illustrations  may  be  faced  by  a  related  text 
or  may  be  gathered  together  as  numbered  plates  and  re- 
ferred to  from  the  successive  sections  of  a  text,  varying 


324  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

from  a  simple  index  to  an  elaborate  series  of  disquisitions. 
But  such  treasuries  are  apt  to  be  large  volumes  designed 
for  the  library  and  impossible  to'use  as  guides  to  the  orig- 
inal objects  they  discuss.  The  method  of  attaching  items 
of  information  to  a  series  of  illustrations  has,  nevertheless, 
been  applied  with  success  in  the  "Handbook"  of  this 
museum. 

An  evident  simplification  reduces  the  double  chain  of 
direction  to  one  link  again.  Why  use  illustrations  at  all? 
Why  not  number  the  objects  themselves?  Evidently  in 
many  cases,  perhaps  in  all,  this  will  be  practicable.  The 
process  of  finding  the  information  appropriate  to  each  then 
becomes  a  passage  from  object  to  number  by  juxtaposi- 
tion in  the  gallery  and  from  number  to  item  by  juxta- 
position on  the  page.  The  label  reappears  in  the  form  of  a 
number.  In  this  form  the  seven  objections  hardly  apply. 
A  number  is  (1)  generally  available  as  a  means  of  identifi- 
cation; (2)  is  not  conspicuously  unsightly;  and  while  (3)  it 
still  retains  a  flavor  of  impertinence;  (4)  it  is  not  fatiguing 
to  read,  being  simple  in  form;  nor  (5)  unsatisfying,  being 
merely  a  reference;  nor  (6)  dulling  to  the  perceptions,  for 
it  does  not  distract  from  the  object;  nor  (7)  misleading, 
for  it  reveals  nothing. 

This  last  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  label  may  be 
called  a  "gallery  book."  It  consists  essentially  in  group- 
ing the  information  about  exhibits  into  a  numbered  series 
of  items,  the  exhibits  being  numbered  to  correspond.  It 
is  as  if  the  labels  of  an  exposition  were  gathered  off  the 
walls  and  out  of  the  cases,  replaced  by  numbers  and  put 
into  book  form  under  corresponding  numbers.  From  an- 
other point  of  view  the  gallery  book  may  be  regarded  as 
a  democratization  of  the  customary  catalogue.  Numbered 
lists  corresponding  to  numbered  objects  are  no  longer 
offered  for  purchase  to  those  who  can  pay,  but  for  use  to 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  325 

any  who  need  them;  with  certain  changes  in  method  and 
form  corresponding  to  this  change  in  destination. 

To  the  obvious  objection  that  labels  gathered  from  their 
secure  position  on  the  walls  or  in  cases  and  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  public  will  soon  become  defaced,  if  not  illegi- 
ble, the  only  rejoinder  is  a  provision  for  their  multiplica- 
tion and  renewal.  This  is  the  first  requisite  of  the  democ- 
ratization of  the  catalogue.  Lending  catalogues,  for  such 
they  will  be,  must  be  prepared  in  quantity  and  replaced 
when  necessary. 

The  second  requisite  changes  the  form  of  the  catalogue 
by  dividing  it  into  independent  sections,  each  applying  to 
one  room  only  or  even,  it  may  be,  to  one  case.  Gathered 
into  a  single  volume,  a  collection  of  items  of  information 
serves  the  purposes  of  one  person  only;  separated  into 
many  sections,  it  may  be  used  simultaneously  by  as  many 
visitors.  This  is  essential;  for  the  second  real  objection  to 
gallery  books  as  substitutes  for  labels  is  that  the  informa- 
tion relating  to  the  exhibits  becomes  thereby  accessible 
to  far  fewer  people.  True;  but  it  is  practicable  so  to  multi- 
ply the  books  in  each  gallery  as  to  give  one  to  each  of  as 
many  visitors  as  ever  would  read  the  labels  in  a  gallery 
simultaneously.  In  a  great  crowd  but  few  either  can  or  will 
do  so. 

Apart  from  these  two  demands  the  gallery  book  may  be 
treated  and  made  like  a  catalogue.  It  is  exempt  from  the 
limitations  of  space  which  make  the  label  unsatisfactory 
and  misleading,  and  with  the  four  w's  can  combine  any 
other  information  deemed  appropriate. 

Nevertheless,  be  it  said  in  passing,  the  text  of  a  gallery 
book  will  greatly  differ,  through  its  democratic  and  artistic 
purpose,  from  the  text  of  most  exhibition  catalogues. 
These  are  customarily  both  aristocratic  and  non-artistic, 
addressed  to  the  few  concerned  to  know  about  art  and  not 


326  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

to  the  many  demanding  to  know  art  itself.  The  scientific 
and  personal  gossip  which  is  the  staple  of  catalogues  must 
give  place  in  the  gallery  book,  if  this  is  to  accomplish  its 
task,  to  information  more  germane  to  the  content  of  the 
objects  listed. 

Every  museum  official  will  be  sensible  of  four  benefits 
incidental  to  the  substitution  of  gallery  books  for  labels: 

First,  numbers  are  necessary  on  many  objects  in  any 
event,  if  a  museum  is  to  have  catalogues.  The  democra- 
tization of  these  in  the  form  of  gallery  books  obviates  the 
need  of  lettering  exhibits  also  in  order  to  inform  about 
them. 

Second,  as  personal  acknowledgments,  placards  nam- 
ing the  givers  or  lenders  of  objects  will  still  need  to  be  at- 
tached to  them.  In  proportion  as  such  placards  usurp  the 
place  of  labels,  the  acknowledgments  they  offer  will  gain 
in  distinction.  Visitors  will  moreover  learn  not  to  be  dis- 
tracted by  them. 

Third,  there  will  be  no  forgotten  labels  misplaced,  dark- 
ening by  time  or  perpetuating  uncorrected  data.  In  a  gal- 
lery book  the  information  offered  visitors  about  exhibits 
would  be  continually  under  the  eye  of  employees.  Its 
physical  condition  would  be  the  responsibility  of  the  cus- 
todian of  the  gallery,  and  its  content  would  be  brought 
immediately  to  the  notice  of  the  curator  at  least  as  often 
as  the  labor  of  copying  changes  suggested  to  the  clerk  to 
ask  the  question  whether  it  was  not  time  for  a  new  list. 

Fourth,  the  gallery  books  of  the  museum  at  any  given 
moment  would  constitute  a  complete  catalogue  of  its  ex- 
hibits at  that  moment.  The  labor  of  providing  this  cat- 
alogue would  be  accomplished  in  the  course  of  installing 
objects,  and  the  list  would  be  kept  up  to  date  in  the  daily 
course  of  changes  of  exhibition.  At  any  time  the  prepara- 
tion of  copy  for  a  complete  printed  catalogue  of  the  col- 


PROBLEM  Otf  THE  LABEL  327 

lections  of  the  museum  would  cost  only  the  labor  of  sup- 
plementing a  current  set  of  the  gallery  books  by  a  list  of 
objects  at  that  moment  withdrawn  from  exhibition. 

The  reasons  given  and  the  experience  cited  strongly 
recommend  gallery  books.  It  may  already  be  claimed  that 
they  are  an  essential  auxiliary  to  any  system  of  labelling. 
To  what  extent  they  may  eventually  be  made  the  sub- 
stitute for  labels  only  experience  can  determine.  The 
democratization  of  the  catalogue  is  too  new  a  device  to 
permit  of  a  judgment  upon  its  ultimate  sphere. 

But  whatever  the  future  of  labels  in  museums  of  art,  it 
may  be  said  with  confidence  that  they  will  linger  in  a  form 
radically  different  from  that  at  present  common.  True 
labels  —  items  of  information  addressed  to  a  visitor  to  the 
objects  they  concern  —  may  be  said  hardly  yet  to  exist. 
The  placards  that  pass  at  present  for  labels  are  often  not 
addressed  to  a  visitor  —  one  who  sees  —  at  all;  but  to  a 
student  —  one  who  imagines  on  the  basis  of  a  description. 
This  fact  is  made  evident  by  two  chief  faults  of  existing 
labels.  These  are  apt  to  be  made  up,  in  greater  or  less 
measure,  of  matter  which  to  a  visitor  is  either  self-evi- 
dent or  incomprehensible.  The  reason  why  a  small  mar- 
ble figure  feminine  in  form  and  dress  is  labelled  "Stat- 
uette of  a  Woman"  —  although  the  diminutive  size  and 
female  type  are  apparent  to  every  one  who  can  read  the 
words  —  is  that  this  item  of  information  was  conceived 
as  an  entry  in  a  list,  the  reader  of  which  might  not  have  the 
object  before  him  and  would  need  a  general  description. 

Likewise,  the  reason  why  phrases  such  as  "Sistrum 
bearer"  and  "Prix  de  Rome"  appear  in  labels  is  that  the 
writers  had  in  mind  readers  of  books  —  persons  to  whom 
the  interpretation  of  such  phrases  would  conveniently 
offer  itself.  As  they  now  mostly  exist,  labels  (so-called) 
are  clippings  from  catalogues;  at  once  redundant  in  the 


328  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

presence  of  objects  and  barren  in  the  absence  of  contexts. 
To  make  of  them  an  independent  avenue  of  information 
about  an  object  before  the  eyes  they  must  be  revised  in 
accordance  with  the  rule:  Put  nothing  in  a  label  either  evi- 
dent without  it  or  incomprehensible  without  further  informa- 
tion; for  it  will  fail  to  enlighten  the  public  alike  in  offering 
what  all  able  to  read  can  see  for  themselves;  and  in  offering 
what  it  demands  special  knowledge  to  understand. 

Judged  by  this  rule  a  sorry  minimum  of  vis  educalrix 
would  be  revealed  in  many  of  the  placards  ostensibly 
illuminating  the  public  regarding  the  exhibits  of  our  mu- 
seums of  art.  The  label  as  it  is  is  far  more  inferior  to  the 
gallery  book  in  its  instructive  efficiency  than  the  label  as 
it  might  be.  The  needs  of  him  who  envisages  the  object 
are  the  forgotten  criterion.  True  labels  are  therefore  a 
function,  as  the  mathematicians  say,  of  the  special  pub- 
lic which  each  museum  serves.  Its  level  of  intelligence  and 
education  determines  what  should  be  assumed  evident  to 
the  visitor,  or  envisager,  without  words;  and  what  in- 
comprehensible without  more  words  than  placards  should 
contain.  Each  museum  of  art  must  in  future  recognize  as 
its  own  independent  problem  the  content  of  whatever 
labels  it  chooses  to  retain. 

These  conclusions  suggest  the  following  solution  of  the 
problem  of  associating  printed  information  with  objects 
shown  in  museums  of  art: 

(1)  Information  posted  in  view  of  every  visitor  should 
be  restricted  to  signs  containing  for  the  most  part 
very  general  descriptions  of  what  he  has  before  him. 
There  are  two  reasons.  If  a  general  visitor,  he  will 
want  no  more  information.  If  a  specially  interested 
person,  he  will  be  willing  to  take  trouble  to  get 
more. 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  329 

(2)  Signs  should  be  used  in  the  following  ways: 

(a)  On  the  walls  of  rooms,  and  on  cases  or  other 
settings  for  groups  of  objects,  giving  a  general 
description  of  what  they  contain. 

(6)  On  pedestals  or  frames  of  important  isolated 
objects. 

(c)  On  objects  in  a  setting  which  do  not  come 
under  the  general  sign  provided  for  the  set- 
ting. 

(d)  On  objects  or  groups  of  objects  to  indicate  the 
giver.    In  general,  such  cards  of  acknowledg- 
ment would  be  the  only  signs  within  a  case 
and  would  gain  in  prominence  from  that  fact. 
They  might  be  engraved  forms  like  a  personal 
card. 

(3)  Signs  giving  the  same  kind  of  information  should 
be  everywhere  similarly  placed;  so  that  the  visitor 
should  always  know  where  to  find  it;  and  in  par- 
ticular 

the  names  of  rooms  and  collections  above  the 
cornice  bounding  the  exhibition  zone; 

the  numbers,  or  titles,  of  objects  below  the  objects; 

the  sources  of  objects,  including  the  names  of 
givers  or  lenders,  above  the  objects  (as  on  the 
upper  frame  of  pictures  or  cases)  or  on  cards 
among  them. 

(4)  Signs  might  be  in  pale  brown  lettering  upon  still 
paler  brown  background.    For  convenience  in  the 
rearrangement  of  rooms,  they  may  be  painted  on 
wooden  strips  and  hung  in  place. 

(5)  Detailed  information  about  every  exhibit  should 
be  accessible  in  every  gallery  in  a  book  containing 
corresponding    entries.     These    entries    should,    if 
necessary,  be  numbered  to  correspond  to  numbers 


330  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

beneath  the  objects.  Lending  copies  of  this  book 
should  be  provided  and  may  be  placed  in  pockets 
at  the  doorways  of  the  gallery. 

(6)  Numbers  should  be  used  in  connection  with  ob- 
jects only  in  case  they  cannot  easily  be  identified 
otherwise.  In  this  event,  to  every  exhibit,  or  group 
of  exhibits,  demanding  separate  description  in  order 
to  afford  the  visitor  the  most  intelligent  enjoyment, 
there  should  be  a  number  affixed,  corresponding  to 
an  entry  in  the  book  of  the  gallery.  These  numbers 
should  be  printed  in  pale  brown  lettering  on  still 
paler  brown  background,  the  effect  of  both  to  be  as 
unobtrusive  as  will  leave  the  numbers  legible  within 
the  distance  at  which  they  would  commonly  be 
read.  The  numbering  should  be  about  one  quarter 
inch  in  height  for  objects  in  cases  and  half  an  inch 
or  more  for  wall  objects.  The  numbers  should  be 
placed  below  or  in  front  of  the  centre  of  the  object 
or  as  near  this  position  as  possible.  All  the  num- 
bers in  one  room  should  constitute  one  series.  When 
objects  are  removed,  their  numbers  should  show 
blanks  in  the  gallery  books,  and  any  new  objects 
should  be  given  the  empty  numbers  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable. 

The  first  gallery  that  should  carry  out  this  plan  would 
have  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  museum  gallery  in 
the  world  in  which  the  ordinary  intellectual  needs  of  any 
visitors  whatever,  whether  generally  or  specially  interested, 
would  be  adequately  met. 

These  needs  are  the  following: 

For  the  visitor  with  only  general  interests  (1)  the  posi- 
tive need  of  a  general  idea  as  to  what  is  before  him;  and 
(2)  the  negative  need  of  exemption  from  particular  in- 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  LABEL  331 

formation  both  useless  and  distracting  to  him.  For  the 
visitor  with  special  interests  (3)  detailed  information  im- 
mediately accessible  about  every  object  shown  —  since 
his  special  interest  may  be  excited  by  any. 

All  museums  without  exception  conspicuously  fail  in 
meeting  every  one  of  these  needs.  In  all  there  are  many  ob- 
jects which  are  not  covered  by  any  general  or  special  sign. 
In  all,  many  detailed  signs,  or  labels,  force  upon  the  gen- 
eral visitor  information  worse  than  useless  to  him.  In  all, 
no  information  whatever,  or  no  satisfactory  information, 
is  given  in  any  form  regarding  a  large  proportion  of  the 
exhibits. 

In  a  gallery  furnished  with  the  printed  aids  here  pro- 
posed, there  would  be  no  object  about  which  information 
would  not  be  accessible  to  every  visitor  who  wanted  it, 
and  there  would  be  no  information  about  any  object  given 
any  visitor  who  did  not  need  it.  The  signs  and  books  are 
at  once  sufficient  and  necessary;  instead  of  being  both 
inadequate  and  redundant,  as  labels  are  invariably. 

On  entering  such  a  gallery,  the  visitor  would  be  informed 
by  the  high  wall  sign  that  the  objects  are  of  a  certain  kind, 
style  and  period,  limiting  dates  giving  a  meaning  to  the 
period  names  to  every  visitor.  If,  with  this  information 
in  mind,  he  inspects  the  exhibits,  he  finds  signs  connected 
with  all  objects  not  described  by  the  wall  sign. 

If  any  object  whatever  in  the  room  excites  his  special 
interest,  he  is  informed  at  either  doorway  that  the  book 
which  is  placed  there  is  for  his  use  and  contains  infor- 
mation about  the  object  at  greater  or  less  length.  This 
information  is  given  him  for  the  asking  in  a  much  more 
detailed  way  than  if  it  were  presented  unasked  to  every 
visitor  in  labels;  and  it  is  given  without  disfiguring 
the  gallery  as  any  thorough  and  plainly  legible  labelling 
must  do. 


332  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

But  for  the  numbers,  sometimes  inevitable,  and  here 
inconspicuous  by  their  light  color,  but  not  illegible  by 
small  size;  but  for  an  occasional  sign  on  objects  outside  the 
general  content  of  the  room;  and  but  for  cards  recalling 
the  source  of  the  objects,  the  works  of  art  are  installed 
alone  without  anything  to  interfere  with  their  effect. 
Apart  from  these  exceptions,  the  apparatus  of  information 
is  withdrawn  to  a  wall  above,  case  frames  or  picture  frames 
above  and  below,  and  into  a  book  to  be  held  in  the  hand. 
The  exhibits  are  mainly  free  to  produce  their  designed  im- 
pression, and  the  visitor,  while  not  left  without  any  in- 
formation he  may  want,  is  not  forced  to  accept  any  he  does 
not  need. 


IV 

GALLERY   BOOKS 
WHAT  IS  A  GALLERY  BOOK? 

THE  gallery  book  extends  the  principle  of  docent  serv- 
ice from  the  spoken  to  the  written  word.  It  forms  a  type 
of  museum  literature  hitherto  untried.  It  does  not  aim  to 
add  to  the  scientific  apparatus  of  the  museum  gallery,  rep- 
resented by  the  handbook,  the  catalogue,  and  its  diminu- 
tive, the  label,  but  to  create  an  artistic  apparatus  not  be- 
fore represented  there.  It  seeks  to  serve  art  immediately 
and  not  through  the  medium  of  science;  aiming  to  con- 
tribute to  its  enjoyment  and  not  to  instruction  by  it. 
Pleasure,  not  knowledge,  is  the  object  sought. 

The  novel  purpose  of  the  gallery  book  is  emphasized  by 
two  characteristics  in  which  it  differs  from  gallery  litera- 
ture hitherto  in  use.  It  differs  from  a  guidebook  in  naming 
every  object  shown,  and  from  a  catalogue  and  from  most 
labels  by  omitting  items  of  information  unnecessary  in  the 
presence  of  the  object. 

The  gallery  book  is  a  fruit  of  the  so-called  aesthetic 
theory  of  art  museum  management.  The  agitation  ten 
years  ago,  principally  in  Boston  and  New  York,  which  set 
a  didactic  theory  in  total  opposition  to  an  aesthetic  theory, 
owed  its  vivacity  largely  to  a  misconception  of  opinion. 
It  was  erroneously  thought  that  the  type  of  management 
advocated  by  the  aesthetes  disregarded  every  educational 
consideration,  and  that  advocated  by  the  pedagogues 
every  artistic  consideration.  As  a  matter  of  fact  neither 
of  the  disputants  proposed  to  disregard  the  claims  rep- 
resented by  the  other.  The  entire  question  was  one,  not 


334  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

of  choice,  but  of  preference  between  artistic  and  educa- 
tional ends.  Admitting,  as  all  must,  that  a  public  collec- 
tion of  art  can  and  should  serve  both  artistic  and  educa- 
tional purposes,  both  enjoyment  and  instruction,  which 
of  the  two  purposes  should  take  precedence  in  case  there 
should  arise  a  conflict  between  them?  In  a  word,  which 
is  the  paramount  aim  of  a  museum  of  art  —  its  raison 
d'etre  ?  The  didactic  party  held  that  instruction  by  its 
contents  is  the  raison  d'etre  of  every  museum;  the 
aesthetic  party  held  that  when  a  museum  is  restricted  by  its 
charter  to  the  collection  of  works  of  fine  art,  the  enjoyment 
of  its  contents  is  its  raison  d'etre.  The  aesthetic  claim  was 
based  upon  the  undisputable  truth  that  works  of  art  are 
made,  not  to  be  learned  from,  but  to  be  delighted  in.  Their 
native  purpose  to  convey  a  message  must  be,  it  was  argued, 
the  controlling  purpose  of  any  institution  seeking  to  pre- 
serve them. 

The  didactic  theory  was  a  traditional  and  instinctive 
view;  the  aesthetic  theory  a  new  departure,  a  first  result  of 
the  application  of  mental  effort  to  the  question  of  art  mu- 
seum purposes.  From  the  first,  in  the  interest  of  their  edu- 
cational aims,  museums  had  developed  an  apparatus  of 
labels,  catalogues,  and  handbooks  aiding  visitors  to  learn 
from  what  they  see.  The  aesthetic  theory  at  once  suggested 
a  complementary  apparatus  in  the  form  of  books  aiming 
to  help  the  visitors  enjoy  what  they  see.  The  gallery  books 
as  provided  at  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  are  such 
an  apparatus.  Like  the  docents  appointed  at  the  museum 
several  years  before,  their  purpose  is  mainly  artistic.  A 
decent  explains  exhibits.  So  does  a  gallery  book  explain 
exhibits.  The  chief  object  of  both  is  to  forward  delight  in 
things  shown.  Both  are  official  companions  whose  fore- 
most function  is  to  aid  visitors  in  grasping  what  the  art- 
ists meant  should  be  seen  in  their  works,  not  what  learned 


GALLERY  BOOKS  335 

men  have  since  found  out  about  the  works.  A  clear  rec- 
ognition of  the  distinction  between  the  mainly  aesthetic 
purpose  of  the  gallery  book  and  the  mainly  didactic  pur- 
pose of  previous  museum  literature  is  essential  to  a  correct 
valuation  of  the  new  device.  In  particular,  the  gallery 
book  should,  as  independent  literature,  be  unsatisfac- 
tory reading;  the  sense  of  incompleteness  left  with  the 
reader  being  such  as  will  impel  him  to  turn  to  the  ob- 
jects of  which  it  treats.  To  compose  comment  upon  works 
of  art  with  this  effect  in  mind,  is  not  an  easy  task,  and 
early  attempts  can  hardly  be  expected  to  do  more  than 
furnish  a  basis  for  progressive  improvement. 

PREPARATION  AND  MAINTENANCE  OF  GALLERY  BOOKS 
(1)  Text. 

It  is  understood  that  the  literary  labor  of  preparing  a 
book  for  a  given  gallery  will  be  performed  either  by  one  of 
the  Department  officers  or  assistants,  or,  if  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Museum,  will  be  carried  out  upon  the  basis  of 
information  supplied  by  the  Department  and  the  result 
submitted  to  the  Department  for  amendment  or  expan- 
sion. 

The  first  step  is  the  close  inspection  of  the  individual 
exhibits  and  the  taking  of  notes  upon  each.  This  process 
requires  in  general  the  removal  of  objects  from  the  cases 
or  shelves  and  often  the  aid  of  a  microscope.  A  study  of  the 
literature  relating  to  these  and  similar  objects  follows,  the 
results  of  both  reading  and  observation  being  compressed 
into  brief  notices  of  the  exhibits,  singly  or  grouped  as 
occasion  demands,  with  which  may  be  combined  a  brief 
introduction,  or  appendix,  historical  or  critical.  The  aim 
is  to  leave  no  single  exhibit  unremarked  upon  toward 
whose  understanding  a  remark  will  aid.  Often  a  number 
of  exhibits  may  be  sufficiently  remarked  upon  collectively. 


336  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

In  case  of  need,  the  separate  notices  are  given  numbers, 
in  which  event  the  process  of  placing  cards  bearing  num- 
bers (described  below)  before  or  below  each  exhibit  is  a 
step  in  the  preparation  of  the  book.  The  individual  no- 
tices with  their  introduction  are  then  typewritten  upon 
stencils  (described  below)  ready  for  manifolding. 

(2)  Form. 

The  page  measures  lOf  by  6f  inches.  The  paper  used 
is  of  the  absorbent  kind  furnished  for  mimeographing  by 
the  Office  Appliance  Company.  The  covers  are  made  of 
heavy  dark  brown  cover  paper  lOf  by  7  inches,  front  and 
back  covers  being  independent  sheets.  The  front  cover 
is  printed  as  follows  in  gold  letters : 

CLASSICAL  ART 

Fourth  Century  Room 

GREEK  AND  ETRUSCAN  MIRRORS 

The  books  used  in  the  galleries  contain,  below,  in  a  square 
outlined  in  gold,  the  words: 

Lending  Copy 
Not  to  be  Taken 
From  the  Room 

These  words  are  omitted  on  copies  of  the  books  offered 
for  sale  at  the  entrance.  Below  this: 

Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston 

Three  corresponding  eyelet  holes  are  punched  in  both 
covers  and  each  page.  Soft  brown  tape  a  quarter  of  an 
inch  wide  is  then  run  through  each  and  tied  in  the  centre 
of  the  book.  This  binding  permits  either  the  removal  of 
any  page  of  the  book  for  rewriting  in  case  of  changes  of 
exhibition  or  the  addition  of  new  pages.  The  eyelet  holes 
are  guarded  with  Dennison's  cloth  patches  gummed.  The 


GALLERY  BOOKS  337 

result  is  a  flatter  binding  than  when  metal  eyelets  are  used 
and  one  better  lending  itself  to  changes  in  the  books.  The 
letter-press  is  confined  to  one  side  of  the  page  in  order  to 
halve  the  labor  of  rewriting  pages  in  case  of  change.  A 
special  advantage  of  the  books  would  be  lost  unless  they 
could  be  readily  corrected  for  all  changes  of  exhibition. 

(3)  Installation  in  the  galleries. 

For  this  purpose  wooden  pockets  are  provided  consisting 
of  a  rectangular  back  llf  by  7j  inches,  of  quarter-inch 
stock  partly  covered  by  a  front  7j  inches  high,  forming  a 
pocket  giving  one  inch  of  space  from  front  to  back  in 
order  to  accommodate  several  books.  A  light,  dull  brown 
card  6 J  by  4 J  inches  is  glued  to  the  centre  of  the  half  front 
bearing  the  words  in  dark  brown  lettering: 

VISITORS  ARE  INVITED 

TO  USE  A 

GALLERY  BOOK 

PLEASE  REPLACE  HERE 

On  the  centre  of  the  back  above  the  half  front  another 
similar  card  bears  the  words: 

THE  BOOK 
MAY  BE  OBTAINED 

ON  APPLICATION 
TO  THE  CUSTODIAN 

This  is  to  make  it  possible  for  the  custodian  to  remove  the 
books  on  crowded  days  when  it  might  be  impossible  to 
prevent  their  being  stolen  in  numbers.  Every  few  weeks 
one  disappears  at  the  Museum  in  Boston;  nevertheless  it 
is  desired  to  keep  them  at  all  times  available  to  visitors 
and  the  plan  is  being  tried. 
Two  pockets  are  assigned  to  each  gallery.  They  are 


338  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

hung  from  screws  fastened  four  feet  three  inches  from  the 
floor  on  any  convenient  wall  immediately  next  the  en- 
trance to,  and  the  exit  from,  each  gallery.  They  are  pur- 
posely not  placed  in  the  doorways  in  order  to  avoid  doubt 
as  to  which  room  they  refer  to,  and  yet  are  hung  near  the 
doorways  so  as  to  be  immediately  available.  The  visitor 
can,  if  he  please,  take  the  book  at  the  entrance  door  and 
leave  it  at  the  exit.  The  custodians  are  charged  with  the 
duty  of  seeing  that  the  books  are  not  taken  away  and  do 
not  go  astray  into  pockets  where  they  do  not  belong. 

(4)  Method  of  revision. 

When  any  object  is  withdrawn  from  exhibition,  or 
newly  installed,  in  a  gallery  provided  with  books,  all  the 
books  are  taken  up  and  delivered  with  notes  of  the  changes 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Museum,  who  is  charged  with  the 
duty  of  seeing  that  the  corresponding  changes  are  made  in 
the  letterpress  of  the  books  and  in  the  numbering  of  ob- 
jects in  the  galleries;  and  that  the  revised  books  are  re- 
turned to  the  pockets  without  any  avoidable  delay.  The 
responsibility  of  keeping  all  the  books  in  the  system  up  to 
date  at  all  times  thus  rests  on  a  single  officer,  who  may 
demand  any  necessary  aid  to  this  end  from  others.  The 
total  responsibility  for  the  system  is  divided  into  three 
definite  shares:  (1)  for  the  matter  of  the  books,  on  the 
department  officers;  (2)  for  their  form,  upon  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Museum;  (3)  for  their  physical  care,  upon 
the  custodians  in  the  galleries.  In  a  growing  or  changing 
collection  the  labor  of  keeping  in  gallery  books  a  complete 
and  accurate  account  of  the  exhibits  would  be  very  con- 
siderable, and  should  be  minimized  as  far  as  possible.  If 
exhibits  are  numbered  to  correspond  with  numbered  para- 
graphs in  a  book,  their  rearrangement  will  not  interfere 
with  its  use.  When  any  objects  are  withdrawn  temporarily, 


GALLERY  BOOKS  339 

a  pencil  note  may  be  made  in  the  books;  if  permanently, 
the  corresponding  paragraphs  may  be  cancelled  in  ink. 
When  an  object  is  added,  the  paragraph  relating  to  it  may 
be  typewritten  in  duplicate  or  triplicate  and  pasted  into 
the  book  at  the  proper  place  and  also  added  to  the  page 
file  hereafter  described.  Books  should  be  rewritten  only 
when  the  changes  in  them  begin  to  make  them  hard  read- 
ing. The  stock  of  books  used  to  replace  copies  in  the  gal- 
leries or  kept  for  sale  should  consist  only  of  the  books  as 
originally  written,  dated  to  indicate  the  time  when  they 
exactly  corresponded  with  the  galleries.  The  labor  re- 
quired to  keep  these  reserves  also  in  accord  with  the  cur- 
rent changes  in  the  galleries  would  not  be  justified  by  any 
results  in  added  information  to  the  visitor. 

(5)  Apparatus. 

An  Edison  mimeograph  is  used  in  manifolding  the  books. 
As  each  page  is  manifolded,  a  copy  of  it  is  added  to  a  Page 
File  of  all  previous  pages  written,  and  is  numbered  con- 
secutively with  them.  The  purpose  of  the  page  file  is  to 
keep  available  any  information  once  gathered  and  put 
into  form.  To  this  end  the  number  of  each  object  in  the 
registers  of  the  Museum  is  written  next  the  notice  on  the 
page  of  the  file  and  entered  in  a  card  index  kept  in  nu- 
merical order.  In  the  registry  system  of  the  Museum  ob- 
jects are  given  a  double  number  separated  by  a  decimal, 
one  number  indicating  the  year  when  the  object  was  re- 
ceived, the  other  its  place  in  the  list  of  accessions  for  the 
year.  In  the  case  of  acquisitions,  the  year  number  comes 
first;  in  the  case  of  loans,  last.  In  the  card  index  to  the 
page  file  the  two  classes  of  numbers  are  written  on  dif- 
ferent colored  cards:  white  for  acquisitions  and  blue  for 
loans.  Each  card  is  ruled  in  two  double  columns  of  ten 
lines  each.  The  first  of  the  double  columns  contains  the 


340  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

registry  number,  the  second  the  number  of  the  volume  and 
page  in  the  page  file  where  the  object  is  recorded.  Each 
card,  therefore,  contains  twenty  registry  numbers.  When 
an  object  is  newly  installed  in  a  gallery,  the  note  sent  in  to 
the  Secretary  with  the  books  to  be  revised  contains  the 
registry  number  of  the  new  object,  from  which  any  previ- 
ous notice  ever  given  of  the  object  in  any  gallery  book  can 
at  once  be  found. 

For  the  same  end,  —  that  of  keeping  past  work  avail- 
able, —  the  cards  of  registry  numbers  in  each  department 
are  preceded  in  the  index  by  cards  containing  the  titles 
of  any  introductions  or  appendices  contributed  by  that 
department  to  the  books,  arranged  in  alphabetical  order. 

The  page  file  is  kept  in  loose-leaf  binders  containing 
about  two  hundred  pages  each  and  numbered  as  Volume 
1,  2,  etc.  The  references  to  the  page  file  from  the  registry 
cards  consist  therefore  of  two  numbers,  one  the  volume, 
the  other  the  page. 

As  each  book  is  written,  it  is  added  to  a  Current  File  of 
books.  The  current  file,  therefore,  corresponds  accurately 
at  all  times  to  the  books  as  they  exist  in  the  galleries.  It 
was  at  first  proposed  to  file  and  index  each  stencil;  but 
they  are  so  quickly  written  and  so  troublesome  to  use 
again  that  the  plan  of  preserving  them  has  been  given  up. 

The  gallery  books  are  manifolded  in  general  in  editions 
of  fifty.  Two  are  placed  in  each  gallery,  two  at  the  door 
of  the  Museum  for  sale,  one  in  the  Department  library, 
one  in  the  current  file,  and  the  pages  of  one  in  the  page 
file.  The  covers  of  those  for  sale  are  dark  green  and  are 
printed  without  the  notice  that  the  book  is  a  lending  copy. 
It  is  found  that  two  months'  use  in  some  cases  may  soil 
the  gallery  copies  enough  to  demand  replacing  them. 

When  a  book  is  revised,  the  copies  installed  in  the  gal- 
leries are  withdrawn  and  the  revised  copies  substituted. 


GALLERY  BOOKS  341 

The  pages  changed  are  added,  together  with  any  new 
pages,  to  the  page  file,  which  thus  in  course  of  time  comes 
to  contain  many  pages  in  part  reproducing  each  other. 
Books  may  be  discontinued,  but  as  their  pages  remain  in 
the  page  file,  the  information  gathered  about  the  objects 
they  record  remains  available.  That  portion  of  the  stock 
of  each  book  which  is  not  immediately  used  is  kept  as- 
sembled ready  for  binding  in  envelopes  to  protect  it  from 
dust.  Each  of  these  envelopes  is  marked  with  the  name  of 
the  book  within:  that  is,  with  the  Department,  the  gal- 
lery and  the  exhibit  recorded  in  the  book;  and  with  the 
date  when  the  book  was  completed. 

The  numbers  used  in  the  galleries  are  printed  in  dark 
brown  ink  on  light  brown  cardboard,  three  eighths  of  an 
inch  square.  These  can  be  laid  on  shelves  or  glued  to 
mounts  or  pedestals  or  mounted  on  frames.  The  numbers 
are  regarded  as  a  necessary  evil  of  the  system,  and  it  has 
proved  possible  to  avoid  their  use  much  more  often  than 
was  anticipated.  They  are  unavoidable  only  in  the  in- 
stance of  a  great  number  of  objects  not  easily  distinguished 
by  description.  It  is  found  that  the  actual  number  of 
separate  exhibits  in  one  room  of  average  size  in  a  museum 
of  fine  arts  is  in  general  much  smaller  than  would  be  sup- 
posed. Perhaps  two  hundred  individual  exhibits  might  be 
taken  as  an  extreme  limit,  and  even  when  there  are  so 
many,  they  may  be  grouped  in  cases  and  on  shelves  so  as 
to  render  numbering  unnecessary.  When  a  numbered 
object  is  removed  from  exhibition,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
officer  making  the  change  to  remove  the  number  with  it. 
When  an  object  needing  a  number  is  installed,  the  officer 
indicates  with  the  notice  of  it  the  number  it  should  have. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  rearrangement  of  a  gallery  would 
not  necessitate  any  change  in  the  books,  any  numbers 
there  used  following  the  object.  Further,  the  withdrawal 


342  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

of  numbered  exhibits,  while  it  would  cause  gaps  in  the 
numerical  series  recorded  in  the  books,  would  still  leave 
them  in  order  and  not  interfere  with  their  convenient  use. 
The  case  may  arise  that  inscriptions  or  drawings  or 
illustrations  are  necessary  or  desirable  in  the  books.  With 
the  aid  of  the  Edison-Dick  Mimeoscope,  classical  or  ori- 
ental lettering,  plans  or  any  other  matter  drawn  with  the 
pen  may  be  inscribed  upon  the  stencils  and  manifolded 
as  perfectly  as  the  typewriting.  The  addition  of  such  mat- 
ter would  in  these  cases  be  Ihe  last  step  in  preparing  the 
books. 

The  response  of  the  public  to  the  offer  by  a  museum  of 
information  about  each  object  it  shows  cannot  yet  be 
gauged,  but  it  is  self-evident,  first,  that  the  offer  of  all- 
inclusive  information  is  the  ultimate  ideal  of  any  exhibi- 
tion, and  further  that  labels  give  information  so  meagre 
as  often  to  be  misleading.  It  would  appear  that  some 
method,  akin  to  that  at  present  attempted  in  Boston,  of 
giving,  in  the  galleries,  adequate  information  about  every 
exhibit,  will  be  regarded  in  the  museum  of  the  future  as  an 
essential  requisite  of  good  management. 

Note  on  the  Development  of  the  Plan  of  Gallery  Books.  Gal- 
lery books  are  the  outgrowth  of  a  descriptive  chart  which  the 
late  Okakura-Kakuzo,  Curator  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  Art  at 
the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston  until  his  death  in  1913, 
provided  in  1906,  instead  of  labels,  for  the  exhibits  in  the  Jap- 
anese Cabinet  of  the  old  building  in  Copley  Square.  The  re- 
port of  the  Department  for  1906  states  as  follows: 

No  labels  are  placed  upon  any  of  the  objects  in  the  cabinet,  but  upon  the  seat 
in  the  centre  of  the  room  are  kept  several  printed  or  typewritten  descriptions 
of  the  various  exhibits,  together  with  a  plan  of  the  room  showing  their  location. 

Three  years  later,  workers  in  the  galleries  of  our  new  building 
during  the  summer  before  it  was  opened  had  the  rare  privilege 
of  seeing  how  museum  installations  in  general  look  without 
labels.  The  impression  was  that  of  ideal  conditions,  surely  to 


GALLERY  BOOKS  343 

be  realized  in  the  museum  of  the  future.  The  objects  seemed  at 
home  with  each  other  and  in  the  halls.  In  the  absence  of  any 
suggestion  that  they  were  charity  patients  occupying  labelled 
beds  in  wards,  they  were  able  to  create  about  themselves  a  lit- 
tle world  of  their  own,  most  conducive  to  their  understanding. 

A  month  before  the  building  was  opened,  in  October,  1909, 
it  was  suggested  to  the  administration  of  the  Museum  that  gen- 
eral use  should  be  made  of  Mr.  Okakura's  method  throughout 
the  galleries,  these  "  books  of  the  room  "  to  be  hung  in  the  door- 
ways as  lending  copies.  During  the  following  year  —  1910  — 
a  descriptive  chart  was  prepared  for  the  Italian  Sculpture  in 
the  Renaissance  Court,  which  had  not  yet  been  labelled.  This 
chart  was  printed  in  a  small  edition,  a  number  being  kept  in 
the  Court  as  lending  copies.  At  the  same  time,  in  the  Mastaba 
Room  of  the  Egyptian  Department,  the  device  was  developed 
by  Mr.  Louis  Earle  Rowe,  at  present  Director  of  the  Rhode 
Island  School  of  Design,  then  Assistant  in  the  Department, 
into  a  "  Gallery  Leaflet"  which  he  described  in  a  paper  with 
this  title  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Association  of 
Museums  June  1,  1910.  During  the  spring  of  1911,  by  adding 
descriptive  and  critical  notes  to  the  chart  used  in  the  Renais- 
sance Court  it  was  developed  into  a  gallery  book  of  the  form 
since  adhered  to;  and  on  May  23  the  scheme  for  gallery  books 
was  described  in  detail  before  the  American  Association  of 
Museums  in  the  essay  on  the  "  Problem  of  the  Label  "  reprinted 
in  this  volume. 

In  the  autumn  of  1911  it  was  proposed  to  prepare  and  main- 
tain a  system  of  gallery  books  in  any  one  of  the  departments 
of  the  Museum  that  would  offer  itself  as  an  experiment  station; 
and  two  years  later,  in  the  summer  of  1913,  the  late  Okakura- 
Kakuzo  accepted  the  invitation  on  behalf  of  the  Japanese  De- 
partment. Books  have  been  prepared  and  installed  in  rapid 
succession  since  that  date.  The  system  was  formally  adopted 
by  the  administration  of  the  Museum  through  a  vote  passed 
July  15,  1915,  placing  it  in  charge  of  the  Secretary. 


V 
GOVERNMENT 

THE  IDEAL  OF  COMPOSITE  BOARDS 
SOME  GENERAL  PROBLEMS 


V 

GOVERNMENT 

THE  IDEAL  OF  COMPOSITE  BOARDS  — SOME 
GENERAL  PROBLEMS 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT1 

THE  papers  read  before  the  American  Association  of 
Museums  during  the  eight  years  of  its  life  have  covered 
a  wide  range  of  topics,  reaching,  one  might  imagine,  the 
whole  circle  of  museum  interests.  Yet  there  is  one  ques- 
tion, antecedent  to  all  others,  which  has  never  been  asked, 
and  but  once  approached,  in  your  presence.  I  recall  with 
pleasure  that  the  speaker  who  approached  it  was  our  pres- 
ent host  and  my  immediate  predecessor  in  the  office  of 
president.  This  is  the  question :  Just  what  use  are  all  these 
papers?  We  meet  to  develop  and  exchange  our  ideas;  but 
when  we  separate,  what  power  have  we  to  put  into  effect 
what  we  have  concluded  and  learned?  We  have  the  voice 
here.  How  much  voice  have  we  at  home? 

This  question  of  official  scope  we  share  with  every  simi- 
lar association;  and  with  several  it  has  recently  become  a 
burning  question.  Just  a  year  ago  there  was  formed  an 
association  of  university  professors  for  the  determination 
and  maintenance  of  professorial  rights;  and  last  winter 
the  American  Political  Science  Association,  and  the  Philo- 
sophical and  Psychological  associations  appointed  com- 
mittees to  consider  and  report  upon  like  matters. 

1  Presidential  Address  at  the  Milwaukee-Chicago  meeting  of  the  American 
Association  of  Museums,  May,  1914.  Reprinted  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  As- 
sociation, vol.  vin  (1914),  and  in  Science  (N.  S.),  vol.  xxxix,  no.  1013  (May 
29,  1914). 


348  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

A  problem  of  problems  like  this  offers  appropriate  mat- 
ter for  an  initial  presidential  address;  and  its  simultane- 
ous agitation  elsewhere  suggests  treating  it  in  the  broadest 
possible  way  —  as  a  concern,  not  of  one  profession,  but  of 
all  professions.  Thus  amplified,  the  topic  becomes  that 
of  the  present  and  future  status  of  the  specialist  in  the 
United  States.  Far  as  this  theme  stretches  beyond  the 
work  of  the  permanent  public  exhibitions  we  call  museums, 
the  inquiry  into  the  day  of  the  expert  is  one  that  vitally 
touches  the  whole  official  activity  of  every  museum  worker. 

The  inquiry  naturally  divides  itself  into  four :  What  has 
been  the  position  of  the  expert  among  us?  What  change 
suggests  itself?  What  are  the  bearings  of  change?  What 
are  the  prospects  of  change? 

We  shall  offer  replies  to  these  questions  in  succession: 
(1)  by  arguing  that  the  prevailing  attitude  of  institutions 
of  the  humanities  in  this  country  toward  their  expert  em- 
ployees is  out  of  date;  (2)  by  specifying  a  reform  that 
would  bring  it  up  to  date;  (3)  by  meeting  criticisms  of  the 
new  order;  and  (4)  by  noting  its  approach.  WTe  shall  de- 
scribe an  outgrown  condition,  state  and  defend  an  ad- 
justment, and  report  progress  toward  it.  A  glimpse  of 
the  past  will  lead  to  a  glimpse  of  the  future. 

By  expert  will  here  be  meant  a  person  whose  achieve- 
ments demand  special  aptitudes  long  exercised;  and  by 
his  day  a  time  when  these  developed  abilities  are  used  to 
the  best  advantage  of  the  community. 

For  the  expert  in  this  country,  to-day,  according  to  fre- 
quent remark,  is  not  such  a  time;  but  there  are  signs  that 
to-morrow  will  be. 

Here  and  now,  the  work  of  the  expert  is  largely  carried 
on  as  a  branch  of  corporate  activity.  Our  men  of  science, 
pure  and  applied,  our  lawyers,  doctors,  educators,  clergy- 
men, social  workers,  artists  and  students  of  art,  while  they 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  349 

may  practise  their  specialties  alone,  very  commonly  also 
serve  some  corporation,  and  in  great  numbers  serve  a  cor- 
poration exclusively,  as  do  most  of  us  assembled  here. 

A  corporation  is  a  body  of  men  empowered  by  the 
State  to  join  in  a  certain  purpose,  and  held  responsible 
for  its  due  fulfilment.  At  the  end  of  his  brief  and  ham- 
pered career  as  Premier  of  England,  Lord  Rosebery  is  re- 
ported to  have  said:  "Responsibility  without  power  is 
hell."  To  be  discharged  successfully,  duty  must  be  coupled 
with  corresponding  authority.  This  is  the  foundation 
principle  with  which  any  study  of  the  corporate  sphere  of 
the  expert  must  begin.  A  corporation  engaging  the  aid  of 
a  staff  is  responsible  at  once  for  every  detail  of  their  action 
in  its  service,  and  for  every  detail  of  their  outside  life,  in 
so  far  as  this  reacts  upon  their  official  activity;  and  hence 
possesses  equivalent  rights  of  control,  subject  only  to  law 
and  custom. 

Rights  of  total  control  presuppose  in  turn  competence 
for  total  control.  To  insure  it,  two  methods  of  selecting 
the  membership  of  a  corporation  are  possible.  In  giving 
a  certain  purpose  into  the  sole  charge  of  certain  persons, 
regard  may  be  had  either  to  the  purpose  chiefly,  or  to  the 
persons  chiefly;  to  their  special  competence,  or  to  their 
general  competence. 

In  the  history  of  this  country,  the  choice  among  men  of 
the  professions  concerned  was  a  colonial  method;  that 
among  men  of  ability,  however  displayed,  has  been  our 
national  method. 

The  colonial  method  was  an  inheritance  from  the  Old 
World.  Leonardo  da  Vinci  is  spoken  of  as  the  last  Eu- 
ropean to  take  all  knowledge  for  his  province.  With  the 
development  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts  after  him,  even 
men  of  commanding  powers  became  specialists.  Follow- 
ing the  example  of  the  mother  country,  the  colonies  placed 


350  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

their  first  colleges  under  the  control  of  educational  experts 
—  in  the  main  their  clerics  par  excellence,  or  clergymen. 
An  interpretation  of  the  charter  of  Harvard  College  of 
1636  given  later  by  the  colonial  legislature,  affirmed  that 
the  corporation  was  restricted  to  members  of  the  teach- 
ing force;  as  the  corporations  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
in  England  still  are.  The  charter  of  Yale  College  was 
issued  in  1701  to  ten  clergymen,  and  provided  that  their 
successors  should  always  be  clergymen. 

At  the  birth  of  our  nation,  the  emphasis  turned  from 
purposes  to  persons,  under  the  compelling  force  of  two 
causes:  the  parity  of  our  voting  citizens  and  the  condi- 
tions of  a  new  national  life. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  new  union  one  man  was  as 
good  as  another  at  the  polls.  Every  vote  cast  was  given 
the  same  weight.  It  followed  that  the  recognition  of  the 
likenesses  of  men  became  dominant,  and  the  recognition 
of  their  differences  obscured.  Leading  men  came  to  be 
thought  of  as  like  exponents  of  the"  sense  and  efficiency  of 
the  community.  The  acknowledgment  of  competence  took 
the  form  of  an  acknowledgment  of  general  competence. 
We  of  the  United  States  have  been  nurtured  in  the  belief 
that  a  man  who  has  distinguished  himself  in  any  one  di- 
rection will  also  distinguish  himself  in  any  other. 

Our  early  national  experience  confirmed  the  belief  at 
every  turn.  Pioneer  conditions  bring  out  the  all-round 
man.  The  solid  citizen  in  a  new  community  is  called  on 
to  be  at  once  a  farmer  for  sustenance,  a  manufacturer  for 
clothing,  a  builder  for  shelter,  and  a  soldier  for  defence; 
often  also  a  lawyer  for  justice,  a  doctor  for  the  body,  an 
educator  for  the  mind,  or  a  teacher  for  the  soul.  The 
nascent  civilization  of  the  United  States  had  its  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  in  Benjamin  Franklin.  Nor  has  our  later  prog- 
ress yet  thoroughly  dislodged  the  ideal  of  the  all-round 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  351 

American,  fit  for  any  task.  The  subjugation  of  a  conti- 
nent is  in  the  main  a  business  matter,  and  an  able  man 
may  learn  a  business  in  all  its  branches.  The  practice  of 
naming  any  capable  person  for  any  office  has  maintained 
itself  among  us  because  surpassing  excellence  has  not  for 
the  most  part  been  essential.  We  have  fought  successful 
wars  with  citizen  soldiery  and  grown  great  in  peace  with 
practical  men  as  intellectual  guides.  To  Amiel  our  de- 
mocracy announced  an  era  of  mediocrity;  Schopenhauer 
called  us  a  nation  of  plebeians;  an  Austrian  royal  visitor 
missed  among  us  the  sense  of  personality  —  the  percep- 
tion of  that  delicate  but  real  differentiation  that  makes 
each  man  himself  and  no  other.  This  is  the  mark  left 
on  the  society  of  the  United  States  by  our  day  of  small 
things. 

That  day  is  now  past;  and  it  behooves  us  to  examine  the 
foundations  of  the  emphasis  which  our  methods  of  assign- 
ing responsibility  impose  upon  persons  instead  of  upon 
purposes,  upon  general  repute  instead  of  special  fitness. 
When  examined,  our  course  proves  an  aberration  from 
that  of  colonial  times  learned  in  Europe.  We  must  go 
back  upon  history;  but  only  to  go  on  to  a  new  social  ideal 
which  shall  square  at  once  with  our  political  creed  and  our 
existing  national  conditions. 

First,  as  to  our  political  creed.  The  parity  of  voters 
obscures,  but  also  implies  the  difference  of  men's  capac- 
ity. In  affirming  that  persons  of  a  certain  sex  and  reach- 
ing certain  mental,  moral,  and  economical  standards 
should  be  counted  alike  in  the  process  of  government,  it 
presupposes  others  who  do  not  possess  these  qualifications 
and  are  not  to  be  counted  at  all.  The  conception  of  the 
equal  distribution  of  capacity  among  men  is  negatived  by 
the  political  device  itself  which  fostered  it. 

It  may  be  asked :  What  then  becomes  of  the  belief  that 


352  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

men  are  created  equal?  If  that  renowned  assertion  does 
not  mean  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  that  all  per- 
sons would  show  like  capacity  with  like  opportunity, 
what  does  it  mean?  Something  totally  different.  Did  it 
claim  that  every  babe  new-born  might  under  favorable 
circumstances  become  what  any  other  may,  it  would  seek 
to  persuade  us  that  males  might  become  mothers.  In- 
stead of  this  and  other  absurdities  but  little  less  glaring, 
it  proclaims  the  logical  postulate  that  all  real  differences 
of  human  capacity  are  sensible  facts  of  the  present  world. 
In  Jefferson's  glowing  words,  the  inhabitants  of  this 
created  frame  bring  none  of  their  disparities  with  them 
from  the  invisible.  There  are  no  such  things  as  divine 
rights,  withdrawn  from  human  scrutiny.  The  doctrine  of 
equality  affirms  that  only  those  persons  who  show  them- 
selves different  should  be  treated  differently.  Its  motto 
is  the  Roman  challenge  "Aut  tace,  autface"  —  in  modern 
American  "Put  up  or  shut  up."  True  democracy  is  sci- 
entific method  applied  in  politics.  It  accepts  as  inevitable 
in  the  political  sphere  also  what  Huxley  called  the  great 
tragedy  of  science,  "the  slaughter  of  a  beautiful  theory  by 
an  ugly  fact."  The  belief  that  a  man  who  has  shown  ex- 
ceptional powers  in  any  one  direction  will  also  show  them 
in  any  other  is  such  a  beautiful  theory,  exposed  by  our 
political  creed  to  slaughter  by  ugly  facts.  Within  nar- 
row limits  they  confirm  it.  A  capable  farmer  or  efficient 
selectman  will  in  all  probability  prove  a  good  teacher  of 
the  rule  of  three,  or  a  good  postmaster.  Beyond  narrow 
limits  they  disprove  it.  Probably  neither  could  teach 
Abelian  functions  well,  or  manage  a  wireless  station.  But 
whether  verified  or  falsified,  it  is  not  the  generalization 
itself,  but  the  test  of  it,  which  is  the  sum  and  substance  of 
the  principle  of  equality.  This  is  a  doctrine  of  method, 
not  a  statement  of  results.  It  repeats  in  modern  words 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  353 

the  ancient  injunction:  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them."  It  is  the  merit  system  generalized.  Admitting  all 
verifiable  disparities  of  human  capacity,  and  excluding 
all  mystic  disparities,  the  equality  of  the  Declaration  is  sim- 
ple common  sense.  Denying  them  all  indiscriminately,  the 
equality  of  its  interpretation  is  literally  nonsense. 

Second,  as  to  our  national  conditions.  They  are  no 
longer  those  of  pioneer  life.  The  task  of  leading  the  civil- 
ization of  the  United  States  has  ceased  to  resemble  a 
business.  No  man,  however  able,  can  learn  it  in  all  its 
branches.  Growth,  as  is  its  wont,  has  developed  hetero- 
geneity from  homogeneity.  The  arts  we  now  practise  have 
become  as  long  as  the  lives  we  can  devote  to  them.  Our 
farmers,  our  manufacturers,  our  builders,  our  soldiers, 
our  lawyers,  our  doctors,  our  educators,  our  religious 
leaders,  are  now  different  persons,  each  given  wholly  to 
his  work.  The  era  of  the  all-round  man  has  at  last  gone 
by  for  us  also,  as  centuries  ago  it  went  by  for  the  old 
world.  The  excellence  that  comes  alone  from  the  long 
exercise  of  special  aptitude  is  everywhere  demanded,  and 
the  demand  is  everywhere  being  met.  The  era  of  medioc- 
rity, the  nation  of  plebeians,  is  on  its  way  to  bringing 
forth  aristocracies  of  demonstrated  ability,  and  the  sense 
of  personality,  the  recognition  of  that  delicate  but  real 
differentiation  that  makes  each  man  himself  and  no  other, 
will  not  long  delay  its  advent. 

The  democracy  of  individuality,  the  democracy  that 
accepts  all  proven  differences  and  no  other,  is  the  new 
social  ideal,  squaring  at  once  with  the  creed  of  our  fathers 
and  our  own  conditions.  With  our  political  creed,  for  the 
doctrine  of  equality,  in  denying  all  supersensible  differ- 
ences, stops  short  at  the  sensible  world.  Personality  is  its 
presupposition.  With  our  national  conditions,  for  the 
all-round  man  is  bested  in  every  line  by  the  exceptional 


354  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

man  in  that  line,  and  only  the  best  has  become  good 
enough  for  us.  The  Jack-of-all-trades  is  master  of  none, 
and  our  progress  calls  for  masters  everywhere.1  Finally, 
the  democracy  of  individuality  makes  for  the  union  in 
which  there  is  strength.  The  new  ideal  is  not  that  of  a  so- 
ciety of  persons  increasingly  like  each  other,  and  hence  in- 
creasingly sufficient  each  to  himself,  but  of  persons  increas- 
ingly different  each  from  the  other  and  hence  increasingly 
necessary  each  to  the  other.  While  the  Declaration  pro- 
claimed our  independence  of  other  peoples,  it  assumed 
our  interdependence  among  ourselves.  A  citizenship  of 
similars  is  like  the  sand,  composed  of  particles  each  as  com- 
plete as  any  and  with  no  tendency  to  cohere;  and  a  polit- 
ical house  built  upon  it  will  fall.  A  citizenship  of  dissimi- 
lars  is  like  the  rock  composed  of  particles  supplementing 
and  cleaving  to  each  other;  and  a  political  house  built  upon 
it  will  stand.2 

But  we  have  not  yet  acquired  the  courage  of  our  fun- 
damental political  conviction,  nor  yet  thoroughly  adjusted 
ourselves  to  our  larger  life.  The  administration  of  col- 
lective enterprises  in  the  United  States  is  at  present  in  a 
state  of  unstable  equilibrium.  The  question  of  the  cor- 
porate sphere  of  the  expert  is  not  yet  settled  because  not 
yet  settled  right. 

While  the  actual  fulfilment  of  corporate  purposes  has 
in  general  grown  beyond  the  competence  of  any  but  those 
of  special  aptitude  long  exercised,  our  national  habit  per- 
sists of  placing  these  purposes  in  charge  of  men  of  ability 

1  "We  shall  never  rise  to  our  opportunities  in  this  country  and  secure  a 
proper  discharge  of  the  public  business  until  we  get  over  our  dislike  of  experts." 
Associate  Justice  Charles  E.  Hughes,  in  an  address  at  the  Thirty-ninth  Annual 
Meeting  of  the  New  York  State  Bar  Association,  January  14,  1916. 

2  "Democracy  must  show  its  capacity  for  producing,  not  a  higher  average 
man,  but  the  highest  possible  types  of  manhood  in  all  its  manifold  varieties, 
or  it  is  a  failure."   J.  R.  Lowell,  Harvard  Anniversary  Address,  November  8, 
1886. 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  355 

however  displayed.  Any  conspicuous  success,  especially 
financial  success,  opens  the  way  to  a  position  of  corporate 
authority.  The  necessary  result  is  a  permissive  system 
of  control.  A  corporation  among  us  executes  its  trust  by 
choosing  paid  assistants  of  the  special  ability  required, 
and  permitting  them  to  carry  out  its  purposes  more  or  less 
in  their  own  way.  This  situation  of  power  perforce  in 
abeyance  is  one  of  unstable  administrative  equilibrium. 
What  is  permitted  can  also  be  forbidden,  and  may  at  any 
.time  be  forbidden  by  an  authority  alive  to  its  responsi- 
bility and  conscious  of  its  power.  In  this  event  two  rights 
to  control  come  into  conflict:  the  right  based  on  capacity 
and  the  right  based  on  law.  The  uncertainty  of  the  situa- 
tion is  plain  in  the  case  of  institutions  of  the  humanities. 
Only  an  Orientalist  can  determine  what  antecedent  study 
should  be  demanded  for  a  course  in  the  Vedas,  only  a 
technician  whether  quaternions  should  be  used  in  teaching 
engineering,  only  an  experimenter  when  a  culture  should 
be  transferred  from  sun  to  shade,  only  a  librarian  what 
system  of  shelf  numbering  is  applicable  to  fiction,  only  a 
surgeon  how  to  conduct  an  operation  in  tracheotomy,  only 
a  religious  leader  to  what  spiritual  exercise  to  invite  a  soul 
in  need,  only  a  curator  how  to  install  an  ecological  ex- 
hibit or  make  a  collection  of  prints  tell  on  the  public,  only 
an  alienist  how  to  control  melancholia  agitans,  only  a  so- 
cial worker  how  far  the  same  methods  of  help  are  fitted  to 
Syrians  and  Chinese.  Yet  others  make  up  the  boards  on 
whose  responsibility,  by  whose  authority,  and  at  whose 
option  such  decisions  are  taken.  The  permissive  system 
settles  the  question  of  the  corporate  sphere  of  the  expert 
but  temporarily;  leaving  competence  subject  to  impo- 
tence. It  presents  a  problem,  and  one  only  to  be  solved  by 
the  union  of  the  two  potentially  opposing  rights.  In  the 
end,  capacity  must  be  given  a  legal  standing.  The  skill 


356  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

demanded  of  the  employee  must  be  represented  among 
the  employers. 

In  contrast  with  the  permissive  system  of  control,  that 
exercised  according  to  this  conclusion  by  a  composite  board 
may  be  called  the  positive  system.  The  terms  refer  re- 
spectively to  the  power  of  veto  and  the  power  of  fiat.  The 
positive  system  proposes  that  a  corporation  shall  be  con- 
stituted with  a  competence  as  all-embracing  as  its  au- 
thority. Concretely  and  considering  charitable  founda- 
tions only,  it  proposes  that  professors  in  our  colleges  and 
technical  schools  shall  be  represented  among  the  trustees 
of  those  institutions,  librarians  and  heads  of  departments 
among  those  of  libraries,  scientific  men  among  those  of 
institutions  of  research,  physicians  among  those  of  hospi- 
tals, clergymen  among  those  of  religious  establishments, 
directors  and  curators  among  those  of  museums,  social 
workers  among  those  of  foundations  for  popular  better- 
ment. In  the  most  general  terms  it  claims  that  any  cor- 
poration should  include  members  embodying  in  their  own 
persons  the  special  types  of  skill  essential  in  carrying  on 
its  work.  This  claim  is  based  on  the  conditions  of  perma- 
nent efficiency  in  collective  enterprises.  Its  recognition 
is  growing  among  us  and  will  one  day  be  general.  That 
day  will  be  the  day  of  the  expert. 

Such  a  change  in  the  make-up  of  corporations  in  this 
country  may  be  said  to  round  out  an  organization  which 
practical  sagacity  has  already  partially  developed  in 
foundations  of  private  origin  and  public  aim  among  us. 
The  men  of  general  repute  which  it  has  been  our  custom 
to  choose  for  positions  of  charitable  trust  have  acquired 
by  the  logic  of  events  their  special  necessary  function  in 
the  fulfilment  of  these  trusts.  This  function  is  that  of 
winning  support  for  the  institutions  they  control.  In  our 
own  country  more  than  in  any  other,  corporations  not  for 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  357 

profit  are  the  fruit  of  private  initiative.  The  first  requisite 
for  their  establishment  and  maintenance  is  the  selection  of 
a  board  of  trustees  whose"  names,  with  those  of  their  suc- 
cessors, will  be  an  earnest  of  coming  gifts  because  a  guar- 
antee of  their  safe  and  conscientious  handling.  Before  we 
can  do  anything,  we  must  have  something  to  do  with.  But 
although  ample  and  assured  support  is  a  condition  neces- 
sary to  the  success  of  an  institution,  it  is  not  a  condition 
sufficient  to  success.  A  function  equally  necessary,  and 
with  support  sufficient,  is  that  of  the  accomplishment  of 
purpose.  This  is  the  second  and  no  less  exacting  half  of 
the  task;  with  us  overshadowed  by  the  first,  because  the 
accumulation  of  our  wealth  has  outrun  our  provision  of 
knowledge  and  skill  to  utilize  it.  The  positive  system  of 
control  repairs  this  omission,  now  out  of  date.  It  supple- 
ments our  present  provision  of  means  by  providing  also 
for  ends.  It  would  impose  the  total  charge  of  an  institu- 
tion upon  a  body  fitted  to  bear  both  halves  of  it.  Neither 
the  men  of  social  and  financial  standing  who  now  compose 
the  boards  of  our  charitable  institutions,  nor  the  special- 
ists now  active  in  their  aid,  but  now  commonly  excluded 
from  those  boards,  are  equal  to  the  whole  duty.  Only  men 
of  affairs  are  competent  to  the  business  management  of 
their  trust.  Only  men  in  comparison  withdrawn  from  the 
public  eye  in  the  long  exercise  of  special  aptitude  are  com- 
petent to  its  professional  conduct.  The  men  of  means  and 
the  men  of  ends  must  join  forces  in  order  to  the  best 
achievement  of  their  common  purpose. 

The  practical  application  of  the  principle  of  control  by 
composite  boards  presents  various  questions. 

Is  the  demand  that  all  the  different  forms  of  profes- 
sional skill  utilized  by  a  corporation  shall  be  represented 
therein  an  ideal  realizable  in  the  instance  of  large  institu- 
tions? Theoretically  no;  practically  yes.  All  the  expert 


358  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ability  employed  will  in  a  measure  be  represented  by  each 
professional  member;  and  by  rotation  in  office  among 
them,  the  recurrent  grasp  by  the  board  of  the  affairs  of  the 
foundation  may  be  extended  to  minutiae  in  any  degree. 

Again,  is  it  wise  to  place  experts  in  charge  of  experts? 
The  point  may  be  debated,  but  is  irrelevant.  The  posi- 
tive system  does  not  propose  to  do  so,  but  to  give  them 
a  share  in  controlling  others.  The  question  —  Who  shall 
decide  when  doctors  disagree?  —  finds  its  answer  when 
another  equal  authority  is  present  to  add  considerations 
beyond  the  scope  of  either.  Such  deciding  voices  are  pro- 
vided for  in  the  composite  boards  contemplated  in  the 
positive  system.  Its  ideal  is  that  every  form  of  considera- 
tion which  enters  into  the  work  in  hand  shall  have  its 
representative  in  the  body  which  controls. 

Again,  should  the  experts  employed  by  a  charitable 
corporation  be  eligible  thereto,  or  ought  its  professional 
membership  to  be  chosen  outside?  Choice  from  the  staff 
suggests  a  double  doubt.  Suppose  a  superior  officer  and 
his  subordinate  chosen;  would  not  their  equality  on  the 
board  weaken  the  administrative  control  of  the  superior? 
No;  for  the  equality  is  that  of  ultimate  authority.  The 
superior  exercises  his  control  as  the  delegate  of  the  inferior 
as  well  as  of  himself  and  others.  The  inferior  who  dis- 
puted it  would  question  his  own  right.  There  is  no  surer 
means  of  interesting  any  one  in  subordination  than  to 
give  him  power.  The  doubt  has  another  bearing.  It  also 
reflects  the  importance  of  the  individual  interests  at  stake 
in  the  case  of  employees.  Will  not  their  concern  for  their 
pay  as  a  rule  dominate  their  concern  for  their  work? 

The  democracy  of  similarity  says  yes.  The  craving  for 
money  is  the  dominating  motive  in  all  men  at  all  times. 
The  democracy  of  individuality  says  no,  basing  its  reply 
on  a  distinction.  As  social  affairs  are  now  arranged,  some 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  359 

money  is  a  perpetual  necessity  to  us  all,  hardly  less  inex- 
orable than  the  air  we  breathe.  Else  why  should  men  and 
women  still  starve  among  us?  But  more  money  is  an  in- 
creasing luxury,  the  desire  for  which  may  be  outweighed 
by  many  other  interests.  The  auri  sacra  fames  is  an  illegit- 
imate child  of  the  hunger  for  bread.  In  the  case  of  the 
paid  expert  in  a  charitable  corporation,  some  money  is 
at  most  times  assured,  and  motives  are  at  all  times  present 
capable  of  tempering  the  desire  for  more.  There  are  thus 
two  reasons  why  his  interest  in  his  pay  will  not  certainly 
dominate  his  interest  in  his  work.  His  salary,  while  al- 
ways moderate,  is  within  limits  safe;  and  the  long  exer- 
cise of  his  special  aptitudes  is  at  once  fruit  and  source  of 
motives  apart  from  those  of  gain.  The  patience  with 
which  the  specialist  follows  his  task  is  the  result  of  the 
fascinating  germinal  power  of  the  ideas  upon  it  of  which 
his  brain  is  the  theatre,  and  which  his  hand  transfers  to 
real  life.  They  may  become  an  efficient  anti-toxin  for  the 
cacoethes  habendi.  Those  who  have  had  much  to  do  with 
experts  can  echo  the  statement  of  Renan:  "The  reason 
why  my  judgments  of  human  nature  are  a  surprise  to 
men  of  the  world  is  that  they  have  not  seen  what  I  have 
seen."  l  To  admit  a  rule  by  which  experts  when  paid  shall 
be  excluded  from  charitable  boards  is  to  commit  the  ab- 
surdity of  at  once  recognizing  the  exceptional  man  and 
treating  him  as  if  he  were  like  all  other  men.  Other 
grounds  of  bias,  the  desires  for  honor  and  power,  unpaid 
members  share  with  him.  The  receipt  of  pay  as  well  will 
not  disqualify  those  worthy  of  it. 

Again,  how  are  the  permissive  and  the  positive  sys- 
tems respectively  related  to  the  rights  of  free  thought 
and  free  speech?  These  universal  rights,  so-called,  are  in 
essence  duties  of  men  in  power.  They  should  see  to  it 

1  Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de  Jeunesse,  p.  221. 


360  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

that  they  do  not  so  uphold  the  social  order  as  to  bar  its 
advance.  While  all  authority,  therefore,  is  obligated  to 
reduce  to  a  minimum  its  repression  of  ideas  and  their 
utterance,  no  organization  of  control  will  absolutely  pre- 
vent all  danger  of  too  high  an  interpretation  of  this  mini- 
mum. But  a  system  by  which  seekers  after  truth  in 
corporate  service  themselves  share  in  the  management 
tends  to  keep  it  within  bounds.  The  positive  system  of 
corporate  control  thus  obviates  a  danger  to  freedom  in- 
herent in  the  permissive  system.  It  comes  to  the  aid  of 
free  thought  and  free  speech,  entails  a  liberation  of  the 
spiritual  forces  within  a  nation. 

The  inclusion  in  charitable  boards  of  men  experienced 
in  the  actual  accomplishment  of  their  purposes  is  not 
new  in  this  country  either  as  a  fact  or  an  ideal.  Their 
representation,  never  wholly  lacking,  is  growing,  and  its 
extension  is  advocated  with  authority. 

Frequently,  if  not  commonly,  a  single  chief  executive 
officer,  the  head  of  the  staff,  is  included  in  the  board  of 
trustees.  The  old  ideal  of  the  all-round  man  lingers  in 
this  provision,  here  swollen  to  impossible  proportions. 
The  admitted  difficulty  of  rinding  satisfactory  executive 
heads  for  institutions  of  the  humanities  is  the  sign  of  an 
unreasonable  demand  upon  human  capacity.  No  single 
executive,  however  active  and  talented,  can  embody  in 
himself  various  types  of  modern  professional  knowledge 
and  skill.  The  due  representation  of  men  of  ends  in  any 
considerable  corporation  will  always  be  a  number  greater 
than  unity.  A  fair  fraction  of  the  board  must  be  se- 
lected from  their  ranks.  The  demand  upon  the  executive 
is  thereby  decreased  to  the  manageable  portions  of  a  busi- 
ness leadership,  either  with  or  without  a  special  professional 
function. 

Specialists  have  found  a  place  already  in  a  number  of 


THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXPERT  361 

our  scientific  and  artistic  corporations.  The  charter  of  a 
noted  scientific  school,  affiliated  with  a  university,  stip- 
ulates that  of  the  corporation  of  nine,  one  third  shall 
always  be  professors  or  ex-professors  of  the  school.  In 
another  institute  a  larger  proportion  are  persons  in  imme- 
diate control  of  the  scientific  work.  No  commanding  need 
of  appeal  to  the  community  for  financial  support  existing 
in  these  cases,  the  men  of  ends  have  taken  their  natural 
place  in  the  management  along  with  men  of  means. 
Among  museums  of  art  more  than  one  has  chosen  trus- 
tees from  its  own  working  staff  and  those  of  neighboring 
institutions. 

In  our  chief  universities,  it  has  become  the  practice  to 
allow  the  alumni  a  large  representation  in  the  board  of 
trustees.  Of  the  two  bodies  of  persons  concerned  in  the 
actual  achievement  of  the  teaching  purpose,  the  teachers 
and  the  taught,  this  practice  accords  to  one,  the  taught, 
its  share  in  ultimate  management.  The  provision  sug- 
gests, and  may  be  believed  to  announce,  a  second,  by 
which  the  other  body,  the  teachers,  will  gain  a  similar 
representation.  The  class  of  alumni  trustees  has  for  its 
logical  complement  a  class  of  faculty  trustees;  a  class 
more  indispensable  to  vital  university  success  than  their 
predecessors,  in  that  they  represent  not  the  subjects  but 
the  source  of  university  discipline.  The  step  has  found 
prominent  advocates.  In  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  for 
September,  1905,  President  Pritchett  asks,  "Shall  the 
university  become  a  business  corporation?"  He  suggests 
that  the  business  of  graduating  men  has  little  to  do  with 
the  art  of  educating  them,  and  concludes,  "In  the  settle- 
ment of  the  larger  questions  of  administration  .  .  .  may 
not  some  council  composed  of  trustees  and  faculty  jointly 
share  the  responsibility  to  advantage?  .  .  .  To-day  we 
need,  in  my  judgment,  to  concern  ourselves  in  the  uni- 


362  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

varsity  with  the  spiritual  side  of  administration."  In  arti- 
cles entitled  "University  Control"  published  in  "Science" 
in  1906  and  1912,  Professor  Cattell  proposes  that  pro- 
fessors should  take  their  place  with  alumni  and  inter- 
ested members  of  the  community  in  the  corporation  of  a 
university,  and  reports  favoring  opinions  from  a  large 
majority  of  those  holding  the  most  important  scientific 
chairs  in  the  country.  In  his  report  for  1911-12  as  presi- 
dent of  Cornell  University,  Dr.  Schurman  writes:  "The 
only  ultimately  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  of 
the  government  of  our  universities  is  the  concession  to 
the  professorate  of  representation  on  the  board  of  trus- 
tees or  regents."  Such  agreement  in  a  recommendation 
is  a  prophecy  of  its  acceptance.1 

When  the  day  of  the  expert  arrives,  every  corporation 
employing  specialists  will  have  its  class  of  professional 
members,  whether  in  a  majority  or  a  minority,  whether 
chosen  within  or  outside  the  staff,  whether  for  limited 
periods  or  without  term.  Historical  causes  have  both 
denied  and  begun  to  restore  to  expert  ability  in  this  country 
a  place  in  the  corporations  to  whose  work  it  is  necessary. 
The  system  of  positive  control  by  composite  boards  is  a 
final  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  corporate  sphere 
of  the  expert  because  the  right  settlement,  granting  to 
competence  its  share  in  the  management  of  competence. 
The  day  of  the  expert  brightens  on  the  horizon.  Let  us 
welcome  its  advancing  beams.  Either  we  ourselves,  or  our 
early  successors,  will  be  called  to  labor  in  its  full  sunshine. 

1  A  suggestion  looking  in  the  direction  of  combined  control  of  the  British 
Museum  was  made  eighty  years  ago  (July,  1836)  by  a  Committee  of  Enquiry 
appointed  by  the  House  of  Commons.  "A  board  of  officers,  reporting  and  rec- 
ommending to  the  Trustees  on  matters  of  internal  arrangement,  would  be  a 
further  means  of  greatly  benefiting  the  institution,  and  would  obviate  the  com- 
plaints of  the  heads  of  departments  as  to  the  want  of  proper  intercourse  with  the 
Trustees."  Edward  Edwards,  Administrative  Economy  of  the  Fine  Arts  (Lon- 
don, 1840),  p.  132. 


n 

ADMINISTRATIVE  ORGANIZATION  AND  ITS  TWO 
PERTURBATIONS  * 

ADMINISTRATIVE  organization  differs  from  other  kinds 
in  establishing  the  relation  of  superior  and  subordinate. 
Runners  might  agree  to  relay  a  message,  or  porters  com- 
bine to  carry  a  trunk,  without  any  being  over  or  under 
any  other;  but  in  an  administrative  bureau  authority 
exists  in  grades.  Administration  (from  the  Latin  ad,  to, 
and  minus,  less)  expresses  subordination  and  implies 
superiority. 

A  superior  is  he  who  commands;  a  subordinate  he  who 
obeys.  A  superior  issues  orders;  a  subordinate  executes 
them.  But  before  an  order  can  be  given  and  executed 
there  must  be  an  agreement  as  to  who  shall  give  it  and 
who  execute  it.  Appointment  precedes  command.  A  chan- 
nel of  authority  must  be  laid  down  before  the  authority 
can  be  exercised. 

Administrative  machinery  is  subject  to  two  cardinal 
forms  of  derangement  —  one  functional,  one  structural. 
Both  are  diversions  of  authority  from  its  appointed  chan- 
nel; but  the  lighter  affects  authority  only,  the  graver 
involves  also  appointment.  The  lighter  may  accordingly 
be  called  maladministration,  the  graver  disorganization. 

In  the  accompanying  illustration  these  two  adminis- 
trative ills  are  exhibited  in  two  figures.  The  dotted  circles 
ABC  represent  official  positions;  the  heavy  black  arrow 
represents  the  appointment  of  B ;  the  outline  arrow  rep- 
resents the  channel  of  authority  or  the  orders  which  fol- 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
vol.  x.  (1916.) 


364 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


low  it.  The  dotted  lines  represent  the  vicious  exercise  of 
authority.  This  appears  in  the  aspect  of  short  circuits. 
In  administrations  of  all  kinds  such  divagation  of  authority 
is  called  "going  over  B's  head"  or  "interference  with  B." 
A  joint  meeting  of  two  committees  of  certain  trustees 
—  a  committee  that  managed  their  finances  and  a  com- 
mittee that  managed  their  school  —  was  once  called  to 
consider  financing  a  school  building.  A  building  com- 
mittee of  the  same  trustees  was  already  in  existence.  Soon 


B 


B 


MALADMINISTRATION  Dl  80R6ANJ7ATION 

after  the  conference  convened,  one  of  the  members  spoke 
as  follows:  "It  seems  to  me  that  when  the  trustees  have 
asked  some  gentlemen  to  attend  to  certain  business  for 
them,  they  ought  not  to  step  in  and  do  a  part  of  it  them- 
selves." All  present  assented,  and  after  voting  to  invite 
the  building  committee  to  consider  the  question  in  hand, 
the  joint  meeting  adjourned  sine  die.  The  action  inadvert- 
ently and  very  naturally  contemplated  by  the  conferees 
was  abandoned  as  soon  as  its  nature  as  an  administrative 
short  circuit  was  clearly  set  before  them. 

This  utterance  of  practical  wisdom  contained  in  germ 
the  whole  theory  of  administrative  organization.  Address- 
ing the  assembled  gentlemen  as  if  they  were  a  meeting  of 


ADMINISTRATIVE  ORGANIZATION  365 

the  board  of  trustees  itself,  the  speaker  admonished  them 
that  having  appointed  a  subordinate  body  —  namely,  the 
building  committee  —  to  a  certain  duty,  they  were  now 
preparing  to  go  over  that  subordinate's  head.  The  remark 
brings  out  the  fundamental  fact  that  the  sphere  of  a  superior 
is  his  subordinate,  not  the  subordinate's  work.  The  work 
is  the  sphere  of  the  subordinate;  whose  appointment  to 
it  automatically  ^-appoints  others,  his  superior  among 
the  number.  A  superior  cannot  do;  he  can  only  order  done 
by  the  proper  subordinate.  The  lesson  of  the  remark  may 
be  put  into  the  form  of  the  following  general  formula  for 
normal  administration: 

Anything  that  is  proper  for  a  subordinate  to  do  is  im- 
proper for  any  one  else,  including  his  superior. 

The  reason  why  an  act  in  an  allotted  sphere  is  normally 
improper  for  any  one  other  than  the  person  to  whom  it 
has  been  allotted  is  that  it  in  so  far  forth  nullifies  the 
allotment.  In  particular,  for  a  superior  to  allow  himself 
or  a  third  party  to  do  the  work  of  his  subordinate  is  to 
appoint  himself  or  the  other  for  the  time  being  in  the  sub- 
ordinate's stead.  It  is,  in  a  word,  the  supersession  of  the 
subordinate. 

Two  cases  are  possible:  either  the  subordinate  is  the 
appointee  of  the  person  superseding  him,  or  he  is  not.  The 
two  diagrams  represent  the  two  cases. 

1.  The  subordinate  is  an  appointee  of  the  person  super- 
seding him.  He  may  be  superseded  either  for  a  cause  in 
the  conditions  of  the  enterprise  administered  or  without 
such  cause.  If  for  cause,  the  supersession  is  of  the  nature 
of  punishment,  not  a  normal  condition,  but  an  attempt  to 
correct  abnormal  conditions.  If  without  cause,  the  super- 
session is  again  abnormal,  being  of  the  nature  of  a  revision 
of  judgment  on  the  part  of  the  appointing  power.  It  is  a 
change  from  the  administrative  structure  once  decided 


366  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

upon.  It  is  an  example  of  vacillation  in  the  management 
of  the  organization.  It  is  further  a  discouragement  to  the 
official  temporarily  relieved  of  his  duty.  His  plans  of  work 
are  set  in  abeyance  from  no  fault  of  his  own.  It  is  there- 
fore doubly  a  case  of  administrative  inefficiency.  In  a 
word,  it  is  mal-administration. 

There  is  a  case  in  which  a  superior  may  temporarily 
perform  a  subordinate's  duty  without  superseding  him. 
This  is  the  case  in  which  his  duty  is  assumed  in  order 
to  show  him  how  to  perform  it.  Such  a  temporary  re- 
allotment  of  duty  is  a  part  of  his  instruction  and  not  a 
part  of  his  official  work,  unless  indeed  extended  until  it 
implies  that  the  subordinate  is  slow  at  his  lesson.  In  this 
event  it  takes  on  the  punitive  tinge. 

2.  The  subordinate  is  not  an  appointee  of  the  superior 
usurping  his  duty.  Such  action  on  the  part  of  a  supe- 
rior constitutes  a  defiance  of  the  authority  making  the 
appointment.  It  confronts  this  authority  with  a  hostile 
organizing  act.  It  is  not  a  lapse,  but  a  breakdown  of  the 
organization.  In  a  word,  it  is  dis-organization. 

In  a  complex  organization  an  official  may  be  at  once 
superior  and  subordinate;  and  his  superior  may  himself 
be  also  a  subordinate  and  his  subordinates  also  superiors. 
Toward  his  superior  the  duty  of  any  official  is  to  execute 
the  superior's  orders  and  to  abstain  from  executing  those 
of  any  one  else.  Toward  his  subordinates  the  duty  of  any 
official  is  to  give  orders  to  them  and  to  them  only  —  not 
even  to  himself  in  their  stead.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  in 
practice  any  personal  relations  between  members  of  the 
same  organization  outside  of  the  established  channels  of 
authority  need  to  be  watched  lest  they  assume  an  official 
tinge  and  thereby  tend  to  short  circuit  the  organization 
and  diminish  its  efficiency. 

An  official  may  be  tempted  to  overstep  the  appointed 


ADMINISTRATIVE  ORGANIZATION  367 

channels  of  authority  in  both  ways.  As  a  superior  he 
may  find  it  easier  to  get  something  done  within  a  subor- 
dinate's sphere  by  doing  it  himself  or  getting  some  one 
else  to  do  it  than  to  order  it  done  by  the  subordinate. 
This  is  notably  the  case  when  there  is  not  entire  harmony 
of  ideas  between  subordinate  and  superior.  As  a  subor- 
dinate an  officer  may  find  it  easier  to  do  something  within 
his  sphere  by  obtaining  for  it  the  authority  of  some  one 
else  than  his  superior,  who  may  not  share  his  opinion  of 
its  importance.  The  authority  of  some  power  superior 
to  both  may  be  invoked.  When  the  course  in  question  is 
important,  the  temptation  may  be  too  strong  to  resist. 
Nevertheless,  the  duty  of  the  forthputting  official  is  plain 
and  the  corresponding  right  of  the  officer  interfered  with 
is  plain;  and  any  such  short  circuit  gives  a  prima  facie 
cause  for  complaint.  But  the  sin  of  passing  beyond  supe- 
riors by  no  means  besets  subordinates  as  the  sin  of  going 
over  the  heads  of  subordinates  besets  superiors.  As  usual 
in  human  affairs,  the  greater  fault  is  with  the  stronger 
party. 

Much  administrative  friction  and  many  dangerous 
administrative  blazes  arising  from  these  personal  ambi- 
tions and  differences  might  be  avoided  were  official  right 
and  official  duty  clearly  evident  to  those  involved,  as 
these  diagrams  present  them. 

Nevertheless,  there  may  in  any  case  be  good  reason  for 
dissatisfaction  either  with  the  orders  of  a  superior  or  the 
acts  of  a  subordinate.  A  certain  capacity  to  adjust  itself 
may  be  assumed  as  proper  to  a  living  organism.  Some 
right  of  appeal  from  a  superior  and  some  right  of  the  su- 
persession of  a  subordinate  is  therefore  a  condition  of  the 
maintenance  of  any  administrative  organization  in  normal 
functioning. 

The  only  appeal  applicable  to  all  cases  is  an  appeal  to 


368  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

the  highest  authority  in  the  organization.  Hence,  the 
right  of  appeal  to  a  monarch  or  to  the  presiding  officer  in 
non-political  organizations  is  universally  recognized  as  an 
inalienable  privilege  of  any  official,  even  the  humblest. 
It  is  also  a  forcible  but  justifiable  means  by  which  an  ulti- 
mate authority  may  be  called  upon  for  a  review  of  the 
acts  of  a  subordinate.  Such  occasional  reviews  are  always 
wholesome  and  not  infrequently  necessary.  At  the  same 
time  an  appeal  is  in  effect  a  criticism  of  the  officer  appealed 
from  and  nearly  or  remotely  suggests  his  removal. 

A  correlative  right  of  supersession  is  also  recognized 
when  employed  as  a  diplomatic  means  of  inviting  a  sub- 
ordinate to  perform  his  duties  better,  if  not  to  relinquish 
them.  Like  a  signal  for  trumps  at  cards,  an  extraordinary 
act  —  in  this  case  the  performance  by  a  superior,  or  by 
some  one  else  designated  by  him,  of  a  subordinate's  duties 
—  is  used  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  person  concerned  to 
a  need  that  he  can  supply.  The  need  here  suggested  is  that 
of  better  work,  perhaps  by  some  one  better  qualified.  An 
official  should,  therefore,  always  be  alive  to  the  possible 
meaning  to  him  of  a  notable  invasion  of  his  sphere  by  a 
superior.  Only  two  alternatives  are  possible:  either  the 
superior  has  given  the  subordinate  just  cause  for  com- 
plaint against  him,  or  has  taken  a  delicate  method  of  sig- 
nifying causes  for  complaint  against  the  subordinate.  If 
the  subordinate  suspects  this  dissatisfaction,  let  him  be- 
think himself  or  offer  his  resignation,  lest  discipline  or 
removal  follow.  If  not,  and  if  these  diagrams  show  that 
he  has  cause  to  complain,  let  him  enter  his  complaint 
promptly,  discreetly,  and  resolutely. 


m 

EXECUTIVE  ABILITY  WITH  AND  WITHOUT 
QUOTATION  MARKS 

WRITTEN  with  quotation  marks  "executive  ability"  is 
familiarly  interpreted  as  the  capacity  to  "make  the  other 
fellow  do  all  the  work."  As  such,  the  business  value  of  the 
trait  is  often  insisted  on,  albeit  with  a  touch  of  sarcasm. 
Stated  more  formally,  "executive  ability"  in  this  sense  is 
a  certain  gift  at  turning  responsibilities  over  to  others  in  a 
way  to  leave  one's  self  free  for  manoeuvres  to  hold  one's  post 
or  get  another.  These  manoeuvres  consist  largely  in  so 
framing  executive  orders  that,  if  they  succeed,  one  can 
seize  the  praise,  and  if  they  fail,  one  can  shift  the  blame. 
Also  familiarly  and  also  with  quotation  marks,  this  art  is 
called  "the  art  of  administration."  According  to  the  claim 
of  an  acute  subordinate  in  one  of  the  bureaus  of  pre-war 
times  at  Washington,  its  head  exhibited  powers  in  this 
direction  amounting  to  positive  genius. 

What  is  an  executive,  and  how  can  he  display  ability? 
An  executive  is  one  who  sees  that  legislative  enactments 
are  carried  out.  He  displays  ability  when  he  succeeds  in 
getting  them  well  carried  out.  Hence,  executive  ability 
implies  a  sympathetic  understanding,  first,  of  the  orders, 
and  second,  of  the  subordinates  who  are  to  fulfil  them. 
The  able  executive  must  believe  in  the  enterprise  and  know 
enough  about  it  to  criticize  the  execution  of  the  orders.  He 
must  also  believe  in  his  subordinates  and  appreciate  their 
needs  of  opportunity,  of  reward  in  recognition  or  in  pay, 
and  upon  occasion  of  reproof  —  the  three  conditions  of 
their  best  cooperation.  Both  qualities  —  an  understand- 


370  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ing  of  the  work  and  an  understanding  of  the  workers  —  are 
essential  to  that  unification  of  an  administration,  that 
esprit  de  corps,  which  alone  makes  it  effective.  The  able 
executive  is  he  who  possesses  both. 

These  two  qualities  prove  upon  examination  to  be  the 
opposites  of  the  two  indicated  by  quotation  marks.  It  is 
true  that  an  executive  watches  the  work  of  other  men;  yet 
if  his  own  mind  and  soul  are  in  it,  too,  he  will  inevitably 
be  led  to  put  no  little  of  himself  into  the  transmission  of 
his  orders.  Instead  of  scheming  to  retain  his  task,  he  will 
be  full  of  plans  for  putting  it  through.  Instead  of  looking 
about  for  other  tasks,  he  will  have  no  eyes  but  for  his  own. 
And  if  his  mind  and  soul  are  with  the  men  beneath  him,  he 
will  seek  neither  to  elude  criticism  nor  purloin  credit;  for, 
while  confident  in  his  own  powers,  he  will  realize  his  need 
of  their  willing  help. 

Such  is  the  effective  leader  of  men,  —  he  who  gets  the 
most  out  of  subordinates;  the  able  executive,  the  true 
artist  in  administration. 

A  man  may  possess  the  first  qualification  without  the 
second,  comprehending  the  work  but  ignoring  the  workers. 
This  is  the  driver  of  men,  he  who  impels  others  to  do  what 
they  have  no  heart  to  do.  Adding  the  second  qualification, 
he  becomes  the  leader,  he  who  shows  others  how  to  get 
what  at  heart  they  want.  Napoleon  showed  his  soldiers  the 
way  to  glory,  General  Booth  his  comrades  the  way  to  sal- 
vation. The  record  of  both  testified  to  their  supreme  com- 
petence for  their  tasks. 

Thus  the  quotation  marks  about  the  phrases  "execu- 
tive ability"  and  "the  art  of  administration"  prove  when 
traced  to  their  source  to  be  the  ear-marks  of  incompetence. 
He  who  seeks  mainly  to  consolidate  himself  or  secure  his 
retreat  advertises  himself  in  fear  of  discovery.  He  who 
shirks  blame  and  steals  praise  advertises  himself  as  merit- 


EXECUTIVE   ABILITY  371 

ing  one  and  unworthy  of  the  other.  He  is  the  man  in  the 
wrong  place  —  the  bureaucrat.  Both  the  immense  devel- 
opment of  administrative  responsibility  in  modern  times 
and  the  immense  difficulty  of  putting  men  in  their  right 
places  are  signalized  by  the  current  development  of  bu- 
reaucracy. To  quote  the  titles  of  Emile  Faguet's  brilliant 
books,  it  is  the  "Cult  of  Incompetence"  in  modern  democ- 
racies that  issues  in  the  "Horror  of  Responsibilities" 
which  emasculates  their  servants.  Circumlocution  Offices, 
and  men  with  an  official  task,  intent  on  "How  not  to  do  it" 
are  plentier  now  than  in  Dickens's  time;  from  the  rustic 
"leaning  out"  his  taxes  against  an  inactive  shovel  on  a 
highway,  to  the  department  chief  doling  out  the  letter  of 
the  law  between  cigars  and  gossip  in  a  government  office. 
Since  the  Great  War  began,  urgent  necessity  has  put  not  a 
few  men  among  us  in  their  right  places.  The  lesson  of  their 
survival  must  not  be  lost  if  the  phrases  executive  ability 
and  the  art  of  administration  are  permanently  to  lose  their 
quotation  marks  in  our  familiar  speech. 


IV 

THE  ECONOMICS  OF  A  CHARITABLE  FOUNDATION 

1.  An  enterprise  begun  by  charity  may  or  may  not  continue 

by  charity. 

A  CHARITABLE  foundation  consists  of  property  given  in 
trust  for  a  public  purpose.  In  carrying  out  this  purpose, 
either  the  property  itself  or  its  usufruct  may  be  applied. 
If  only  the  usufruct  and  not  the  property,  the  enterprise 
may  be  continued  indefinitely  without  further  gifts,  since 
usufruct  under  normal  circumstances  is  forthcoming  in- 
definitely; but  if  the  property  itself  is  applied,  the  enter- 
prise must  sooner  or  later  come  to  an  end  without  further 
gifts. 

2.  Achievement  and  acknowledgment  the  necessary  condi- 

tions. 

Further  gifts  may  reasonably  be  expected  on  two  con- 
ditions: (1)  When  the  original  endowment  has  been  well 
employed  and  more  could  be  used;  (2)  when  it  has  been 
employed  in  a  way  to  commemorate  the  givers.  Active 
interest  in  a  cause  commonly  has  its  private  side  in  a  de- 
sire for  remembrance  through  it.  The  trustee  of  a  per- 
manent charitable  work,  if  he  is  to  employ  the  endow- 
ment itself  successfully,  must  so  manage  the  enterprise 
that  men  shall  be  impelled  to  give  to  it  by  both  the  public 
and  the  private  motive. 

3.  Control  a  condition  excluded. 

A  third  condition,  that  of  control  by  the  giver,  is  in- 
compatible with  the  nature  of  a  charitable  foundation. 
A  trustee  that  should  surrender  his  judgment  to  a  giver 
would  commit  a  breach  of  trust. 


ECONOMICS  OF  A  CHARITABLE  FOUNDATION  373 

Codetermination  through  restrictions  placed  upon  gifts 
is  not  control,  even  if  the  restrictions  are  not  what  the 
owner-in-trust  would  have  chosen.  For  the  gift  is  not 
accepted  unless  the  advantages  of  its  possession  in  spite 
of  the  restrictions  are  greater  in  the  independent  judg- 
ment of  the  owner-in-trust  than  the  freedom  preserved 
by  its  rejection.  In  the  event,  an  owner-in-trust  may  re- 
verse his  judgment;  and  the  case  is  especially  likely  in 
this  country,  where  the  ability  to  acquire  wealth  has  far 
outstripped  the  ability  to  decide  wisely  upon  its  use.  A 
gift  —  whether  public  or  private  —  which  the  owner-in- 
trust would  rather  restore,  were  it  possible,  than  main- 
tain the  conditions  it  imposes,  is  not  a  thing  unsuspected 
among  us.  The  case  transforms  Codetermination  into  con- 
trol by  the  giver.  His  gift  has  committed  the  foundation 
to  a  policy  which  the  owner-in-trust  condemns.  In  so  far 
as  its  acceptance  is  felt  to  impeach  the  judgment  of  the 
owner-in-trust,  it  acts  as  a  deterrent  to  future  givers. 

4.  Achievement  an  indirect  responsibility  of  ownership-in- 
trust. 

In  general  the  owner-in-trust  of  a  charitable  founda- 
tion acts  through  professional  executives.  The  sphere  of 
such  aids  is  confined  by  the  nature  of  their  engagement 
to  the  essential  purpose  of  the  foundation.  Their  double 
duty  is  to  advise  how  this  purpose  can  best  be  carried  out, 
and  to  carry  it  out  in  whatever  approach  to  this  way  the 
owner-in-trust  can  approve.  Of  the  two  motives,  public 
and  private,  for  the  continuation  of  support  to  a  founda- 
tion, the  expert  agent  has  the  first  as  his  sole  sphere.  His 
function  is  to  see,  as  far  as  in  him  lies  and  he  is  permitted, 
that  the  essential  purposes  he  serves  are  fulfilled  to  the 
best  advantage. 


374  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

5.  Acknowledgment  a  direct  responsibility  of  ownership-in- 

trust. 

The  private  motive,  that  of  remembrance,  the  expert 
agent  is  not  called  to  consider.  This  source  of  continued 
support  is  the  proper  care  of  the  owner-in-trust.  Every 
charitable  foundation  is  bound  to  see  that  the  personalities 
of  givers  shall  be  permanently  connected  with  it  in  some 
conspicuous  fashion.  The  property  given  may  be  either 
transformed  or  used  up;  employed  either  for  permanent 
uses  or  current  expenses.  If  employed  for  permanent 
uses,  the  property,  real  or  movable,  into  which  it  has 
been  transformed  must  bear  the  name  of  the  giver.  If 
employed  for  current  expenses,  the  giver's  name  must  be 
continued  in  public  view  by  some  means  not  likewise 
ephemeral.  The  names  of  the  givers  of  gifts  which  have 
had  their  day  may  be  inscribed  in  some  place  where  all 
concerned  in  the  foundation  may  find  them.  For  the 
purpose  of  the  commemoration  of  the  most  important 
temporary  aid,  a  book  destined  for  library  shelves,  as 
current  statements  are  destined,  does  not  suffice.  A  book 
is  needed  such  as  he  who  runs  may  read;  if  an  actual 
book,  one  of  imposing  make  and  installed  in  a  public  place. 
Better  than  any  bound  volume  is  a  roster  in  the  form  of 
such  stone  and  metal  inscriptions  as  outlast  all  memorials 
save  those  of  the  imagination. 

6.  Capital  and  endowment  economically  distinguishable. 

A  foundation  fulfilling  these  two  conditions  —  with 
an  expert  agent  capable  of  serving  its  essential  aims  well, 
and  with  an  owner-in-trust  mindful  to  commemorate 
givers  invariably,  worthily,  and  permanently  —  is  free 
to  devote  to  its  purposes  the  whole  substance  given  it 
outright.  The  expenditure  of  free  endowment  is  the  eco- 
nomic method  proper  to  charitable  foundations;  that  in 


ECONOMICS  OF  A  CHARITABLE  FOUNDATION  375 

which  they  differ  from  gainful  enterprises.  When  a  firm 
runs  behind  annually  or  an  individual  lives  beyond  his 
income,  we  know  where  it  will  end.  Their  money  was 
made,  and  if  more  be  not  made,  there  will  sooner  or  later 
be  none.  The  money  of  a  charitable  foundation  was  not 
made,  but  given;  and  if  spent  to  good  purpose  and  pub- 
licly recalled,  more  will  sooner  or  later  come.  To  conduct 
a  gainful  enterprise  with  an  annual  deficit  is  to  invite 
ruin.  To  conduct  a  charitable  enterprise  with  an  annual 
deficit  is  to  invite  re-endowment.  It  is  a  further  depend- 
ence on  the  charity  to  which  the  foundation  owes  its 
origin.  The  foundation  never  would  have  existed  but  for 
the  public  spirit  of  the  community,  and  to  manage  it 
with  no  further  reliance  thereon  is  a  contradiction  in  act. 
Instinctive  with  private  owners,  the  principle  that  prop- 
erty ought  not  to  be  used  up  does  not  apply  to  owners- 
in-trust.  Capital  indeed  must  not  be  used  up,  but  free 
endowment  may.  The  expenditure  of  capital  leaves  noth- 
ing to  work  with.  The  expenditure  of  free  endowment 
provides  something  to  ask  for. 

7.  The  wise  expenditure  of  free  endowment  demands  a  fusion 

of  the  standpoints  of  owner-in-trust  and  expert  agent. 
The  free  endowment  of  a  foundation  should  not  be 
spent  so  fast  that  its  work  will  be  crippled  before  the 
ordinary  processes  by  which  good  work  becomes  known 
can  be  expected  to  bring  more.  Its  temporary  needs  may 
otherwise  dominate  its  permanent  interests.  Expert  opin- 
ion may  be  silenced  and  business  prudence  alone  vocal. 
Control  by  possible  givers  may  be  admitted  under  the 
spur  of  poverty.  Conversely,  free  endowment  should  not 
be  so  economized  as  to  stint  the  good  work  which  is  the 
earnest  of  more.  To  these  two  opposite  dangers  every 
charitable  foundation  is  at  all  times  exposed.  The  advice 


376 


MUSEUM  IDEALS 


of  an  expert  agent,  absorbed  in  pursuing  the  end  to  which 
the  foundation  is  dedicated  may  invite  extravagance;  the 
judgment  of  an  owner-in-trust,  absorbed  in  providing 
the  means  by  which  it  subsists  may  invite  parsimony.  The 
choice  of  the  happy  middle  course  is  hindered  unless  the 
mind  of  each  is  open  to  the  considerations  that  weigh 
with  the  other.  The  ideal  owner-in-trust  would  be  his 
own  expert  agent.  Capital  is  proverbially  and  justifiably 
timid;  but  endowment  should  rather  take  counsel  of  its 
hopes,  as  it  would  if  sustained  by  an  expert's  sense  of  the 
value  and  scope  of  the  public  purpose  to  which  he  has 
devoted  his  life. 


V 

MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 
MUSEUM  PUBLICITY1 

WHEN  an  officer  in  a  museum  receives  an  inquiry  about 
its  "House  Organ,"  what  is  meant  is  not,  as  he  might  be 
tempted  to  suppose,  a  great  mechanism  of  pipes  and  reeds 
assumed  to  overflow  a  niche  in  its  building,  but  a  printed 
sheet  advertising  the  institution.  Most  of  the  letter- 
writing  and  circular-distributing  population  of  this  coun- 
try seems  to  take  it  for  granted  that  every  House  of  what- 
ever name  must  have  its  Organ;  that  every  concerted 
human  effort  must  advance  to  the  sound  of  its  own  trum- 
pet. 

The  modicum  of  truth  in  this  assumption  is  quite  over- 
borne by  its  factor  of  error.  The  modicum  of  truth  is  that 
no  enterprise  can  attain  its  purpose  if  those  whom  it  is 
designed  to  benefit  remain  in  ignorance  of  it.  The  factor 
of  error  is  the  naive  idea  that  adequate  publicity  is  no- 
where possible  without  the  use  of  modern  advertising 
methods.  A  Bulletin,  or  other  announcement  "  To  whom 
it  may  concern"  is  always  in  place:  but  a  House  Organ, 
or  other  advertising  medium  crying,  "Know  all  men  by 
these  presents"  may  or  may  not  be  in  place.  The  mistake 
of  confusing  the  two  kinds  of  publicity  is  the  mark  of  a 
commercial  nation  and  time;  one  that  has  not  yet  clearly 
grasped  the  distinction  between  public  and  private  pur- 
poses, between  charity  and  business.  For  charity,  as  we 
have  long  known,  vaunteth  not  herself,  is  not  puffed  up, 
doth  not  behave  herself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her  own; 

1  Reprinted  from  the  American  Magazine  of  Art,  February,  1917. 


378  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

while  in  business  we  find  newspaper  broadsides  vaunting 
themselves,  press  agents  puffing  up  their  principals,  rail- 
road billboards  behaving  themselves  unseemly,  and  the 
whole  apparatus  of  advertisement  devoted  to  seeking  its 
own.  The  distinction  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  charity  is  un- 
selfish in  essence,  and  a  business  selfish.  As  is  often  said, 
people  do  not  go  into  business  for  their  health,  nor  for 
the  health  of  their  neighbors.  Charity,  on  the  contrary, 
aims  at  the  general  health.  From  so  deep  a  distinction 
in  purpose  it  would  appear  evident  that  a  correspond- 
ingly deep  difference  in  methods  must  result.  On  the  face 
of  it,  a  museum,  which  is  a  charitable  institution,  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  a  House  Organ,  which  is  an 
adjunct  of  present-day  business. 

The  question  remains  —  What  methods  of  publicity 
are  consonant  with  a  charitable  purpose?  Evidently  such 
as  seek  their  due  share  of  public  attention.  Not  all  the 
public  notice  that  can,  by  hook  or  crook,  be  won  in  com- 
petition, but  such  as  comports  with  the  public  welfare, 
and  the  cooperative  part  therein  played  by  the  charity 
in  question.  Thus  churches  post  notices  for  the  passer, 
and  offer  leaflets  to  those  who  enter;  and  charities  of  all 
kinds  advertise  their  needs  and  opportunities  in  ways  and 
directions  adapted  to  the  particular  office  they  perform. 
Not  the  attention  it  can  usurp,  but  that  which  it  may 
claim,  sets  the  limit  to  the  methods  of  publicity  to  be 
used  by  any  charity. 

Museums  are  that  form  of  charity  whose  whole  func- 
tion consists  in. offering  tangible  objects  to  public  obser- 
vation. They  are  what  we  call  exhibitions,  and  perma- 
nent ones.  Observation  is  an  affair  of  the  contemplative, 
not  the  active  life.  The  beneficiaries  of  schools,  churches 
or  hospitals  must  do  something,  or  permit  something  to 
be  done;  the  beneficiaries  of  museums  are  visit-ors,  or 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  379 

see-ers,  persons  who  are  held  to  do  nothing  but  inspect 
certain  permanent  objects.  But  a  small  part  of  life  can 
be  devoted  to  purely  contemplative  ends.  During  most 
of  our  time  we  must  be  active  otherwise  than  purely  as 
visitors.  The  claim  of  all  museums  upon  public  attention 
is  therefore  a  comparatively  small  one.  They  are  insti- 
tutions established  in  the  main  for  the  use  of  leisure  time. 
The  kind  of  publicity  appropriate  to  museums  is  confined 
to  measures  making  known  a  profitable  employment  of 
spare  moments.  A  certain  reserve  and  modesty  is  in 
place  in  whatever  methods  of  publicity  are  attempted  by 
any  museum. 

There  is  an  added  and  fundamental  reason  for  reserve 
and  modesty  in  publishing  the  advantages  of  museums 
of  fine  art.  Museums  are  divided  into  two  radically  dis- 
tinct types,  the  primary  purpose  of  the  one  being  public 
information,  of  the  other  public  delectation.  To  the  first 
type  belong  museums  of  science,  pure  and  applied,  in- 
cluding history;  to  the  second,  museums  of  fine  art. 
Information  and  delectation  are  two  very  different  opera- 
tions of  the  human  spirit:  one  calling  into  play  the  per- 
ceptions and  the  thoughts  only,  or  what  is  called  the 
mind;  the  other  the  sensibilities  and  the  emotions,  or 
what  is  called  the  heart.  The  mind  can  be  opened  at  will, 
but  not  the  heart.  A  meteoric  specimen,  General  Wash- 
ington's riding  boots,  or  any  other  scientific  or  historical 
exhibit,  could  be  shown  in  a  street  car  and  interest  almost 
every  one;  a  landscape  by  Corot  might  interest  almost 
no  one.  The  active  effort  to  ad-veriise  enjoyment,  to  turn 
people's  hearts  to  it,  will  in  general  be  fruitless.  It  will 
be  the  form  only  and  not  the  fact  of  advertisement.  Every 
work  of  fine  art  proposes  that  we  share  in  the  taste  of 
another  person  who  has  shaped  it  after  his  own  heart;  and 
in  order  that  we  should  do  so,  our  own  hearts  must  be 


380  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

ready  to  take  the  same  mould.  Hence  no  means  of  com- 
pelling the  notice  of  every  one  will  avail  to  make  known 
works  of  art.  The  means  must  be  such  as  will  attract  the 
notice  of  those  more  or  less  disposed  thereto  in  advance. 
The  publicity  proper  to  museums  of  art  is  passive  and  not 
active;  consisting  not  in  advertisements  forcing  atten- 
tion, but  in  notifications  rewarding  attention.  An  elec- 
tric sign  over  a  museum  of  art  would  arrest  the  careless 
eye,  but  to  small  purpose.  A  notice  painted  in  a  public 
conveyance,  hung  in  a  hotel  office  or  shown  in  a  movie 
series  would  detain  the  interested  eye  and  to  good  pur- 
pose. 

Some  years  ago  it  was  argued  that  a  museum  should 
seek  popular  vogue  for  its  treasures  by  featuring  them  in 
newsy  articles  for  Sunday  papers.  The  enthusiasm  which 
conceived  a  plan  so  up-to-date  is  taking,  and  the  tolerant 
American  is  inclined  at  first  to  yield  to  it.  Yet  the  con- 
tact of  frigid  fact  acts  as  a  deterrent.  The  project  is 
ineffective  and  even  condemnable.  The  reason  why  is 
that  just  given.  Fine  art  is  essentially  retiring;  it  is  one 
of  the  intrinsically  unboomable  things.  Each  of  its  in- 
numerable types  and  sub-types  exists  only  for  those  who 
delight  in  that  variety  of  it,  and  thereby  betray  some  germ 
of  like  fancies  in  their  own  bosoms.  Fine  art  offers  some- 
thing to  all  of  us,  but  withholds  much  from  every  one  of 
us.  It  must  reveal  itself,  cannot  be  forced  or  questioned 
—  as  Psyche  and  Elsa  found  out  —  and  will  reveal  itself 
only  unawares  even  to  the  sincere  and  devoted  heart. 
What  can  be  published  abroad  about  it  is  only  the  hem 
of  its  garment,  only  the  pound  where  it  was  once  impris- 
oned. In  another  phrase,  the  effort  to  induce,  through 
the  public  press,  a  wholesale  appreciation  of  works  of 
tangible  art  presents  to  us  the  spectacle  of  that  whose 
essence  is  perfection  imperfectly  presented  to  imperfect 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  381 

apprehension.  This  is  non-sense.  The  fact  that  there  are 
enthusiasts  among  us  willing  to  undertake  the  task  con- 
clusively proves  them  incompetent  for  it.  It  is  to  believe 
heaven  within  our  reach  and  we  archangels  to  grasp  it, 
to  think  that  that  which  is  in  reality  the  bearer  of  the 
highest  and  best  experiences  of  human  life  can  be  scat- 
tered broadcast  through  it.  The  project  suggests  the  late 
Whitelaw  Reid's  half -humorous  ideal  —  "the  Froudes 
and  Macaulays  of  the  daily  press"  -  which  long  gave  a 
flavor  of  mockery  to  the  word  "journalism."  It  suggests 
Matthew  Arnold's  phrase  for  Edwin  and  his  associates 
—  "the  young  lions  of  the  'Daily  Telegraph.'"  For  it  is 
as  impossible  that  a  newspaper  should  bring  the  contents 
of  our  museums  effectively  home  to  readers  generally  as 
it  would  be  that  an  editor  should  write  of  passing  events 
as  Froude  and  Macaulay  did  of  their  subject-matter,  or 
that  a  young  lion  should  storm  a  walled  city.  This  is  the 
first  and  fundamental  thing  to  recognize  about  such  a 
purpose.  It  is  based  on  untruth,  and  on  untruth  nothing 
can  permanently  stand. 

All  museums  would  like  to  have  crowds  of  visitors  — 
but  only  crowds  of  real  visitors,  real  see-ers  of  what  is 
before  them,  gaining  something  beside  boredom  from  it. 
Let  them  all  be  open  to  crowds,  and  let  museums  of  sci- 
ence and  history  even  seek  to  attract  crowds,  as  by  set- 
ting up  specimen  show-windows  in  business  streets,  or 
by  organizing  visits  en  masse.  Most  of  such  throngs  will 
get  much  from  the  exhibits  they  are  marshalled  to  see. 
But  let  not  museums  of  fine  art  rely  on  these  insistent 
methods,  or  deem  them  effective  because  they  gather 
crowds.  The  publicity  that  brings  visitors  willy-nilly 
yields  a  minimal  harvest  of  real  comprehension  and  a 
maximal  by-product  of  the  familiarity  that  breeds  con- 
tempt and  dulls  vision.  For  museums  of  fine  art  effective 


382  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

publicity  will  consist  in  the  widest  public  offer,  verbal  and 
actual,  of  the  opportunity  to  see  beautiful  things  and  of 
help  in  seeing  them  well.  Compulsion  in  any  form,  as  by 
the  trumpeting  of  a  House  —  or  any  other  —  Organ,  is  as 
futile  for  their  aims  as  every  effort  to  lay  out  a  highway 
to  the  sky  has  always  been  and  will  always  be. 

STATE  SUPPORT  AND  FREE  ADMISSION 
Museums  aim  at  the  permanent  preservation  of  their  con- 
tents. As  tune  goes  on  these  come  to  consist  in  increasing 
measure  of  survivals  from  the  past.  Examples  of  con- 
temporary art,  when  acquired  for  permanent  preserva- 
tion, take  their  place  eventually  as  examples  of  the  art 
of  a  bygone  time.  In  the  main,  museums  are  the  reposi- 
tory of  our  artistic  inheritance  of  painting,  sculpture,  and 
the  minor  arts,  in  so  far  as  this  inheritance  is  not  still 
distributed  in  public  places,  in  homes  or  in  the  shops  of 
dealers. 

In  such  memorials  of  the  life  of  the  imagination  all  civil- 
ized men  have  a  common  interest.  Ever  since  the  French 
Revolutionists  nationalized  the  collections  of  the  Ancien 
Regime,  the  duty  of  the  public  to  maintain  museums  of 
art  has  been  admitted,  and  the  right  of  the  public  to  a 
certain  freedom  of  access  to  all  great  permanent  collec- 
tions, whether  privately  or  publicly  founded  and  main- 
tained, has  been  recognized. 

Within  recent  years  questions  have  been  raised  regard- 
ing both  this  duty  and  this  right.  In  our  own  country 
museums  founded  by  private  initiative  have  appealed 
for  and  obtained  a  measure  of  public  support.  In  Europe 
it  has  been  asked  whether  the  opportunities  for  free  ad- 
mission to  the  greater  museums  have  not  been  made  more 
liberal  than  is  either  needful  or  desirable.  The  nickname 
applied  to  the  Louvre  "le  calorifere  national,"  "the 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  383 

national  radiator,"  suggests  that  a  desire  for  physical 
comfort  rather  than  any  interest  in  the  exhibits  inspires 
a  good  share  of  its  winter  visitors.  In  Germany,  the  dust 
and  other  atmospheric  impurities  created  by  holiday 
crowds  in  picture  galleries,  have  been  signalized  as  a  real 
threat  to  the  canvases. 

As  to  public  support:  How  far  is  it  desirable  that 
museums  of  art  founded  by  private  initiative  should  upon 
due  occasion  become  in  a  measure  a  charge  upon  the 
public? 

It  is  only  within  recent  years  that  communities  have 
taken  or  shared  the  initiative  in  the  foundation  of  museums 
of  art.  The  older  museums  abroad  and  at  home  have 
originated  in  private  collections  either  bequeathed  to  the 
public  or  taken  possession  of  in  the  name  of  the  nation. 
The  purchase  of  Sir  Hans  Sloane's  collection  in  1753  was 
the  nucleus  of  the  British  Museum:  the  Pitti  and  the 
Uffizzi  collections  gathered  by  the  Medici  family  have 
now  been  acquired  by  the  Italian  Government.  Some 
great  museums,  like  the  Vatican  in  Rome,  still  remain 
private  property,  while  open  in  a  measure  free  to  the 
public.  Some,  like  our  American  museums,  mostly  es- 
tablished during  the  past  half-century,  are  the  property 
of  corporations  created  for  the  purpose. 

The  reason  for  this  historical  evolution  is  plain.  The 
preservation  of  artistic  remains,  while  appealing  strongly 
to  individuals,  is  a  matter  which  governments  can  and 
must  postpone  to  other  cares.  Museums  of  art,  like 
government  inventories  of  artistic  riches,  and  like  laws 
against  the  export  of  works  of  art,  are  the  outgrowth  of 
sentiments  to  which  bodies  politic  are  by  no  means  in- 
variably in  a  position  to  respond. 

The  moral  of  the  evolution  is  equally  plain.  Individual 
initiative  may  to  advantage  be  seconded  by  collective 


384  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

effort  in  the  creation  and  conduct  of  museums  of  art.  The 
best  results  are  to  be  obtained  only  by  a  cooperation  be- 
tween private  and  public  effort.  Provisionally,  the  ques- 
tion just  put  is  to  be  answered  in  the  affirmative.  Museums 
of  art  founded  by  private  initiative  may  to  advantage 
become,  upon  due  occasion,  in  a  measure  a  charge  upon 
the  public. 

To  secure  the  cooperation  of  the  public,  the  cause  of 
artistic  salvage  to  which  museums  are  devoted  needs 
to  be  presented  in  ways  which  will  tell  upon  people  in 
general.  The  permanent  collections  established  in  Ameri- 
can cities  find  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  exemption  from 
taxation  in  return  for  a  measure  of  free  admission.  They 
are  classed  with  our  churches  as  public  benefactors.  To 
this  extent  they  are  all  a  charge  upon  the  public.  The 
same  argument  may  and  generally  does  avail  to  secure 
positive  financial  aid.  Funds  for  maintenance  have  the 
strongest  appeal.  A  tax  for  the  creation  of  a  public  mu- 
seum promises  advantages  which  the  taxpayer  may  not 
live  to  enjoy,  and  which  he  may  find  problematical.  In 
his  mind  other  municipal  needs  may  be  more  pressing: 
and  he  may  mistrust  the  wisdom  available  for  the  selec- 
tion of  a  site,  the  choice  of  building  plans,  the  acquisition 
of  exhibits.  The  appeal  of  a  going  concern,  on  the  con- 
trary, —  of  exhibits  open  to  his  inspection,  if  not  a  build- 
ing already  a  pride  to  the  city,  —  is  demonstrable  and 
present.  Asked  to  tax  himself  for  the  current  expenses  of 
an  established  institution  he  has  the  data  already  at  hand 
for  a  judgment.  The  maintenance  of  the  museum  during 
any  year  inures  to  his  benefit  during  that  year.  He  is 
asked  to  contribute  to  the  preservation  and  installation 
of  collections  which  he  may  visit,  show  to  others,  enjoy 
and  profit  from.  He  is  asked  to  help  pay  the  salaries  of 
officers  whose  expert  knowledge  he  may  at  any  time  call 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  385 

upon,  and  to  help  pay  for  arranging  and  advertising  the 
work  of  docents  and  lecturers  from  whom  he  may  gain 
instruction.  Of  the  worth  of  these  things  he  may  as- 
sure himself  by  actual  trial.  Most  American  communities 
value  them  highly,  and  are  even  willing  to  pay  the  cost 
of  the  buildings  needed  to  make  them  available.  The 
city  of  New  York  has  provided  liberally  toward  the 
buildings  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  The  act  passed 
a  few  years  ago  by  the  Legislature  of  Minnesota  author- 
izes cities  to  appropriate  money  for  housing  as  well  as 
exhibiting  collections  of  art  owned  by  private  associa- 
tions. People  have  ceased  to  fear  that  buildings  so  pro- 
vided will  be  a  disappointment.  The  appeal  for  mainte- 
nance remains,  nevertheless,  the  irrefragable  one:  being 
a  request  to  pay  for  value  received.  The  taxpayer  may 
justly  be  asked  to  contribute  toward  the  current  expenses 
of  an  institution  already  built,  already  filled,  and  already 
open  within  limits  to  his  free  use.  In  this  event  the  only 
question  before  him  is  as  to  the  amount  these  privileges 
are  worth. 

There  is  another  question  before  the  incorporated 
museum.  With  responsibility  goes  power.  If  the  com- 
munity served  by  a  museum  makes  itself  responsible 
through  a  tax  for  a  necessary  share  in  the  maintenance 
of  an  institution,  it  will  naturally  tend  to  claim  a  deci- 
sive share  in  its  control.  Yet  the  charter  of  any  incor- 
porated institution  vests  its  control  in  the  corporation 
alone.  For  the  corporation  to  admit  any  outside  coercion, 
even  that  of  the  community,  would  be  a  breach  of  the 
trust  imposed  by  the  state  from  which,  directly,  or  in- 
directly, it  receives  its  powers.  Yet  the  taxpayers  are 
at  any  time  liable  to  be  tempted  to  exercise  it.  There 
appears  but  one  solution  of  the  difficulty.  The  tax  may 
be  imposed  by  the  power  creating  the  corporation.  Its 


386  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

grant  is  then  in  effect  a  supplement  to  the  charter  control- 
ling its  use.  Its  withdrawal  to  compel  a  policy  unwelcome 
to  the  corporation  would  be  in  effect  a  partial  abrogation 
of  the  charter,  a  resumption  of  control  once  formally 
made  over  to  certain  chosen  persons.  Such  coercion  by 
the  state  through  the  threat  of  withholding  support  to 
its  own  creature  is  hardly  to  be  anticipated  unless  under 
circumstances  that  would  foreshadow  the  repeal  of  the 
charter.  Unless  a  case  could  be  made  out  for  this  drastic 
step,  the  corporation  might  be  expected  to  be  left  free 
for  its  allotted  duties.  The  interest  of  the  public  in  the 
work  of  an  institution  may  otherwise  be  safeguarded  by 
the  designation  of  governmental  representatives  in  the  cor- 
poration as  originally  constituted.  In  the  instance  of  mu- 
seums of  fine  art,  this  provision  for  governmental  mem- 
bers presents  a  form  of  that  union  of  public  with  private 
effort  which  experience  has  shown  indispensable  to  their 
successful  management.  A  state  tax  would  give  the  gov- 
ernmental members  of  the  corporation  an  influence  in 
its  councils  based  on  public  outlay  as  well  as  public 
advantage.  Their  wise  choice,  including  doubtless  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  community  directly  concerned,  would 
go  far  to  insure  a  wise  exercise  of  public  control.  Assum- 
ing a  state  tax,  the  question  whether  museums  of  fine 
art  founded  by  private  initiative  should  upon  due  occa- 
sion become  in  a  measure  a  charge  upon  the  public  ap- 
pears to  admit  an  affirmative  answer,  not  provisional  but 
definitive. 

As  to  free  admission.  What  is  the  justification,  and 
what  are  the  limits  of  the  right  of  the  public  to  admission 
without  pay  to  museums  of  fine  art? 

The  right  rests  on  deep  foundations.  Fine  art  is  in 
its  fundamental  character  a  thing  totally  diverse  from 
money.  Works  of  fine  art  are  indeed  goods  that  can  be 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  387 

bought  and  sold;  but  the  art  in  them  is  a  good  free  to  all 
those,  and  only  to  those,  who  are  endowed  with  the  capac- 
ity, native  or  acquired,  to  enjoy  it.  For  a  museum  of 
art  to  sell  the  right  of  admission  conflicts  with  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  its  contents. 

Good  things  are  of  two  kinds:  the  kind  that  is  divided 
-  that  is,  lessened  —  when  shared,  a  conspicuous  in- 
stance being  money :  and  the  kind  that  is  multiplied  — 
that  is,  increased  —  when  shared,  a  conspicuous  instance 
being  the  enjoyment  of  art.  Dante  in  the  Purgatorio 
contrasts  the  two  kinds  as  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly 
form  of  value,  respectively: 

"  Because  your  longings  are  directed  thither 
Where  shares  are  lessened  by  companionship, 
'T  is  envy  moves  the  bellows  of  your  sighs; 
But  if  the  love  of  the  celestial  sphere 
Should  upward  turn  your  passionate  desire, 
That  matter  would  not  occupy  your  heart. 
Because  the  more  there  are  who  there  say  'Ours' 
The  more  each  one  possesses  of  delight. 

And  like  a  mirror  each  reflects  the  other."  l 

Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  has  lately  recalled  the  distinction. 
"There  are  goods  in  regard  to  which  individual  posses- 
sion i's  possible,  and  there  are  goods  in  which  all  can  share 
alike.  The  food  and  clothing  of  one  man  is  not  the  food 
and  clothing  of  another:  and  if  the  supply  is  insufficient, 
what  one  man  has  obtained  is  at  the  expense  of  some 
other  man.  On  the  other  hand  ...  if  one  man  knows  a 

1  "Perche  s'  appuntan  II  vostri  disiri 

Dove  per  compagnia  parte  si  scema, 

Invidia  muove  il  mantaco  ai  sospiri. 
Ma  se  1'  amor  della  spera  suprema 

Torcesse  in  suso  il  desiderio  vostro, 

Non  vi  sarebbe  al  petto  quella  tema, 
Che  per  quanti  si  dice  piu  li  nostro 

Tanto  possiede  piu  di  ben  ciascuno. 

E  come  specchio  1'  una  all'  altro  rende." 

Purgatorio,  xv,  49-56:  75. 


388  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

science,  that  does  not  prevent  others  from  knowing  it: 
on  the  contrary,  it  helps  them  to  acquire  the  knowledge. 
In  such  matters  .  .  .  any  increase  anywhere  tends  to 
produce  an  increase  everywhere."  In  like  manner  money 
is  decreased  when  shared  and  the  enjoyment  of  art  in- 
creased. A  fortune  shared  is,  as  we  say,  cut  up.  But  a 
symphony  is  not  cut  up  among  its  audience.  Our  enjoy- 
ment of  a  play  is  greater  if  we  have  some  one  to  talk  it 
over  witji,  of  a  joke  if  we  have  some  one  to  tell  it  to.  Like- 
wise our  enjoyment  of  a  picture  or  a  statue  grows  by  con- 
tagion from  that  of  a  companion.  Of  our  co-partakers 
in  such  goods  we  can  say,  "The  more  the  merrier."  Money 
and  fine  art  are  like  oil  and  water:  differing  and  even 
mutually  repellent  in  essence.  Art  is  necessarily  joined 
with  its  ill-assorted  companion  in  origin  and  generally 
in  fate.  Artists  must  make  a  living,  and  collectors  inevi- 
tably compete  for  their  achievements.  A  work  of  art  is 
rescued  from  this  companionship  with  money  when  it 
reaches  a  museum.  Yet  the  divorce  is  not  complete  while 
money  is  demanded  as  the  price  of  its  contemplation. 
The  office  of  a  museum  is  not  ideally  fulfilled  until  access 
to  it  is  granted  without  pay.  The  justification  of  an  en- 
trance fee  is  wholly  practical  and  temporary.  It  may  be 
a  necessary  present  means  of  increasing  the  revenues  of 
the  institution. 

Admission  without  pay  does  not  mean  admission  with- 
out restriction.  The  ideal  management  of  a  museum  of 
art  involves  limitation  of  free  public  access  on  various 
evident  grounds. 

It  may  be  claimed  that  the  dignity  of  works  of  art  suf- 
fers from  unlimited  freedom  of  access.  We  do  not  value 
things  unless  we  get  them  at  some  cost  or  other.  Entered 
at  will,  a  treasure  house  of  the  imagination  may  become 
chiefly  a  convenience:  perhaps  a  calorijere  national.  An 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  389 

entrance  fee  has  been  proposed  for  the  Louvre,  but  in 
addition  to  its  fault  of  principle,  an  entrance  fee  unques- 
tionably bars  frequent  visits  on  the  part  of  most  people. 
Yet  any  fruitful  interest  in  fine  art  demands  repeated 
contact  with  it.  The  reservation  of  hours  or  days  would 
safeguard  the  impressiveness  of  museum  collections  with- 
out barring  frequent  visits,  and  such  reservations  are  called 
for  on  other  grounds  as  well. 

The  safety  of  collections  of  fine  art  imperatively  de- 
mands some  limitation  of  open  time.  The  contents  of 
museums  are  very  perishable  things,  subject  to  injury 
from  dust  and  heat  and  light  and  moisture  and  vibration. 
The  intention  is  to  keep  them  indefinitely,  and  no  pre- 
caution possible  short  of  wholly  shutting  them  away 
from  view  is  too  great  to  insure  their  indefinite  survival. 
It  has  been  remarked  that  no  objects  have  thus  far  ex- 
isted in  museum  galleries  a  tithe  of  the  time  that  many 
of  them  have  lived.  How  long  Egyptian  sculptures,  dat- 
ing from  millennia  ago,  are  likely  to  survive  as  museum 
objects  no  one  as  yet  can  tell.1  The  query  is  one  to  em- 
phasize, though  not  as  yet  to  define,  the  duty  of  museums 
to  limit  the  exposure  of  their  collections  to  crowds. 

The  closest  study  of  museum  objects  is  impossible  when 
all  comers  are  admitted  to  the  galleries.  A  museum  fails 
in  its  duty  to  artists  and  archaeologists  without  reserving 
time  for  their  undisturbed  work.  Cases  must  be  opened, 
objects  removed  to  more  convenient  places,  apparatus 
installed.  It  is  no  public  loss  but  an  ultimate  public  gain 
that  the  fullest  technical  and  scientific  use  should  be 
made  of  museum  collections:  and  for  this  purpose  closed 
hours  or  days  are  essential. 

1  "A  museum  is  only  a  temporary  place.  There  is  not  one  storehouse  in  the 
world  that  has  lasted  a  couple  of  thousand  years.  Broadly  speaking  there  is  no 
likelihood  that  the  majority  of  things  now  in  museums  will  yet  be  preserved 
anything  like  as  long  as  they  have  already  lasted."  Professor  Flinders  Petrie, 
Methods  and  Aims  of  Archaeology,  pp.  180-82. 


390  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

Another  need  for  closed  days  concerns  the  private  fac- 
tor in  the  successful  conduct  of  museums  of  art.  Those  in- 
dividuals who  actively  contribute  to  the  maintenance  and 
development  of  museum  collections  have  rights  in  their 
inspection'  comparable  to  those  of  the  public  for  whose 
benefit  also  these  efforts  are  undertaken.  Founders  and 
benefactors,  societies  of  contributors  like  the  Amis  du 
Louvre  and  the  subscribers  to  our  American  museums  may 
without  injustice  claim  a  fraction  of  time  in  which  they  can 
call  their  own,  collections  that  are  in  great  measure  their 
own  work. 

In  America  there  is  another  need  which  justifies  re- 
serving hours  or  days  for  the  use  of  the  private  supporters 
of  a  museum.  It  is  the  habit  among  us  to  sneer  at  Society 
spelled  with  a  capital  S.  Yet  whatever  the  justification 
of  the  satirists  from  La  Bruyere  down,  a  museum  of  fine 
art  should  not  join  in  the  sneer.  Above  all  other  insti- 
tutions it  should  seek  to  do  justice  to  the  kernel  of  value 
hidden  under  the  despised  yet  envied  husk.  Amiel  has 
spoken  of  a  brilliant  social  gathering  as  "an  improvised 
work  of  art,"  "une  ceuvre  d'art  improvise1  e"  The  art  it 
illustrates  is  the  art  of  manners,  the  art  whose  material 
is  our  enjoyment  of  one  another's  company  for  its  own 
sake.  This  is  as  truly  a  fine  art  as  architecture  or  the 
drama.  All  civilized  men  do  something  toward  the  adorn- 
ment of  their  ordinary  behavior,  something  toward  mak- 
ing it  agreeable  in  itself  —  that  is,  a  work  of  art.  "How 
are  you  this  morning,  Mrs.  Blank,"  said  her  acquaintance, 
"not  that  I  care  a  fig,  but  it  sounds  better  to  ask."  There 
are  all  grades  of  attention  to  manners,  from  untoward 
beginnings  like  this  to  the  finished  product  that  makes 
the  gentleman  and  the  lady,  the  grand  seigneur  and  the 
grande  dame.  Among  the  artistic  standards  that  a  museum 
may  represent,  those  of  manners  find  indirectly  an  as- 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  391 

sured  place.  Fine  art  has  always  been  associated  with 
the  lives  of  those  who  have  had  exceptional  opportuni- 
ties —  however  inadequately  availed  of  in  many  cases 
—  for  seeking  to  make  themselves  personally  agreeable 
one  to  another.  It  has  adorned  private  as  well  as  public 
affairs,  the  palaces  and  gardens  of  nobles  as  well  as  the 
sanctuaries  and  forums  of  the  people.  Gathered  in  a 
museum  it  does  not  lose  the  association.  A  museum  of 
fine  art  is  a  great  social  engine,  in  the  narrower,  and, 
among  us,  serio-comic  sense  of  the  word  society.  Its  pri- 
vate supporters  are  drawn  mainly  from  the  ranks  of  those 
exempt  from  the  cares  of  livelihood.  It  may  properly  lend 
its  influence  toward  promoting  their  combined  endeavors 
toward  the  creation  of  valid  social  standards:  and  this 
incidental  duty  warrants  granting  its  private  supporters 
special  privileges  in  the  use  of  its  collections.  A  democ- 
racy recognizes  no  privileges  based  on  blood.  It  substi- 
tutes respect  of  qualities  for  respect  of  persons:  in  the 
spirit  of  Marshal  Turenne's  reply  to  a  snob,  "You  who 
are  so  fond  of  ancestors,  look  at  me.  I  am  an  ancestor 
myself."  A  democracy  has  no  titled  class  to  set  standards 
for  the  fine  art  of  daily  behavior.  There  is  all  the  more 
reason  that  it  should  conserve  and  nourish  such  personal 
standards  as  have  their  root  in  demonstrated  quality. 
Those  persons  who  wisely  and  liberally  cooperate  in  the 
opportunities  offered  by  museums  of  art  for  forwarding 
the  life  of  the  imagination  among  the  whole  population, 
demonstrate  their  quality;  and  the  foundation  prin- 
ciple of  democracy  justifies  showing  them  the  regard  they 
have  earned  by  the  demonstration.  In  this  legitimate 
sense  of  the  abused  word,  our  museums  are  right  in  ally- 
ing themselves  with  Society  spelled  with  the  capital  S. 

All   these  reservations   of  time  taken  together  need 
amount  to  but  a  small  fraction  of  museum  days.    Ideal 


392  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

management  would  allow  them  all.  Nevertheless,  for 
most  of  the  time  a  museum  can  and  should  be  open  free. 
Experience  indicates  that  a  day  or  two  reserved  from 
every  seven  would  suffice  for  all  its  private  needs.  The 
recognition  of  public  support  and  immediate  public  ad- 
vantage would  still  be  greatly  preponderant,  as  the  un- 
equivocally public  purpose  of  all  fine  art  requires  it  should 
be. 

This  appears,  for  the  museum  of  the  present,  a  satis- 
factory settlement  of  the  question  of  free  admission.  Yet 
one  doubt  remains.  Is  the  permanent  preservation  of 
more  delicate  museum  objects  really  possible  under  gal- 
lery conditions  —  under  any  conditions,  that  is,  to  which 
the  public  can  be  asked  to  submit?  The  public  use  of  a 
room  inevitably  exposes  its  contents  to  a  strong  light, 
to  changes  of  temperature  and  moisture,  to  dust  and  pol- 
luted air,  to  vibration,  and  to  a  certain  risk,  though  it 
may  be  a  small  risk,  of  fire  and  theft.  These  sources  of 
danger  can  all  be  avoided;  but  to  what  purpose,  if  the 
public  is  thereby  deprived  of  a  sight  of  the  objects? 

There  is  an  imaginable  way  in  which  this  dilemma  may 
perhaps  in  the  far  future  be  solved.  Already  a  drawing 
can  be  mechanically  reproduced  with  such  perfection 
that  the  paper  on  which  it  is  printed  alone  distinguishes 
it,  even  to  a  careful  eye,  from  the  original.  Manifolding 
processes,  now  among  the  wonders  of  modern  invention, 
are  doubtless  not  at  the  end  of  their  development.  What  if 
invention  in  future  should  provide  means  for  reproducing 
pictures,  statues,  and  objects  of  minor  art  as  exactly  as 
drawings  nowadays?  The  public  interest  would  then  not 
be  served,  but  disserved  by  exhibiting  the  originals  pub- 
licly. They  would  better  be  preserved  apart  as  data  for 
inquiry  and  as  bases  from  time  to  time,  of  reproduction. 
Museums  of  this  far  future  would  consist  of  galleries 


MUSEUMS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  393 

containing  reproductions  and  vaults  containing  originals. 
These  would  be  kept  under  constant  and  safe  conditions, 
like  our  standards  of  weight  and  measure,  and  like  them, 
would  become  subjects  of  study  and  sources  from  which 
to  obtain  representatives  for  public  use.  We  should  all 
then  be  brought  up  on  reproductions;  but  the  word  would 
have  lost  its  flavor  of  vulgarity.  The  problem  of  the  in- 
definite preservation  of  fragile  artistic  remains  would 
have  been  solved  as  far  as  human  foresight  could  solve  it, 
without  interference  with  the  right  of  every  one  to  see 
them  as  they  should  be  seen. 

The  seven  ideals  of  this  book  hold  for  these  dream- 
museums,  as  for  our  real  ones.  Even  the  practical  recom- 
mendations here  derived  from  the  ideals  would  in  but 
one  instance  become  obsolete.  There  would  be  no  need 
of  new  forms  of  show-case,  for  there  would  be  no  need  of 
show-cases  at  all.  The  objects  shown  would  all  stand 
free  in  the  galleries.  It  might  even  be  possible  to  per- 
mit the  handling  indispensable  in  some  instances  for  the 
full  comprehension  of  an  artist's  achievement.  Lorenzo 
Ghiberti  confessed  that  only  the  sense  of  touch  revealed 
the  last  perfections  of  certain  antique  sculpture.  If  the 
contents  of  the  public  museums  of  the  future  were  all 
cheaply  and  easily  reproducible,  the  loss  and  damage  re- 
sulting from  their  open  installation  would  be  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  enhanced  interest  and  comprehen- 
sibility  of  the  exhibits. 

But  though  the  problem  of  the  least  exacting  form  of 
show-case  would  have  become  a  dead  issue,  the  behavior 
of  the  human  mind  and  muscles  under  fatigue  would  not 
have  changed  nor  would  the  behavior  of  the  retina  under 
glare  have  changed.  The  new  inventions  would  not  have 
changed  the  nature  of  fine  art  as  an  opportunity  of  cul- 
ture. The  need  of  an  interpretation  of  museum  contents 


394  MUSEUM  IDEALS 

would  have  grown  as  the  lapse  of  time  made  more  of  them 
antiques.  The  capacity  of  the  expert  would  have  in- 
creased with  the  increase  of  knowledge,  and  have  strength- 
ened his  claim  to  a  share  in  museum  management.  In 
discussing  all  these  seven  ideals,  in  separating  what  is 
valuable  from  what  is  negligible  in  them,  in  supplying 
their  deficiencies,  we  can  feel  that  we  are  building  for  an 
indefinite  future. 


APPENDIX 

A.  AIMS  AND   PRINCIPLES  OF  THE    CONSTRUCTION 
AND  MANAGEMENT  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE  ART: 
A  SYLLABUS 

B.  MUSEUM  REGISTRY  OF  PUBLIC  ART 

C.  OBSERVATIONS  IN  EUROPEAN  MUSEUMS 


APPENDIX 

A 

AIMS  AND  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  CONSTRUCTION 
AND  MANAGEMENT  OF  MUSEUMS  OF  FINE 
ART:  A  SYLLABUS1 

BENJAMIN  IVES  OILMAN  AND  MATTHEW  STEWART  PmcHAKD2 

AIMS 

BY  a  museum  of  fine  art  is  here  understood  any  permanent 
dbition  restricted  to  objects  possessing  artistic  quality.    By 
fistic  quality  is  understood  the  worth  a  man  may  give  his 
work  for  contemplation  apart  from  use.3 

By  the  appreciation  of  fine  art  is  understood  the  perception 
of  artistic  quality.  To  appreciate  a  work  of  art  is  to  see  it  with 
the  eyes  of  its  maker  when  he  looked  upon  it  and  found  it  good. 
In  appreciation  a  beholder  receives  into  his  own  spirit  the  secret 
treasure  of  another's  heart,  gathered  by  an  observant  eye, 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Museums  Journal  for  July,  1909. 

2  This  essay  expresses  opinions  reached  in  the  service  of  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston,  and  formulated  during  the  preparation  of  plans  for  the  present 
building  of  the  museum.  The  paper  was  read  at  the  first  meeting  of  the  Ameri- 
can Association  of  Museums  in  New  York,  May  15,  1906.  It  had  been  prepared 
during  the  previous  winter  with  the  aid  of  Mr.  Matthew  Stewart  Prichard,  then 
a  colleague,  now  a  prisoner  of  war  at  Ruhleben,  Germany.   The  section  on  aims 
restates  briefly  the  aesthetic  ideal  of  art  museum  management  advanced  by  Mr. 
Oilman  in  two  letters  to  the  Boston  Evening  Transcript  of  October  12  and  28, 
1899,  and  argued  at  length  in  the  essay  on  "The  Distinctive  Purpose  of  Mu- 
seums of  Art,"  first  published  in  the  Museums  Journal  for  January,  1904,  and 
reprinted  above.  Among  the  Principles  those  of  Dual  Arrangement,  Harmony, 
and  Reality  were  stated  by  Mr.  Prichard  in  his  essay  on  "Current  Theories, 
etc.,"  privately  printed  in  "Communications  to  the  Trustees  regarding  the 
new  building"  (I.  March,  1904).    The  principle  of  Dual  Arrangement  applies 
to  museums  of  art  the  division  of  collections  into  a  series  for  exhibition  and 
a  series  for  study  now  common  in  museums  of  science.    Of  the  remaining  four 
principles,  two,  those  of  Quality  and  Service,  are  based  on  previous  practice 
of  the  Museum  in  Boston,  and  two,  those  of  Simplicity  and  Segregation,  state 
conclusions  embodied  in  its  present  building. 

3  The  artistic  motive,  as  the  desire  to  create  (to  call  into  being)  differs  from 
the  practical  motive,  the  desire  to  employ  (to  call  into  action).    Creation  di- 
rectly affects  only  the  thing  created,  employment  directly  affects  other  things 
than  that  employed.    The  two  impulses,  artistic  and  practical,  reach  fruition 
together  when  intrinsic  value  is  given  to  an  instrument  of  valuable  results. 


398  APPENDIX 

wrought  by  a  fertile  fancy  and  conveyed  by  a  cunning  hand.1 
Artistic  production  is  imaginative  utterance;  appreciation  its 
understanding. 

Unless  understood,  an  utterance  misses  its  purpose,  whether 
of  pleasure  or  profit.  Understanding  is  _  therefore  the  normal 
mental  attitude  toward  utterance.  But  another  attitude  of 
mind  is  possible.  We  may  seek  to  know  not  the  utterance 
itself,  but  other  things  in  relation  to  it.  To  appreciation 
as  knowledge  of  art  corresponds  investigation  as  knowledge 
about  it. 

Hence,  any  permanent  repository  of  works  of  fine  art  has  a 
double  function:  a  primary  one,  that  of  securing  appreciation 
for  its  contents;  and  a  secondary  one,  that  of  conducting  or  at 
least  permitting  the  investigation  of  them.  Those  who  approach 
a  work  of  art  seeking  to  know  the  aim  of  the  artist  are  first  to 
be  considered  in  the  administration  of  a  museum;  those  seeking 
to  further  their  own  scientific  or  technical  aims  in  the  examina- 
tion of  a  work  are  to  be  offered  every  facility  compatible  with 
its  paramount  right,  as  speech,  to  a  hearing. 

PRINCIPLES 
I.  SIMPLICITY 

A  museum  building  should  be  simple  in  design,  externally 
and  internally. 

For  a  building  elaborate  in  effect  competes  with  the  collec- 
tions for  the  attention  of  the  visitor  and  detracts  from  those  of 
a  different  spirit  from  its  own.  Further,  a  monumental  design 
complicates  the  problem  of  lighting  by  restricting  freedom  of 
fenestration.2 

1  Albrecht  Duerer.    "Daraus  wirdet  der  versammlet  heimlich  Schatz  des 
Herzen  offenbar  diirch  das  Werk  und  die  neue  Creatur  die  einer  in  sejnem  Ilerzen 
schoepft  in  der  Gestalt  eines  Dings."    (In  artistic  production  "the  secret  treas- 
ure of  the  heart  gathered  (by  observation)  is  made  manifest  through  the  work 
acd  the  new  creation  which  a  man  shapes  in  his  heart  in  the  form  of  a  thing." 
"  On  Human  Proportion,"  Excursus  at  end  of  book  m,  Lange  and  Fuhse.  Duerer 's 

Schnftlicher  Nachlass  (Halle,  1893),  p.  277. 

2  Light  from  the  sky.  In  order  that  the  lighting  of  a  room  shall  be  adequate 
for  museum  purposes,  it  is  necessary  that  an  ample  area  of  sky  shall  be  visible 
from  its  windows.    For  the  light  reflected  from  buildings  or  other  objects  is 
much  more  strongly  colored  than  light  from  the  sky,  and  may  be  regarded 
as  an  adulteration  to  be  minimized. 

Dr.  A.  B.  Meyer,  formerly  Director  of  the  Royal  Zoological,  Anthropological 
and  Ethnographical  Museum,  Dresden.  Studies  of  Museums,  reprinted  in  trans- 
lation in  the  Report  of  the  United  States  National  Museum  (1903),  p.  389. 


APPENDIX 


The  architectural  effect  of  many  museum  buildings  has  been 
obtained  at  the  expense  of  the  works  of  art  they  were  built  to 
show.  All  writers  on  museum  topics  deprecate  this  unneces- 
sary sacrifice  to  rich  and  imposing  facades,  domes,  stairways, 
corridors  and  anterooms  and  to  the  exuberant  decoration  of 
galleries,  agreeing  that  a  museum  building  should  constitute  an 
unobtrusive  frame  to  the  picture  presented  by  the  collections, 
and  that  as  such  it  ought  to  be  made  to  yield  a  specific  archi- 
tectural type,  with  its  own  distinctive  if  more  modest  beauty.1 

n.  SEGREGATION 

A  museum  building  designed  for  large  and  varied  collections 
should  be  divided  into  sections  not  directly  connected,  each 
section  to  contain  no  more  galleries  than  can  be  seen  at  one  visit 
without  undue  fatigue;  and  agreeable  resting-places  should  be 
introduced  between  the  sections. 

For:  first,  galleries  should  not  be  thoroughfares.  Those  who 
traverse  exhibition  rooms  with  the  sole  aim  of  getting  elsewhere 
both  weary  themselves  and  disturb  others.  A  museum  should 
be  so  arranged  that  only  those  who  have  some  interest  in  a 
given  section  will  have  occasion  to  enter  it.2 

1  Dr.  G.  E.  Pazaurek,  Director  of  the  Landes-Gewerbe  Museum,  Stuttgart. 
"Museumsbauten,"  Wiener  Bauindustrie  Zeitung,  vol.  xv  (1903),  p.  343. 

Dr.  Adolf  Furtwangler,  late  professor  at  the  University  of  Munich  and 
Director  of  the  Glyptothek.  Ueber  Kunstsammlungen  in  alter  und  neuer  Zeit 
(Miinchen,  1899),  p.  25. 

John  Ruskin,  letter  to  the  London  Times,  of  December  29,  1852,  on  the  Na- 
tional Gallery. 

Sir  J.  C.  Robinson,  late  Superintendent  of  the  Art  Collections  of  the  South 
Kensington  Museum,  Nineteenth  Century  (1892),  p.  1025. 

Dr.  Ernst  Grosse,  professor  at  the  University  of  Freiburg,  and  Director  of  the 
Freiburg  Museum.  "  Every  gallery  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  great  frame 
for  the  art  works  it  contains,  and  like  a  good  frame  it  should  draw  no  attention 
at  all  to  itself,  either  by  a  too  scanty  or  a  too  rich  decoration."  Report  of  the 
Mannheim  Conference  of  Museum  Officials  (Berlin,  1903),  p.  125. 

2  The  germ  of  this  arrangement  is  found  in  the  old  Pinakothek  at  Munich 
(1838),  where  pictures  of  the  same  school  are  placed  in  one  section  consisting 
of  a  top-lighted  gallery  for  the  large  pictures  and  side-lighted  cabinets  for  the 
smaller.    The  architect,  Baron  von   Klenze,  is  quoted  as  saying,  "I  wish  to 
allow  the  possibility  of  Arriving  at  any  particular  school  without  going  through 
another,  and  for  this  purpose  I  have  a  corridor  running  the  whole  length  of  the 
building,  which  communicates  with  each  separate  room." 

Edward  Edwards,  formerly  of  the  British  Museum,  Administrative  Economy 
of  the  Fine  Arts  (London,  1840),  p.  269. 

Professor  W.  Stanley  Jevons,  late  professor  at  University  College,  London, 
Methods  of  Social  Reform,  p.  59. 


400 


APPENDIX 


Second,  small  collections  are  more  rewarding  to  the  visitor 
than  large  ones.  A  greater  unity  of  impression  is  possible  with 
fewer  exhibits  and  the  attention  is  fresher  for  them.1 

Third,  museum  visiting  is  one  of  the  most  fatiguing  of  occu- 
pations. To  see  a  work  of  art  thoroughly  is  not  only  an  effort 
of  the  eyes  but  in  general  of  the  body,  in  standing,  bending,  or 
other  muscular  tension;  to  understand  it  taxes  memory  and 
intelligence  alike.  In  proportion  as  appreciation  is  more  com- 
plete, the  need  of  occasional  relaxation  increases. 

The  objection  that  by  a  system  of  intermediate  vestibules 
or  corridors  the  distances  to  be  traversed  in  the  museum  as  a 
whole  are  increased,  is  not  valid.  Museum  fatigue  may  be  said 
to  come  solely  from  standing  and  looking:  the  actual  walking 
is  rather  a  relief.  The  objection  that  seats  in  the  galleries  suffice 
for  rest,  overlooks  the  fact  that,  although  indispensable,  they 
do  not  afford  the  mental  freedom  and  diversion  necessary  to 
keep  the  mind  of  the  visitor  freshly  receptive. 

A  museum  should,  if  possible,  be  situated  in  grounds  laid  out 
for  use  as  a  park;  not  only  to  give  opportunity  for  extension  and 
to  obtain  protection  from  noise,  dust,  and  risk  of  fire,  but  also 
on  account  of  the  power  of  natural  beauty  to  draw  visitors  and 
put  the  mind  in  tune  for  beautiful  works  of  art;  and,  further, 
in  order  to  permit  the  free  use  of  gardens  and  courts  by  visitors 
in  moderate  weather  as  an  extension  of  the  facilities  for  pleasant 
relaxation  afforded  in  the  building.2 

Dr.  F.  A.  Bather,  Assistant  Keeper,  Department  of  Geology,  British  Mu- 
seum, Presidential  Address,  Museums  Journal  (1903),  p.  79. 

Dr.  Alfred  Lichtwark,  Director  of  the  Kunsthalle,  Hamburg,  Report  of  Mann- 
heim  Conference  of  Museum  Officials  (Berlin,  1903),  p.  119. 

1  Dr.  G.  Pauli,  Director  of  the  Kunsthalle,  Bremen,  Museumskunde,  vol.  I 
(1905),  3,  p.  149. 

2  Dr.  J.  Leisching,  Director  of  the  Imperial  Austrian  Museum  of  Art  and 
Industry,  Vienna,  Report  of  the  Mannheim  Conference  (1903),  p.  134. 

Dr.  J.  H.  von  Hefner-Alteneck,  first  Director  of  the  Bavarian  National  Mu- 
seum, Munich,  caused  the  open  space  behind  the  museum  to  be  laid  out  as  a 
garden  and  used  for  the  installation  of  objects  (decorative  statues,  grave  monu- 
ments) originally  intended  for  out  of  doors.  "Thousands  of  visitors  have  ex- 
pressed their  grateful  thanks  that,  apart  from  the  pleasure  of  seeing  these 
monuments,  they  were  able  in  the  summer  months  to  recuperate  here  under 
the  open  sky  or  in  shady  bowers  from  the  fatigue  of  looking  about  within  the 
museum."  Entstehung,  Zweck  und  Einrichtung  des  Bayerischen  National  Mu- 
seums in  Muenchen  (1890),  p.  2. 

At  Avignon  "the  pictures  are  arranged  in  a  charming  way  in  great  apartments 
opening  upon  a  solitary  garden  where  there  are  large  trees.  There  reigns  in 
this  place  a  profound  tranquillity  that  recalls  the  beautiful  churches  of  Italy; 
the  spirit,  already  half  detached  from  the  vain  interests  of  the  world,  is  in  a 
mood  to  appreciate  the  loftiest  beauty.  ...  I  passed  two  delightful  hours  dream- 


APPENDIX  401 


HI.  DUAL  ARRANGEMENT 

Each  section  of  a  museum  building  should  contain  two  groups 
of  galleries;  one  for  the  exhibition  of  selected  objects  in  a  way 
to  promote  their  appreciation,  the  other  for  the  installation  of 
remaining  objects  in  a  way  to  facilitate  their  investigation.  The 
contents  of  the  exhibition  galleries  should  be  varied  as  oppor- 
tunity offers.  The  reserve  galleries  should  be  connected  with 
an  office,  a  class-room,  a  work-room,  and  a  special  library,  and 
should  be  open  to  any  one  wishing  to  enter. 

All  large  collections  of  prints,  coins,  and  textile  fabrics  are  ad- 
linistered  as  a  store  of  possessions  freely  accessible  and  drawn 
>n  for  public  exhibition.  The  extension  of  this  principle  to 

Elections  of  all  kinds  promises  five  advantages: 

(1)  By  closely  installing  much  of  its  contents  a  museum  may 
add  to  them  without  correspondingly  enlarging  its  build- 
ing. The  principle  contributes  to  solve  the  pressing  prob- 
lem of  the  growth  of  museums. 

(2)  A  museum  provided  with  reserve  galleries  is  free  to  ac- 
quire  any  object   worthy  of   permanent    preservation, 
whether  suitable  for  continuous  public  exhibition  or  not. 
The  reserve  galleries  may  offer  accommodation  for  ob- 
jects of  unmanageable  size,  whether  great  or  small,  objects 
of  scientific  or  technical  interest  chiefly,  objects  painful  or 
repugnant  in  motive,  and  those  whose  liability  to  injury 
from  dust,  light,  change  of  humidity  or  temperature,  me- 
chanical strain  or  shock,  demands  their  exhibition  under 
special  restrictions  or  infrequently. 

(3)  In  the  main  galleries  the  public  is  offered  a  rewarding 
exhibit  in  place  of  the  more  or  less  wearisome  mass  of 
objects  commonly  shown  in  museums. 

(4)  In  the  secondary  galleries,  the  conditions  of  space,  free- 
dom,   light,    guidance,    apparatus,    and    companionship 
are   such  as  most  favor  the  purposes  of   scientific   and 
technical  students. 

(5)  The  interest  of  the  community  in  the  museum  is  main- 
tained by  changes  in  its  exhibition  galleries.1 

ing  in  this  museum.  How  different  from  that  at  Lyons!"  Stendhal  (Henri 
Beyle),  M6moires  d'un  Touriste,  vol.  I,  p.  206. 

Professor  A.  R.  Wallace,  "Museums  for  the  People,"  Macmillan's  Magazine, 
vol.  xix  (1888-89),  p.  249. 

1  Professor  Louis  Agassiz  embodied  the  idea  of  public  and  reserve  collections 
in  his  plan  for  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  at  Harvard  in  1860.  Third 
Annual  Report  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  (Cambridge,  U.S.A.,  Octo- 


402  APPENDIX 

The  following  negative  definitions  of  the  principle  of  Dual 
Arrangement  may  serve  to  prevent  misunderstanding: 

(1)  The  principle  does  not  propose  to  choose  for  exhibition 
all  objects  above  a  certain  quality  and  leave  in  reserve 
all  objects  below  that  quality.  This  would  result  in  an 
installation  permanent  as  long  as  the  museum  standards 
were  unchanged,  instead  of  the  varying  exhibitions  ad- 
vocated. Doubtless  in  most  collections  more  or  fewer 
objects  would  demand  to  be  shown  in  the  exhibition  gal- 
leries all  the  time,  and  these  would  chiefly  be  among  the 
finer;  and  more  or  fewer  could  never  be  wisely  removed 
from  the  reserve  galleries  at  all,  and  these  would  chiefly 
be  among  the  inferior.  In  so  far  the  general  level  of  the 

her,  1861),  p.  10.  See  also  Bibl.  Univ.  et  Revue  Suisse  (47me  Annee  nouv.  per.) 
vol.  xiv  (1862),  pp.  527-40:  referred  to  in  Dr.  A.  B.  Mayer's  Studies  of  Mu- 
seums, p.  325. 

Dr.  Karl  Moebius,  late  Professor  of  Zoology  in  the  University  of  Berlin  and 
Managing  Director  of  the  Royal  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Berlin,  "The 
Proper  Arrangement  of  Great  Museums,"  Deutsche  Rundschau  (1891),  vol.  68, 
p.  352  jf. 

Dr.  G.  Brown  Goode,  late  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  United  States  National 
Museum,  Washington,  "Principles  of  Museum  Administration,"  5.B.  The 
Study  Series;  C.  The  Exhibition  Series.  United  States  National  Museum,  Re- 
port (1897),  vol.  n,  p.  219. 

Sir  W.  H.  Flower,  late  Director  of  the  British  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
London,  Essays  on  Museums  (London,  1898),  p.  21. 

Professor  Patrick  Geddes,  Professor  of  Botany,  University  College,  Dundee: 
President  of  Edinburgh  School  of  Sociology,  A  Study  in  City  Development,  p.  164. 

L.  Alma  Tadema,  R.A.,  Le  Musee,  vol.  i,  p.  66. 

The  Museums  Journal,  note  on  the  Museum  of  Decorative  Art,  opened  1905 
in  the  Pavilion  de  Marsan  of  the  Tuileries,  Paris  (January,  1906),  p.  245. 

Revue  Archeologique,  Septembre-Octobre,  1905,  Correspondence,  p.  318. 

New  York  Life,  "Everybody  knows  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  contents 
of  most  of  our  art  museums,  even  the  very  best  of  them,  are  a  profound  bore 
to  the  average  intelligent  visitor,  who  seeks  to  refresh  his  soul  for  a  little  while 
by  the  contemplation  of  these  beautiful  works."  (January  11,  1906,  p.  54.) 

Rev.  J.  G.  Wood,  naturalist  and  author,  "The  Dulness  of  Museums,"  Nine- 
teenth Century,  vol.  xxi  (1887),  p.  394. 

Changes  of  Exhibition. 

Handbook  to  the  Ruskin  Museum,  Sheffield,  England  (1900),  p.  xi. 

Li  Chih,  a  Chinese  writer  of  the  llth-12th  century,  author  of  the  Hua  p'in. 
"  No  more  than  three  or  four  pictures  by  eminent  artists  should  ever  be  hung 
in  one  room.  After  these  have  been  enjoyed  for  four  or  five  days,  others  should 
be  substituted."  Quoted  by  Herbert  A.  Giles  in  his  History  of  Chinese  Pictorial 
Art,  p.  134. 

Lionel  Gast,  editorial  note,  Burlington  Magazine,  no.  91,.0ctober,  1910,  "One 
may  even  foresee  a  distant  future  when  museums  possessing  almost  all  the  great 
masterpieces  of  the  past  will  never  display  all  their  treasures  at  once,  but  will 
bring  them  out  a  few  at  a  time,  giving  to  each  its  ideally  perfect  setting,  and  so 
avoid  the  dulled  edge  of  familiarity." 


APPENDIX  403 

exhibits  would  be  raised  and  this  would  be  of  advantage 
to  the  public  taste.1 

(2)  The  controlling  purpose  of  selection  would  in  all  cases  be 
to  exhibit  together  such  works  as  would  promote  or  at 
least  not  interfere  with  each  other's  appreciation  by  the 
public.    This  is  not  a  decorative  purpose  aiming  at  the 
effectiveness  of  the  galleries,   but  an  artistic  purpose, 
aiming  at  the  effectiveness  of  the  individual  works  dis- 
played.  As  hereafter  stated  under  the  principle  of  Har- 
mony, this  artistic  aim  would  in  general  be  best  attained 
by  an  ethnological  and  historical  choice  and  grouping  of 
objects. 

The  aim  to  arrange  scientifically  and  technically  instructive 
exhibitions,  while  secondary,  should  be  fulfilled  to  the  utmost 
limit  compatible  with  bringing  out  for  the  visitor  the  effect  in- 
tended in  each  work  by  the  artist.2 

(3)  The  principle  does  not  propose  to  exclude  either  the  pub- 
lic from  the  reserve  galleries  or  scientific  and  technical  stu- 
dents from  the  exhibition  galleries,  but  to  provide  for  each 
a  place  where  their  peculiar  needs,  on  the  one  hand  of  ap- 
preciation, on  the  other  of  abstract  inquiry  and  practical 
training,  can  be  more  perfectly  met  than  in  galleries  where 
both  are  served  together.   It  aims  not  to  do  less  but  greater 
justice,  both  to  the  art  of  the  past,  by  providing  for  its  more 
perfect  assimilation  by  the  whole  present  public,  and  to  sci- 
ence and  to  the  art  of  the  future,  by  enabling  each  in  its 
own  way  to  draw  more  profit  from  the  treasures  in  museums. 


IV.  QUALITY 

In  adding  to  its  collections  the  primary  aim  of  a  museum  of 
fine  art  should  be  the  acquisition  of  works  whose  artistic  qual- 
ity meets  the  test  of  responsible  criticism;  a  secondary  aim,  the 

1  Matthew  Arnold  speaks  of  "inferior  work  .  .  .  imbedding  the  first-rate 
work  and  clogging  it,  obstructing  our  approach  to  it,  chilling,  not  infrequently, 
the  high- wrought  mood  with  which  we  leave  it."    Preface  to  his  anthology  of 
Wordsworth's  Poems.    (London,  1879.) 

2  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  of  Harvard  University,  has  noted  that  sci- 
entific attainment  rather  than  artistic  insight  is  too  frequently  the  aim  of  study 
in  museums:   "...  the  risk  of  study  in  a  museum  is  that  instead  of  leading  to 
the  perception  of  beauty,  the  highest  object  it  can  have,  it  is  too  generally 
directed  to  merely  scientific  ends,  that  is,  to  the  attainment  of  knowledge  about 
the  object,  instead  of  to  the  perception  and  appreciation  of  that  which  makes 
the  object  in  itself  precious  or  interesting."  Letter  to  the  New  England  History 
Teacher's  Association,  October,  1904. 


404  APPENDIX 

formation  of  comprehensive  exhibits.  Every  museum  owes  a 
special  duty  to  local  artists. 

Museums  and  the  promotion  of  art.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously an  artist  adapts  his  creation  to  a  definite  environment. 
In  offering  another,  museums  aim  at  the  security  and  publicity 
of  the  work.  They  are  repositories  of  works  of  art  either  sep- 
arated from  their  native  surroundings  or  lost  to  the  world  there- 
in. Their  twofold  office  in  the  economy  of  artistic  culture  is 
to  preserve  the  art  of  the  past  alike  from  destruction  and  from 
oblivion. 

To  inspire  and  direct  artistic  production  is  not  the  province 
of  museums  but  that  of  life  itself.  Museums  hold  up  the  mirror  of 
the  past  to  the  art  of  the  present,  as  libraries  do  to  its  literature. l 

Critical  ability.    Connoisseurship  in  its  highest  form  implies 

1  Museums  and  Living  Art.  Dr.  Adolf  Furtwangler,  Kunstsammlungen  aus 
alter  und  neuer  Zeit  (1899),  p.  29. 

Dr.  George  Santayana,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  Harvard  University,  The 
Life  of  Reason;  Reason  in  Art  (1905),  p.  209. 

Museums  and  Art  Industry.  Dr.  Wilhelm  Bode,  General  Director  of  the 
Royal  Museums,  Berlin,  writes  of  "  the  expectation  of  a  new  development  of 
craftsmanship  upon  the  basis  of  antique  models  shared  by  us  all  about  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  years  ago,"  and  concludes  that  "the  essential  condition  of  a  perma- 
nent improvement  in  art  industry  and  of  its  necessary  support  is  the  elevation 
of  public  taste."  "This  is  one  of  the  most  important  functions  not  only  of  mu- 
seums of  art  industry  but  of  museums  of  art:  for  so  long  as  the  public  looks  at 
works  of  art  only  on  the  practical  and  not  on  the  artistic  side,  all  progress  in 
museums  and  schools  of  art  is  of  little  worth."  "Functions  of  Museums  of  Art 
Industry,"  Pan  (1896),  p.  124. 

Dr.  Justus  Brinckmann,  Director  of  the  Kunstgewerbe  Museum,  Hamburg. 
"In  so  far  as  the  exhibits  offered  to  craftsmen  by  the  museums  (of  art  industry) 
were  welcome  and  exploited  as  a  convenient  means  of  throwing  on  the  market 
a  succession  of  novelties,  they  perhaps  often  contributed  to  destroy  artistic  in- 
ventiveness and  invite  to  a  superficial  eclecticism."  Guide  to  the  Hamburg 
Museum  of  Art  Industry  (1894),  p.  v. 

Rene  Jean  writes  as  follows  of  the  Museum  of  Decorative  Art  in  the  Tuileries 
(Pavilion  de  Marsan):  "People  have  objected  that  the  museum  aims  at  the 
education  of  the  people  rather  than  that  of  the  artisan:  but  what  does  this  crit- 
icism amount  to?  The  workman  does  not  control  the  fashion,  but  submits  to 
it.  To  cultivate  the  taste  of  the  buyer  cultivates  that  of  the  producer."  Le 
Musee,  vol.  n,  no.  rv.  pp.  195-96.  See  also  the  account  of  this  museum  with 
illustrations  by  Gaston  Migeon,  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts,  July,  1905. 

See  also  Gustave  Larroumet,  late  perpetual  secretary  of  the  Academy  of  Fine 
Arts,  Paris,  and  Professor  at  the  University  of  Paris,  in  the  Annales  Politiques 
et  Litteraires,  March  29,  1903:  H.  De  Regnier,  in  the  same  journal,  August  16, 
1903;  R.  de  la  Sizeranne,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  (1899),  p.  114  f ;  G.  Elpi,  writer, 
Italy,  I  Musei  (Florence,  1902);  Hans  Dedekam,  Director  of  the  Nordenfjeldske 
Kunstindustrimuseum,  Trondhjem,  Norway.  Norway,  Museumskunde,  vol.  I, 
p.  78;  Sir  W.  M.  Conway,  former  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Arts,  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land, The  Domain  of  Art,  p.  24. 


APPENDIX  405 


an  endowment  and  training  capable  of  judging  a  work  of  art 
upon  both  internal  and  external  evidence,  both  visually  and  by 
documents,  both  technically  and  scientifically,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  both  maker  and  beholder,  craftsman  and  historian.1 

Comprehensive  collecting  a  secondary  aim.  Comprehensive  col- 
lections are  better  for  scientific  instruction;  choice  collections 
are  better  in  themselves.  The  aim  of  comprehensive  collecting 
is  incompatible  both  with  the  purpose  to  collect  works  of  the 
first  quality  and  the  purpose  to  show  them  in  the  best  way.  For 
the  ideal  of  completeness  is  impossible  of  realization  without  the 
acquisition  of  secondary  material  and  generally  of  reproduc- 
tions; and  from  a  little  of  every  style  the  content  of  no  one  can 
be  adequately  gathered. 

The  necessary  incompleteness  of  any  museum  of  the  first 
order  is  evident,  but  not  to  be  regretted.2 

The  duty  of  museums  to  local  art.  The  office  of  preserving  good 
work  from  being  forgotten  is  one  which  each  museum  can  best 
perform  for  its  own  neighborhood.  In  the  case  of  genii  loci  a 
museum  has  a  duty  not  only  to  preserve  but  in  a  measure  to 
make  their  reputations.  It  may  consider  itself  not  only  the 
guardian  but  the  advocate  of  indigenous  art.3 

V.  HARMONY 

In  the  main  galleries  of  a  museum  those  objects  should  be 
installed  together  which  best  aid  each  other's  appreciation.  For 
this  purpose,  the  arrangement  of  objects  according  to  the  peo- 
ples, times,  and  schools  that  have  produced  them  is  preferable 
to  their  classification  by  the  arts  they  represent. 

For  products  of  the  same  civilization  efficiently  aid  each 
other's  appreciation  by  uniting  to  evoke  the  spirit  which  engen- 
dered them.  The  installation  together  of  objects  of  the  same 
art,  or  in  the  same  materials,  from  different  civilizations,  while 
it  may  facilitate  scientific  and  technical  study  does  not  con- 
tribute to  their  appreciation.4 

1  Bernard  Berenson,  Florence,  Italy,  "  The  Study  of  Italian  Art "  (1902),  Rudi- 
ments of  Connoisseur  ship,  p.  Ill  Jf. 

2  Dr.  Ernst  Grosse.  "For  a  museum  such  as  we  have  in  mind  there  is  no 
more  foolish  extravagance  than  'inexpensive'  acquisitions  of  poor  work  with 
good  names.   Such  we  may  gladly  leave  to  those  directors  and  amateurs  whose 
highest  ideal  consists  in  'completing  their  collections.'  "   Aufgabe  und  Einrich- 
tung  einer  Stddtischen  Kunstsammlung,  p.  6. 

8  A.  Foulon  De  Vaulx,  "Dans  un  Musee  de  Province,"  Le  Garnet  (July,  1902), 
p.  55.  Dr.  Alfred  Lichtwark,  "The  Immediate  Duty,"  Museumskunde,  vol  I,  1. 
(1905.) 

4  Dr.  Justus  Brinckmann.  Guide  to  the  Hamburg  Museum  of  Art  History  (1894), 


406  APPENDIX 

VI.  REALITY 

Reproductions  should  not  be  exhibited  with  originals. 

The  grounds  for  this  rule  are,  first,  the  radical  inferiority  of 
most  copies;1  second,  the  right  of  the  public  to  trust  in  what  it 
sees  without  the  vexing  question,  "Is  this  real  or  imitation?" 
third,  the  right  of  originals  to  exemption  from  this  doubt,  and 
from  the  companionship  of  radically  inferior  objects. 

Reproductions  of  works  of  art.  The  derivative  character  of 
reproductions  should  be  clearly  expressed  by  installing  them 
in  separate  collections,  which  should  be  freely  accessible.2 

Reproductions  of  environment.  To  install  real  works  of  art 
upon  a  reproduced  background  even  if  the  latter  is  plainly  a 
reproduction,  both  confuses  the  public  and  dishonors  the  work 
of  art.  A  museum  should  remain  frankly  a  museum,  and  never 
approximate  a  theatre,  however  its  decoration  be  harmonized 
with  its  contents.3 

p.  vi.  W.  Stanley  Jevons.  Methods  of  Social  Reform,  p.  57.  The  Crown  Prince 
and  Crown  Princess  Frederic  of  Germany,  Jahrbuch  der  Koniglichen  Preus- 
sischen  Kunstsammlungen,  vol.  iv  (1883),  p.  121.  Lieut.-Colonel  G.  T.  Plunkett, 
C.B.,  Director  of  the  Dublin  Museum  of  Science  and  Art,  Ireland,  "How  an 
Art  Museum  should  be  organised,"  Magazine  of  Art,  vol.  27,  p.  448. 

Compare  also  the  opinions  on  museum  installation  expressed  by  Frantz  Jour- 
dain,  Paul  Adam,  Maxime  Maufra,  Edmond  Frank,  H.  Marechal,  and  Henri 
Martin,  in  Le  Musee  for  January,  1907. 

1  Dr.  George  Santayana.   "The  Known  Impossibility  of  Adequate  Transla- 
tion," The  Sense  of  Beauty,  p.  171. 

Professor  A.  Lichtwark:  "From  plaster  casts  and  photographs  I  anticipate 
not  much  good  and  great  disadvantages.  Their  number  and  their  deficiencies 
mislead  one  into  superficial  contemplation.  It  is  a  sorry  sight  to  see  a  class  of 
girls  or  gymnasiasts  before  an  exhibition  of  photographs  of  the  masterpieces  of 
Michael  Angelo  and  of  Raphael. 

"The  flood  of  reproductions  threatens  to  drown  out  the  seeds  of  artistic  cul- 
ture as  soon  as  they  show  themselves.  Whoever,  after  considerable  previous 
study,  arrives  in  Italy  will  recognise  that  he  is  everywhere  inclined  to  overesti- 
mate the  works  of  art  that  he  does  not  know  in  reproduction,  and  that  it  is  hard 
for  him  to  get  a  fresh  and  new  impression  of  the  great  masterpieces  through  the 
chaos  of  reproductions  of  which  his  head  is  full."  Uebungen  in  der  Betrachlung 
von  Kunstwerken  (Dresden,  1900),  p.  33.  Theophile  Gautier  has  made  a  like 
observation,  Voyage  en  Italic,  p.  204. 

2  "It  goes  without  saying  that  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  avoid  mingling 
(as  is  still  done  in  many  museums)  originals  and  copies,  antique  marbles  and 
casts.  Such  a  confusion  cannot  but  mislead  uninstructed  visitors,  and  blunt  the 
sense  of  beauty,  through  putting  lifeless  copies  on  a  plane  with  original  works." 
L.  Reau,  " L 'organization  des  Musees,"  Revue  de  Synthese  Historique  (1909),  p.  19. 

3  J.  Guadet,  professor  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  Paris,  Elements  et  Theorie 
de  V Architecture,  pp.  312  /.    Edmond  Haraucourt,  Director  of  the  Cluny  Mu- 
seum, Paris.  Le  Musee,  vol.  n,  p.  73.   Dr.  J.  Lessing,  late  Director  of  the  Royal 


APPENDIX  407 

VII.  SERVICE 

A  museum  of  fine  art  should  be  active  in  exhibition  as  well 
as  in  acquisition;  seeking  primarily  to  promote  public  apprecia- 
tion of  its  collections  by  attracting  and  instructing  visitors;  and 
secondarily,  to  increase  and  diffuse  scientific  and  technical 
knowledge  of  them  through  research  and  by  aid  to  students. 

The  life  of  a  museum  consists  not  only  in  growth  but  also  and 
chiefly  in  influence.  The  Thorwaldsen  Museum,  which  does 
not  grow  at  all,  is,  nevertheless,  a  permanent  vital  force  in 
European  civilization.  That  the  possessions  of  a  museum  should 
increase  is  desirable;  that  they  should  win  new  friends  is  essen- 
tial.1 

To  these  ends  the  museum  should  command  the  services  of 
men  competent  not  only  to  effect  the  proper  preservation  and 
advantageous  exhibition  of  the  collections  and  to  give  wise 
advice  regarding  accessions,  but  to  aid  both  in  their  apprecia- 
tion and  in  their  investigation. 

Service  to  visitors.  The  public  whose  welfare  is  served  by  a 
museum  should  be  attracted  to  visit  it  by  the  charm  of  the  build- 
ing and  its  surroundings,  by  liberal  conditions  of  admission, 
by  arrangements  for  comfort  and  convenience;  they  should  be 
interested  in  the  collections  by  their  advantageous  installation, 
their  sympathetic  interpretation  and  the  opportunity  to  aid 
in  spreading  their  influence.  Concerts,  indoors  in  winter  and 
outdoors  in  summer,  offer  a  means  of  attracting  visitors  and 
occupying  intervals  devoted  to  rest. 

In  particular  a  museum  of  art  should,  as  far  as  is  practicable, 
be  opened  free  to  the  public  daily  during  daylight  hours.  Among 

Kunstgewerbe  Museum,  Berlin:  "Now-a-days,  the  demand  is  often  made  that 
not  only  a  general  conception  of  a  certain  epoch  of  culture  shall  be  given,  but 
that  things  shall  be  installed  to  look  exactly  as  they  used  to.  Gentlemen,  this 
will  not  do.  Under  certain  conditions,  it  is  possible:  in  provincial  collections, 
for  example,  when  a  whole  interior  is  shown:  but  even  then  one  wall  must  be 
left  out  in  order  to  look  in,  for  visitors  can  hardly  actually  enter.  But  for  large 
museums,  nothing  remains  but  to  adhere  in  a  general  way  to  motives  of  a  cer- 
tain epoch.  In  this  respect  much  may  be  done."  Report  of  the  Mannheim  Confer- 
ence of  Museum  Officials,  p.  109.  Joseph  Folnesicz,  Kustos  at  the  Kunstge- 
werbe Museum,  Vienna,  Kunst  und  Kunsthandwerk,  vol.  vi  (1903),  pp.  57  /. 

1  The  Mannheim  Conference  of  Museum  Officials  (September,  1903),  the  first 
congress  of  continental  museum  officials  yet  held,  was  called  to  consider  the 
question:  ''How  shall  the  influence  of  museums  upon  the  people  generally  be 
increased?" 

Charles  H.  Caffin,  "Museums  and  their  Possibilities  of  Greater  Public 
Usefulness,"  International  Studio,  "American  Studio  Talk"  (October,  1903), 
p.  clxiii. 


408  APPENDIX 

desirable  accommodations  may  be  mentioned  cloak  and  retiring 
rooms,  convenient  and  ample  for  exceptional  crowds;  a  public 
telephone,  an  information  agency,  and  a  restaurant;  handbooks 
guiding  the  visitor  through  the  collections,  and  catalogues, 
photographs  and  other  reproductions  describing  and  illustrat- 
ing them;  a  bulletin  chronicling  the  history  of  the  institution 
and  its  possessions;  printed  information  about  the  exhibits  in  all 
the  galleries;  oral  information  by  lectures  on  the  collections  and 
guidance  through  them;1  committees  and  societies  for  purposes 
bearing  upon  the  collections,  including  the  foundation  of  branch 
exhibitions,  to  be  formed  under  the  auspices  of  the  museum,  and 
working  from  it  as  a  centre. 

The  public  service  of  a  museum  of  fine  arts  need  not  be  limited 
to  its  own  collections.  A  chartered  guardian  of  fine  art  may 
fitly  lead  in  efforts  to  preserve  whatever  artistic  resources  its 
neighborhood  possesses,  undertaking  to  register,  study,  and 
make  known  any  local  treasures  of  art  which  their  public  or 
private  possessors  offer  for  the  purpose;  recording  them  by 
description  and  photography,  gathering  and  interpreting  data 
about  them  and  arranging  for  public  access  to  them.  In  accept- 
ing this  wider  duty  a  museum  would  usurp  no  control  over  local 
art,  past  or  present,  but  would  remain  within  its  proper  sphere 
as  a  conservative  force,  sheltering  certain  works  of  art  within 
its  walls  and  imparting  information  as  to  others  without. 

Service  to  students.  A  work  of  fine  art  like  any  other  product 
of  man's  creative  skill  is  a  datum  both  for  science  and  for  the 
arts  concerned  in  its  production.  It  constitutes  a  fact  of  which 
men  of  science  should  take  due  cognizance  in  their  efforts  to 
add  to  knowledge.  It  constitutes,  further  and  therefore,  a 
pedagogic  means  of  which  teachers  of  related  subjects  should 
make  use  for  the  advantage  of  their  pupils.  Again,  as  an  ex- 
ample of  a  certain  branch  of  human  skill,  the  practitioners  of 
that  art  should  make  use  of  it  in  the  development  of  their  own 
and  others'  creative  abilities.  A  museum  should  facilitate  the 
use  of  its  collections  for  all  these  aims.  In  particular,  a  museum 
may  offer  the  services  of  its  officers  and  the  use  of  its  galleries 
and  department  rooms  for  scientific  and  technical  lectures 
upon  its  collections,  and  accord  free  admission  and  other  special 
privileges  to  teachers  and  students. 

1  Professor  A.  Furtwangler,  Kunstsammlungen  aus  alter  und  neuer  Zeit,  p.  27. 

The  discussion  of  this  question  with  reports  from  those  who  have  acted  as 
guides  in  the  museums  of  Frankfort,  Munich  and  Berlin,  occupies  pp.  146-84 
in  the  Report  of  the  Mannheim  Conference  of  Museum  Officials. 


.       APPENDIX  409 

The  foregoing  seven  principles  may  be  summarized  as  fol- 
lows: 

Museum  buildings  should  be  marked  by  their  quiet  design 
(I),  and  should  consist  of  units  of  moderate  size  (II),  each  con- 
taining primary  and  secondary  galleries  (III).  The  collections 
should  aim  at  excellence  rather  than  comprehensiveness  (IV), 
and  should  be  arranged  by  peoples  and  epochs  instead  of  arts 
(V),  reproductions  being  shown  separately  (VI).  The  museum 
should  be  active  in  attracting  visitors,  in  interpreting  objects 
exhibited,  and  in  aiding  scientific  and  technical  students  (VII).1 

1  On  the  various  subjects  of  this  paper  compare  also: 

F.  A.  Bather,  "The  Functions  of  Museums:  a  Resurvey,"  Popular  Science 
tonthly  (January,  1904),  pp.  210-18. 
R.  L.  Hartt,  "Art  Galleries  for  the  Plain  Man,"  World's  Work,  November, 

F.  W.  Coburn,  "The  New  Museum  of  Fine  Arts"  (Boston),  New  England 

fagazine,  January,  1908. 

Burlington  Magazine,  London,  editorial  articles:  "Museums"  (September 
15,  1908);  "Reorganization  at  South  Kensington,  I"  (December  10,  1908). 

Dr.  Theodor  Volbehr,  Director  of  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  in  Magde- 
burg, "Die  Ausstellungspflichten  unserer  Museen,"  Die  Woche,  no.  50  (12  De- 
cember, 1908),  p.  2149. 

L.  F.  Day,  "How  to  make  the  most  of  a  Museum,"  Journal  of  the  Society  of 
Arts,  vol.  56  (January  10,  1908),  no.  2377. 


B 

MUSEUM  REGISTRY  OF  PUBLIC  ART 

I.  MUSEUMS  OF  ART  AND  THE  CONSERVATION  OF 
MONUMENTS » 

REGISTRY,  STUDY,  PUBLICITY 

CONSERVATION  is  an  essential  function  of  museums.  By  the 
dictionary  a  museum  is  a  building  devoted  to  the  collection, 
preservation,  and  exhibition  of  works  of  nature  or  art;  and  in 
common  usage  the  persons  in  charge  are  called  curators  or  care- 
takers. 

The  need  of  concerted  effort  to  care  for  instructive  and  beau- 
tiful objects  outside  museums  has  been  felt  and  met  only  with- 
in the  past  century.  Beginning  with  the  French  law  of  1792, 
relating  to  the  destruction  or  removal  of  historic  or  artistic 
treasures,  the  movement  is  now  represented  by  a  large  body 
of  similar  measures  in  many  countries;  by  territorial  invento- 
ries —  those  of  the  German  and  other  governments;  by  associa- 
tions local  and  general  —  among  others  the  Heimathschutz 
unions  now  multiplying  in  Germany,  the  National  Trust  in 
England,  the  Scenic  and  Historic  Preservation  Society  in  this 
country;  and  by  national  boards  —  among  others  the  Italian 
Uffizi  regionali  per  la  Conservazione  dei  Monumenti,  the  French 
Commission  des  Monuments  Historiques  (1837),  and  the  de- 
partmental commissions  established  in  France  under  the  law 
of  April  24,  1906. 

The  purpose  of  the  present  essay  is  to  recommend  to  museums 
in  America  an  extension  of  function  carrying  with  it  the  leader- 
ship of  such  a  movement  in  this  country.  The  new  office  pro- 
posed to  them  is  that  of  public  information  regarding  outside 
objects  germane  to  their  purposes.  Its  possible  scope  includes  all 
neighboring  objects  of  public  interest,  whether  instructive  or 
beautiful,  natural  or  artificial.  The  argument  is  here  addressed 
directly  to  museums  of  art,  but  offered  also,  mutatis  mutandis, 
for  the  consideration  of  museums  of  natural  science.  Doubt- 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums 
(1909),  vol.  in.  Also  published  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  (Bos- 
ton, February,  1910),  vol.  vin,  no.  43. 


APPENDIX  411 

less  museums  of  history  also  might  usefully  supplement  the 
efforts  now  making  here  and  there  throughout  the  country  to 
preserve  our  memorials  of  antiquity.  Let  American  museums 
of  art  no  longer  confine  their  interest  within  their  own  walls. 
Let  each  take  its  neighborhood  for  its  province,  acquiring  and 
imparting  information  about  any  local  works  of  art,  public  or 
private,  whose  owners  may  offer  them  for  the  purpose.  A  know- 
ledge of  what  we  have  is  the  necessary  and  often  sufficient  con- 
dition of  its  preservation;  and  museums  may  thus  indirectly 
make  the  circle  of  their  conservative  activity  complete. 

Aside  from  certain  conspicuous  instances,  the  Hancock  House 
in  Boston,  the  L  'Enfant  plan  of  Washington  and  others,  there 
has  as  yet  been  comparatively  little  occasion  in  America  for 
efforts  to  protect  our  artistic  inheritance.  The  occasion  will 
surely  come.  Let  it  find  the  art  museums  of  the  country  organ- 
ized in  defence  of  its  artistic  monuments.  Let  the  museum  of 
each  locality  become  a  rallying  point  for  such  a  movement. 
Where  no  museums  yet  exist,  let  them  be  founded  for  this  pur- 
pose only,  until  a  building  be  needed  as  a  new  anchorage  for 
such  of  their  outside  charges  as  are  set  adrift,  or  for  other  objects 
like  them.  Whatever  a  museum  may  accomplish  in  gathering 
and  spreading  information  about  the  monuments  of  the  region 
will  be  so  much  gained.  Were  the  data  all  held  in  the  drawer  of 
a  desk,  time  might  make  them  priceless  memorials. 
'  Such  a  registry  of  local  art  may  properly,  easily,  and  advan- 
tageously be  carried  on  by  museums  of  art.  Properly,  because 
it  is  a  work  implying  no  responsibility  beyond  that  of  acquiring 
and  giving  information;  and  the  information  of  the  public  on 
matters  of  fine  art  lies  within  the  charter  purposes  of  every 
museum.  Easily,  because  every  museum  has  already  at  its  dis- 
position for  its  own  purposes  an  apparatus  of  registration,  and 
a  more  or  less  numerous  staff  of  persons  competent  to  use  it. 
Advantageously,  because  the  conservation  of  monuments  is  a 
work  of  eternal  vigilance  better  intrusted  to  the  initiative  of  a 
permanent  institution  than  to  voluntary  societies. 

In  a  word,  the  present  proposal  makes  the  whole  duty  of 
museums  of  fine  art  one  of  watch  and  ward,  and  not  ward  alone 
as  hitherto.  Continuing  guardian  of  its  own  treasures  only,  the 
museum  would  be  brought  into  relation  as  visitor  with  every- 
thing of  like  kind  about  it.  More  specifically  the  museum  would 
undertake  to  prepare  and  maintain  an  inventory  of  works  of  art 
outside  its  walls  which  are  interesting  and  accessible  to  its  public,  and 
to  promote  the  enjoyable  and  profitable  study  of  them  by  all. 


412  APPENDIX 

In  pursuance  of  this  purpose,  the  museum  would  schedule, 
investigate,  and  popularize  any  specimens  of  fine  art  in  its 
neighborhood  which  the  owners  might  offer  and  the  museum 
think  worthy.  So  registered,  they  would  be  certified  as  public 
exhibits,  or  as  available  for  public  exhibition  under  conditions 
agreed  on  between  the  owner  and  the  museum,  the  owner  re- 
taining entire  control  and  the  museum  accepting  no  responsi- 
bility. 

In  detail  the  three  duties  of  visitation  would  be  the  following: 

(1)  The  accurate  and  complete  registry,  by  description,  meas- 
urement, photography,  and  otherwise,  of  such  buildings,  sculp- 
tures, paintings,  etc.,  in  the  locality  as  the  museum  might  con- 
sider of  public  interest  from  an  artistic  point  of  view,  and  the 
owners  either  already  treated,  or  might  be  willing  to  treat,  in 
greater  or  less  measure  as  public  exhibits.    The  foremost  class 
of  such  objects  would  be  works  of  art  belonging  to  the  munici- 
pality, commonwealth,  or  nation,  which  doubtless  should  all 
be  inventoried,  however  unequal  their  artistic  merit.    In  the 
case  of  objects  privately  owned,  the  museum  would  wish  to  pro- 
ceed carefully  and  with  the  advice  of  the  best  organized  opinion 
in  the  city  on  the  various  arts. 

(2)  The  artistic  and  historical  study  of  the  specimens  so 
scheduled,  the  accumulation  of  data  about  them  and  the  artists, 
and  the  publication  of  results  upon  occasion.   This  study  might 
lead  at  times  to  the  recommendation  of  measures  looking  to 
the  preservation  of  the  scheduled  objects  and  their  utilization 
as  works  of  art. 

(3)  The  management  of  the  exhibition  and  exposition  of  reg- 
istered objects  to  the  public,  either  in  place,  or,  in  the  case  of 
movable  objects,  in  the  museum.    The  museum  would  under- 
take to  aid  the  public  in  seeing  registered  objects  intelligently 
by  publishing  lists  or  other  accounts  of  them,  organizing  visits 
thereto,  and  in  other  ways;  and  in  the  case  of  works  shown  on 
private  premises,  to  provide  such  protective  means  (custodians, 
etc.)  as  it  would  employ  in  its  own  galleries  and  grounds. 

The  visitation  of  public  monuments  as  thus  understood  inter- 
feres with  no  existing  agency  for  the  promotion  of  art,  but  use- 
fully supplements  the  work  of  all.  Historical  societies  and 
unions  for  scenic  preservation  are  founded  in  the  interest  of  old 
association  and  natural  beauty,  not  artistic  quality.  Schools 
and  leagues  of  art,  village  improvement  societies,  municipal 
art  commissions  and  national  art  associations  are  creative 
sources.  What  these  achieve  the  museum  will  help  to  conserve 


APPENDIX  413 

by  making  it  known.  The  museum  will  be  the  means  through 
which  the  country  will  take  account  and  advantage  of  its  en- 
richment in  material  products  of  the  imagination. 

Where  data  are  already  complete  and  the  facilities  of  exhibi- 
tion ample,  the  museum  will  need  only  to  record  the  fact  in  its 
registers.  Doubtless  municipal  and  professional  archives  exist 
with  whose  aid  a  close  copy  of  Independence  Hall  in  Philadel- 
phia could  be  constructed  were  the  original  destroyed;  doubt- 
less also  the  building  is  publicly  shown  and  commented  upon 
as  fully  as  practicable.  But  what  photographs,  technical  de- 
scriptions, or  historical  documents  now  represent  the  lost  Hunt 
frescoes  in  the  Albany  Capitol?  Do  data  exist,  and  where  are 
they  accessible,  that  would  insure  to  those  who  have  never  seen 
David  d  'Angers'  statue  of  Jefferson  at  the  Capitol  in  Washing- 
ton a  proper  estimate  of  that  work?  Do  even  sculptors  gener- 
ally know  of  its  existence?  Plainly  the  record  of  our  public 
artistic  riches,  to  say  nothing  of  the  private  collections  occa- 
sionally shown  publicly,  is  fragmentary  and  inaccessible;  and 
most  of  it,  moreover,  is  unauthoritative.  So  it  might  remain, 
however  far  the  schemes  now  on  foot  for  the  preservation  of  an- 
tiquities and  scenery  and  for  the  promotion  of  art  were  to  be 
developed.  The  place  of  visitor  to  public  monuments  is  empty 
for  the  museums  of  the  country  to  fill. 

Five  good  results  might  be  anticipated  from  the  acceptance 
by  museums  of  this  new  duty. 

(1)  The  museum  would  be  connected  with  current  artistic 
production  permanently  and  healthily.    Always  on  the  watch 
for  any  new  and  important  acquisition  of  the  neighborhood,  it 
would  fully  record  the  origin,  character,  and   purpose  of  the 
work  before  any  of  the  facts  were  forgotten.    Becoming  inter- 
preter and  advocate  of  living  art,  the  museum  would  nourish 
but  not  pamper  it  by  winning  instead  of  granting  it  commissions. 

(2)  The  museum  would  appear  in  its  true  light  as  purely  an 
agency  of  conservation,  offering  asylum  to  waifs  and  strays  of 
art,  but  equally  interested  in  the  security  of  works  still  in  their 
places.    Zeal  to  preserve  artistic  treasures  within  gallery  walls 
does  not  permit  indifference  to  the  fate  of  others  without.   To 
have  no  eyes  for  the  present  is  to  impugn  one's  sense  for  the 
past,  and,  conversely,  to  concern  one's  self  with  art  still  alive 
is  to  deepen  one's  comprehension  of  its  remains.    A  museum 
active  on    behalf  of  the  monuments  of  its  neighborhood  ac- 
knowledges itself  not  the  home  but  the  refuge  of  the  objects  of 
art  it  shelters. 


414  APPENDIX 

(3)  Architecture,  the  third  and  chief  of  the  material  arts, 
would  be  brought  within  the  circle  of  museum  interests.   Paint- 
ing and  sculpture  alone  (with  their  minor  derivatives)  can  be 
represented  in  exhibition   galleries  by  intact  original  works; 
architecture  only  by  fragments  or  reproductions.   A  large  share 
of  the  more  important  monuments  of  any  neighborhood  being 
works  of  architecture,  the  museum,  by  undertaking  their  regis- 
try and  publicity,   would  complete  its  representation  of  the 
material  arts.    The  architects  on  museum  boards  would  find 
opportunities  of  service  hitherto  lacking. 

Geology  among  the  sciences  presents  on  this  point  an  analogy 
with  architecture  among  the  arts.  By  undertaking  the  registry 
and  publicity  of  instructive  natural  features  in  their  neighbor- 
hood, museums  of  science  would  for  the  first  time  represent 
geology  otherwise  than  by  fragments  and  reproductions. 

(4)  The  proposal  adds  to  the  present  museum  what  might 
be  called  an  out-door  department.    The  Nordiska  Museum  in 
Stockholm  has   a  park  (Skansen)  filled  with  examples  of  old 
Swedish  architecture,  which  has  been  a  successful  adjunct  to  its 
in-door  collections,  and  has  found  imitators.    As  visitor,  a  mu- 
seum would  give  and  call  attention  to  outside  objects  without 
waiting  for  their  withdrawal  from  use. 

(5)  The  scheme  would  insure  to  the  museum  a  permanent 
source  of  enrichment.    A  probable  result  of  the  registry  and 
publicity  of  outside  objects  under  museum  auspices  would  be 
their  frequent  transfer  to  the  museum  for  permanent  enjoyment 
by  the  public. 

Finally,  the  plan  should  commend  itself,  first,  to  museums, 
because  it  offers  the  opportunity  of  a  novel  and  important  pub- 
lic service;  second,  to  other  owners  of  objects  of  art,  because 
museum  registry  of  a  work  would  give  it  distinction,  increase 
its  influence,  and  safeguard  its  future;  and  third,  to  the  people 
at  large,  because  the  museum  would  henceforth  be  their  repre- 
sentative, alert  to  see  that  all  interesting  and  accessible  works 
of  art  in  their  neighborhood  should  be  utilized  for  public  bene- 
fit. 

To  similar  ends  let  museums  of  science  and  of  history  add  to 
their  function  of  collecting,  preserving,  and  exhibiting  instruc- 
tive or  interesting  objects,  the  office  of  recording,  studying,  and 
making  known  like  objects  in  their  neighborhood. 


Jfuseum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston 

PORTRAIT  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS 

J.  S.  Copley  (1737-1815) 

Lent  to  the  Museum  by  the  City.  The  Colonial  leader 
is  represented  addressing  the  British  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts on  the  day  after  the  Boston  Massacre  of  1770. 
He  points  to  the  Charter  of  Massachusetts  on  the  table 
before  him. 


H.  THE  REGISTRY  OF  PUBLIC  ART  AT  THE 
MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS,  BOSTON 

In  the  paper  on  "Museums  and  the  Conservation  of  Monu- 
ments" read  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Associa- 
tion of  Museums  in  Philadelphia,  May  12,  1909,  and  reprinted 
above,  it  was  proposed  that  each  art  museum  in  America  should 
undertake  to  prepare  and  maintain  an  inventory  of  the  works 
of  art  outside  its  walls  which  are  interesting  and  accessible  to 
its  public  and  to  promote  the  enjoyable  and  profitable  study  of 
them  by  all.  In  pursuance  of  this  suggestion  the  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts  in  Boston,  in  the  following  October,  announced  its 
purpose  to  undertake  such  a  registry  in  a  circular  addressed 
to  a  number  of  persons  responsible  as  guardians  or  owners  for 
important  buildings,  statues,  pictures,  and  other  works  of  art 
in  public  places  in  Boston,  the  list  including  representatives  of 
the  United  States,  state  and  city  governments,  colleges,  and 


416  APPENDIX 

religious  and  artistic  organizations.  The  announcement  was 
cordially  received,  the  only  doubt  expressed  by  any  of  those 
replying  being  whether  the  objects  in  their  keeping  merited  this 
recognition.  The  Museum  was  quite  prepared  to  find  that  this 
doubt  was  justified  in  some  cases  and  quite  prepared  as  well  to 
find  it  not  justified  in  others.  The  pressure  of  work  incident  to 
opening  the  new  Museum  building  in  November  prevented  for 
a  number  of  weeks  any  further  active  effort  in  establishing  the 
Registry.  The  initial  step  in  the  realization  of  a  purpose  com- 
pletely new  to  most  people  must  consist  largely  in  verbal  ex- 


Pvblic  Library,  Boston 

GOLD  MEDAL  PRESENTED  TO  GEORGE  WASH- 
INGTON BY  CONGRESS  IN  COMMEMORATION  OF 
THE  EVACUATION  OF  BOSTON. 

P.  S.  B.  du  Vivier  (1730-1819) 

planations  of  the  plan,  and  such  explanations  are  very  costly 
in  time  and  trouble,  demanding  much  correspondence  and 
conversation.  Within  a  few  months  active  steps  were  taken  to 
fulfil  the  design  and  a  report  upon  the  results  reached  was 
presented  at  the  meeting  of  the  Association  in  1910. 

The  comments  of  the  press  were  distinctly  favorable.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  general  feeling  of  satisfaction,  if  not  of  relief, 
at  the  thought  that  a  class  of  permanent  institutions  already 
devoted  to  the  widest  interests  of  the  public  should  have  es- 
poused the  cause  of  the  people  in  this  necessary  particular. 
Three  months  after  the  meeting  of  the  Association  at  which 
the  plan  was  first  proposed  the  "Museums  Journal"  of  Eng- 
land, in  reviewing  a  book  on  "The  Care  of  Natural  Monu- 


APPENDIX 


417 


ments"  by  the  director  of  the  Dantzig  Museum,  expressed  its 
surprise  that  Dr.  Conwentz  made  no  mention  of  museums 
among  the  agencies  of  their  protection,  continuing:  "It  cer- 
tainly seems  to  us  that  the  local  museum  of  the  district  would 
form  a  very  fitting  headquarters  for  work  of  this  character," 
and  concluding:  "Not  to  urge  the  point  too  far,  the  least  sug- 
gestion we  can  make  is  that  the  officials  of  our  museums  should 
without  delay  get  into  touch  with  the  nearest  local  association 
for  the  preservation  of  natural  monuments."  The  same  journal, 
in  reviewing  the  "Proceedings"  of  the  Association  in  the  issue 


Public  Library,  Boston 

SILVER  VASE  PRESENTED  BY  CITIZENS  OF 
BOSTON  TO  DANIEL  WEBSTER  IN  RECOGNITION 
OF  HIS  DEFENCE  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION,  OCTO- 
BER 12,  1835. 

of  March,  1910,  refers  to  the  plan  of  the  museum  registry  of 
public  art  as  in  line  with  this  recommendation  of  its  own  and 
heartily  welcomes  the  suggestion,  adding  that  "It  may  fall  on 
more  fruitful  ground  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where 
museums  have  a  more  open  field."  In  Germany  the  Kunstchronik 
of  May  13th,  1910,  spoke  of  the  plan  as  an  especially  praise- 
worthy innovation  in  museum  methods  and  went  on  to  say: 
"  It  would  be  a  real  blessing  if  this  novelty  should  be  taken  up 
also  in  other  States  of  the  Union."  A  private  letter  from  Dr. 
Grosse,  director  of  the  Freiburg  Museum,  expressed  his  thor- 
ough-going sympathy  with  the  proposal  and  the  views  on  which 
it  is  based.  The  New  York  "Nation"  spoke  of  the  Registry 
as  a  new  service  "which  might  well  be  adopted  by  museums  of 
all  kinds.  Like  most  new  ideas  this  is  a  simple  and  obvious  ex- 
tension of  the  usual  duties  of  a  museum."  This  coincidence  of 
favorable  opinion  is  of  good  augury.  It  indicates  that  the  pro- 


418  APPENDIX 

posed  function  of  the  Registry  of  Public  Art  may  open  to  mu- 
seums an  opportunity  of  wide  usefulness. 

A  circular  of  information  lately  issued  makes  known  the  work 
in  the  following  words : 

The  Registry  of  Local  Art  of  this  Museum  is  a  card  index  of  works  of  sculp- 
ture, painting,  architecture,  and  the  minor  arts  accessible  to  the  public  of  Bos- 
ton and  Massachusetts,  with  a  file  of  related  documents. 

The  purpose  of  this  inventory  is  to  keep  the  artistic  inheritance  of  the  people 
before  the  public  mind.  For  this  purpose  an  inventory  is  indispensable.  The 
people  must  know  what  they  have  in  order  to  give  it  due  attention 


Faneuil  Hall,  Boston 

BUST  OF  JOHN  ADAMS,  SECOND  PRESIDENT 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

J.  B.  Binon  (1818) 

With  the  Washington  medal,  this  bust  is  a  memorial  of 
the  intimate  relation  between  France  and  the  United 
States  at  the  beginning  of  our  history. 

At  present  no  comprehensive  inventory  of  the  public  art  of  our  community 
exists.  The  materials  for  it  either  are  lacking  or  are  scattered  in  municipal  his- 
tories, guide-books,  exhibition  catalogues  and  periodicals,  or  the  records  of 
boards,  societies,  and  individuals.  By  offering  a  permanent,  appropriate,  and 
convenient  place  for  the  preservation  of  a  descriptive  list  of  works  of  art  erected 
in  public  places  or  otherwise  open  to  public  view,  the  Registry  of  Local  Art  aims 
not  to  duplicate,  but  to  supplement,  the  work  of  all  organizations  cooperating 
in  the  artistic  adornment  of  our  cities,  or  the  public  exhibition  of  fine  art.  It 


I 


420 


APPENDIX 


hopes  to  be  regarded  as  a  section  of  their  archives,  in  the  sense  of  a  progressive 
record  of  what  they  do  to  put  means  of  artistic  enjoyment  within  reach  of  the 
public  generally. 

It  is  designed  to  keep  the  Registry  open  to  public  use  in  the  office  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Museum,  and  to  record  its  progress  in  the  Museum  Bulletin. 


m 


INTAGLIO:  "GIRLHOOD" 

Grace  Hooper 

The  label  reads  : 

Here 
where  her  work  was  done 

let  this  intaglio 
bring  to  our  memory 
GRACE  HOOPER 
artist  and  teacher 

Many  memorial  inscriptions,  not  always  so  musically 
expressed,  are  found  in  the  Boston  schools. 

The  Registry  will  be  grateful  for  notice  of  any  works  of  art  or  collections  of 
art  which  are,  or  may  become,  accessible  to  the  Massachusetts  public,  and  will 
index  and  carefully  preserve  any  information  and  documents  sent. 

The  Registry  will  also  compile,  edit,  and  supervise  the  illustration  of  lists 
of  works  of  art  like  those  which  it  has  for  several  years  prepared  at  the  request 
of  the  Art  Commission  of  Boston  as  supplements  to  their  reports.  For  this  labor 


422  APPENDIX 

it  would  expect  a  compensation  of  five  dollars  a  printed  page  and  the  travelling 
expenses  incurred. 

The  methods  of  the  work  are  very  simple.  A  representative 
of  the  Museum  calls  by  appointment  at  the  public  building, 
church  or  other  place  where  there  are  objects  to  register  and 
takes  careful  notes.  These  notes  are  supplemented  later  by 
further  visits,  by  consultation  of  books  in  the  Museum  library 
or  with  officers  of  the  Museum.  They  have  sought  to  include 
as  many  as  possible  of  the  following  data  recorded  as  exactly 
and  fully  as  possible : 

Place  of  the  object;  owner;  title  (dates  if  a  portrait) ;  artist  (with 
dates);  description  (including  material,  measurements,  decora- 
tive elements,  an  interpretation  of  motives,  a  verbatim,  litera- 
tim, and  lineally  correct  transcription  of  any  inscriptions  or 
any  signatures  of  artists,  and  references  to  related  works  of  art 
or  to  literary  sources);  history  (whether  gift  or  commission;  date 
and  circumstances  of  erection;  removals,  restoration,  and  per- 
sons concerned). 

To  supplement  these  notes  it  has  often  proved  possible  to 
obtain  photographs  of  the  objects  or  other  documentary  mate- 
rial. A  set  of  measured  drawings  representing  Park  Street 
Church  before  the  alterations  of  1914  has  been  deposited  with 
the  Registry  for  safekeeping  by  the  architects.  Another  set 
representing  an  architectural  survey  of  the  Old  South  Meeting 
House  has  been  deposited  by  the  Old  South  Association.  A 
third  set  representing  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral  has  been  given 
to  the  Registry  by  the  Boston  Society  of  Architects. 

The  data  gathered  by  the  Registry  are  preserved  in  a  triple 
card  index  and  a  file  of  folders  referred  to  from  the  cards.  Of 
the  three  cards  written  for  each  object,  each  contains  the  same 
three  items  of  information,  namely,  the  owner,  the  object,  and 
the  artist.  On  one,  the  name  of  the  owner  comes  first,  on  an- 
other the  name  of  the  object,  and  on  the  third,  the  artist's  name. 
The  owner  cards  are  arranged  together  in  alphabetical  order 
as  an  owner  list;  the  object  cards  as  an  object  list,  and  the  artist 
cards  as  an  artist  list.  These  cards  are  three  and  seven-eighths 
inches  high  and  five  and  seven-eighths  inches  long.  The  illus- 
trations show  the  three  cards  devoted  to  one  object. 

The  further  data  gathered  about  any  object  registered  are 
preserved  in  a  folder.  The  title  of  the  folder  is  written  on  the 
owner  card  and  underlined.  A  notice  in  the  drawer  containing 
the  index  directs  the  reader  to  look  at  the  owner  card  of  any 
object  for  the  underlined  reference  to  further  data.  The  folders 


Ma.Hgar.hueettsf  Commonwoalth  of 


State  House,  Boston:  Grand  Staircase  Hall. 

Memorial  to  the  Army  Nurses  of  the  Civil 

War;  by  Bela  L.  Pratt. 

"State  HouBe",  1914,  Page  45. 

Army  Nurses  of  the  Civil  War,  Memorial  to. 


Army  fTupBea  of  the  Civil  war>  Memorial  to: 


by  Bela  L.  Pratt. 

See  Massachusetts,  Commonwealth  of.   State 

House,  Boston:  Grand  Staircase  Hall. 


Pratt,,  Bftla  lynn 


See  Massachusetts,  Commonwealth  of.  State 
House-,  Boston:  Grand  Staircase  Hall. 
Memorial  to  the  Army  Nurses  of  the  Oivll 
War 


424  APPENDIX 

are  kept  in  the  usual  upright  letter-filing  drawers  arranged 
alphabetically  according  to  their  titles. 

In  case  the  Registry  comes  into  possession  of  any  list,  writ- 
ten or  printed,  containing  objects  which  it  is  desired  to  regis- 
ter, the  list  is  filed  in  a  folder  and  an  owner  card  is  made  out 
with  the  title  of  the  folder  underlined.  In  case  the  objects  in 
the  list  are  of  various  ownership,  the  list  is  registered  by  its 
title  on  a  card  headed  "Owners,  Various."  The  entry  on  the 
owner  card  is  then  repeated  on  cards  headed  "Objects,  Vari- 
ous," and  "Artists,  Various  "  (unless  the  objects  are  the  work 
of  one)  in  the  object  and  artist  index.  Any  important  object 
in  such  a  list  may  thereafter,  when  leisure  offers,  be  given  its 
own  triple  set  of  cards  —  owner,  object,  and  artist  —  the  owner 
card  containing  an  underlined  reference  to  the  folder  as  on  the 
general  card. 

Newspaper  cuttings  form  an  important  source  of  information 
for  the  Registry.  They  are  most  conveniently  filed  in  folders 
instead  of  a  scrap-book.  An  owner  card  is  made  out  with  the 
title  of  the  folder  underlined;  or,  in  the  case  of  several  owners, 
the  reference  is  added  to  the  card  headed  "Owners,  Various." 

Projects  for  artistic  monuments  are  registered  with  references 
to  the  cuttings  or  other  data  about  them  as  if  they  were  already 
carried  out,  but  with  the  word  "Projected"  added  to  the  entry. 

By  these  methods  the  Registry  can  inventory  not  only  such 
objects  as  there  may  be  time  to  inspect  and  record,  but  also 
in  a  collective  way  objects  too  numerous  to  register  individually 
at  the  moment.  A  registry  once  brought  up  to  date  by  these 
summary  entries  may  be  amplified  and  kept  abreast  of  the  cur- 
rent artistic  development  of  its  neighborhood  without  the  devo- 
tion of  more  than  occasional  hours. 

It  has  been  the  experience  of  the  Boston  Registry  that  full  and 
authoritative  data  about  a  public  work  of  art  are  very  easy  to 
obtain  at  the  time  of  its  installation.  The  recognition  of  the 
project  by  an  important  institution  is  welcome  to  all  those  en- 
gaged in  it.  Cordial  relations  between  the  museum  and  the 
artists  concerned  are  a  notable  result.  Although  devoted  by 
its  immediate  sphere  to  the  art  of  the  past,  a  museum,  through 
this  external  function,  comes  into  a  wholesome  relation  to  the 
art  of  the  present. 

It  is  also  the  Boston  experience  that  full  and  authoritative 
data  about  works  of  art  installed  long  ago  in  public  places  are 
hardly  to  be  obtained  by  any  inquiry.  The  scheme  of  items 
above  outlined  can  only  very  partially  be  filled  out  for  most 


APPENDIX  425 

older  monuments.  The  memory  of  many  facts  has  faded  out, 
and  such  records  as  may  have  been  made  can  no  longer  be  un- 
earthed. This  experience  is  a  valid  argument  for  the  establish- 
ment of  Registries.  With  this  forgetfulness  about  public  monu- 
ments goes  ignorance  and  neglect  of  them.  A  record  of  them 
will  undoubtedly  help  them  to  accomplish  their  purpose  of  per- 
manent public  enjoyment  and  advantage. 

Since  the  Registry  was  begun,  Harvard  College  has  completed 
an  inventory  of  the  works  of  art  in  its  possession  and  has  placed 
a  copy  with  the  Registry.  The  manuals  of  the  State  House,  the 
Public  Library,  and  pamphlets  or  lists  compiled  by  a  number 
of  churches  and  other  institutions,  including  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum, are  also  contained  in  the  Registry  files. 

The  chief  work  of  inspection  and  record  has  been  carried  out 
in  the  service  of  the  Art  Commission  of  the  City,  for  which  the 
Registry  has  prepared  a  series  of  lists  of  city-owned  works  of 
art,  at  present  complete. 

On  the  basis  of  these  various  records,  the  Registry  hopes  in 
the  near  future  to  issue  a  Handbook  of  Public  Art  in  and  about 
Boston.  The  pamphlet  would  consist  chiefly  of  illustrations, 
a  few  lines  of  text  giving  important  facts  about  each.  The  worth 
that  such  handbooks  might  eventually  come  to  possess  for  all 
greater  cities  is  suggested  by  one  of  the  paragraphs  in  Bishop 
Berkeley's  " Querist":  "Whether  pictures  and  statues  are  not 
in  fact  so  much  treasure?  And  whether  Rome  and  Florence 
would  not  be  poor  towns  without  them?  "  An  illustrated  review 
of  public  art  at  once  apprizes  us  of  what  has  been  done  and  sug- 
gests what  might  still  be  done.  In  American  communities,  to 
whose  life  the  imagination  has  not  yet  had  opportunity  to  add 
its  commentary,  the  second  function  may  easily  prove  the  more 
important  one. 

A  Registrar  is  of  the  type  of  workman  described  negatively 
by  Dr.  Johnson  as  a  "harmless  drudge."  Anyone  elsewhere  who 
aspires  to  follow  the  Boston  precedent  must  be  prepared  to  find 
that  others  will  commend  his  work  in  theory  and  yawn  over 
it  in  practice.  Yet  the  positive  value  that  Dr.  Johnson  was  too 
sensitive  to  claim  for  the  labor  of  the  lexicographer  clearly  be- 
longs also  to  the  minor  field  of  the  registry  of  public  art.  Let 
the  Registrar  remember  that  what  he  plants  and  waters  is  a 
tree  of  the  most  deliberate  and  uneventful  growth  whose  full 
foliage  only  a  later  generation  will  take  pleasure  in  and  profit  by. 


OBSERVATIONS  IN  EUROPEAN  MUSEUMS  l 

THE  American  visitor  to  one  of  the  older  museums  in  Europe 
meets  an  atmosphere  that  has  never  existed  in  museums  at 
home.  The  earliest  museums  sprang  out  of  the  collector's  im- 
pulse —  that  of  safekeeping;  those  established  after  the  World's 
Fair  of  1851,  out  of  the  exhibitor's  impulse  —  that  of  publicity. 
In  1840,  the  poet  Southey  justified  bequeathing  his  collections 
for  sale  by  the  remark:  "Put  in  a  museum  nobody  sees  them."  2 
In  1912,  the  painter  Detaille  bequeathed  his  house  and  con- 
tents to  the  city  of  Paris  to  be  made  a  museum.3  In  the  in- 
terval, museums  had  developed  from  storehouses  to  expositions. 
To  the  duty  of  conserving  what  is  worth  seeing,  they  had  added 
that  of  getting  it  well  seen.  They  no  longer  serve  only  the  few, 
able  to  see  for  themselves;  they  serve  also  the  many,  unable 
to  see  without  aid.  Even  the  older  museums  have  of  late  ex- 
changed their  mainly  passive  attitude  toward  the  public  for  a 
more  active  role. 

Under  the  pressure  of  the  double  responsibility  of  keeping 
and  showing,  museums  have  come  to  magnify  their  office. 
Their  growth  and  their  new  public  importance  have  led  them 
to  treat  their  buildings  and  the  installations  within  as  independ- 
ent works  of  art.  This  tendency  the  future  must  correct.  A 
clear  distinction  exists  between  the  purpose  to  exhibit  works 
of  art  installed  in  a  building  and  the  purpose  to  make  works 
of  art  of  the  building  and  the  installations.  The  essential  pur- 
pose of  a  museum  is  the  first.  A  museum  building  may  be  a 
monument  of  architecture  and  its  installations  achievements 
of  decorative  art  only  in  so  far  as  both  are  compatible  with  ex- 
hibiting to  the  best  advantage  the  objects  so  sheltered  and 
arranged.  It  is  the  servitor  of  objective  art  as  other  public 
buildings  are  not,  and  should  express  this  difference  of  function 
in  its  design.  Museums  as  expositions  should  become  again 
the  simple  media  for  voices  from  the  past  which  they  once  were 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  of  Museums, 
vol.  vii.   (1913.) 

2  H.  Crabb  Robinson,  Diary,  vol.  m,  p.  187. 
1  Press  despatch,  December,  1912. 


APPENDIX  427 

as  magazines;  albeit  with  a  care  to  be  transparent  media  such 
as  they  never  have  been. 

The  present  transitional  stage  is  one  of  museum  self-impor- 
tance; the  definitive  stage  one  of  self-forgetfulness.  The  future 
will  surely  approve  of  external  and  internal  simplicity  in  a 
museum  building.  Age  may  mellow  crudeness  of  surface  and 
dignify  plainness  of  line,  but  age  will  not  restore  to  museum 
galleries  light  sacrificed  to  a  fagade,  nor  lessen  the  disharmony 
between  decorations  and  contents  different  in  spirit.  The  sym- 
metrical architecture  of  one  of  the  newest  of  European  museums 
results  in  the  same  lighting  and  the  same  decorative  forms  in 
galleries  of  modern  sculpture  and  of  Egyptian  antiquities.  In 
two  others,  also  built  for  their  present  purpose,  the  needs  of  the 
exterior  have  given  the  upper  galleries  windows  reaching  to  the 
floor,  but  only  partly  to  the  ceiling,  blinding  the  visitor  and 
unnaturally  lighting  the  objects.  In  the  study  of  newer  collec- 
tions generally,  obtrusive  gallery  decoration  is  something  to 
fight  against.  The  gratuitous  burden  of  color  and  form  in  walls, 
floor,  and  ceiling  has  its  share  in  the  fatigue  of  a  museum  visit. 
By  comparison,  the  reserve  of  an  old  palace  like  the  Brera  is 
an  immense  relief. 

The  future  will  surely  approve  also  the  arrangement  of  objects 
to  enhance  their  individual  effect  instead  of  their  collective 
effect.  Museum  acquisitions  are  commonly  fragments,  de- 
signed for  other  companion  pieces  than  their  chance  associates 
in  museum  galleries.  The  attempt  to  combine  them  cleverly 
into  a  decorative  scheme  stands  on  the  artistic  level  of  an  old- 
time  crazy-quilt.  The  future  belongs  not  to  the  panoramic  but 
the  anthologic  conception  of  both  museum  arrangement  and 
museum  visiting.  Each  of  the  artistic  fragments  preserved  in 
a  museum  gallery  has  its  individual  aim,  and  it  is  for  the  un- 
veiling of  these  aims  to  the  after-world  as  an  anthology  of  art 
that  they  are  permanently  shown.  Reviewing  them  panorami- 
cally  by  a  passing  glance  soon  surfeits;  and  as  a  form  of  recrea- 
tion or  improvement  in  no  way  warrants  the  expenditure  now 
devoted  to  museum  acquisitions  and  their  display.  The  sep- 
arate inspection  of  museum  objects  for  the  individual  content 
of  each  does  repay,  and  fully,  for  all  that  our  museums  cost  to 
establish  and  maintain;  but  this  anthologic  visiting  the  pano- 
ramic arrangement  defeats.  Cases  symmetrically  placed  but 
shadowing  each  other,  exhibits  pieced  out  with  inferior  exam- 
ples or  with  reproductions,  backgrounds  varying  from  room 
to  room  without  corresponding  enhancement  of  the  contents, 


428  APPENDIX 

represent  some  of  the  costly  ways  in  which  even  the  newest 
museums  maintain  the  panoramic  ideal. 

If  not  designed  to  keep  up  interest  in  a  panorama  of  rooms, 
the  perpetual  variety  of  wall  coloring,  found  in  many  newer 
museums,  would  appear  uncalled  for  on  any  grounds.  There  is 
one  tone  of  color,  a  light  gray-brown  or  dull  yellow-gray  which 
both  experience  and  reason  approve  for  many  if  not  most  mu- 
seum purposes.  Professor  Mobius  has  proposed  it  as  a  stand- 
ard.1 A  creamy  gray  is  favorably  noted  in  the  report  of  the 
commission  sent  to  Europe  by  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Bos- 
ton, as  the  color  often  given  the  walls  of  his  interiors  by  Peter 
de  Hooch.2  The  choice  of  dull  gray-brown  for  the  walls  of  the 
Vestibule  Room  (I)  of  the  National  Gallery  made  that  apart- 
ment to  me  the  most  agreeable  in  general  tone  among  all  those 
seen  last  summer.  The  fact  that  gold  is  the  accepted  frame  for 
our  pictures  argues  for  the  use  of  dull  yellow-gray  as  a  general 
background.  For  this  tone  of  color  may  be  regarded  as  derived 
from  gold  by  such  a  darkening  and  dulling  as  would  balance 
the  greater  extent  of  surface  covered.  A  like  general  tone  is 
illustrated  in  rough  plaster  or  common  burlaps  and  could  on 
that  account  be  adopted  experimentally  through  a  whole  mu- 
seum at  less  cost  than  any  other.  Both  these  materials  possess 
also  the  fine  structure  or  play  of  light  and  shade  which  makes 
the  carving  or  graining  of  a  frame  a  congenial  setting  for  the 
intricacies  of  a  work  of  art. 

Once  free  from  the  monumental  ideal  without  and  the  pano- 
ramic ideal  within,  modern  museums  would  become  the  servi- 
tors of  their  contents  which  they  were  founded  to  be;  but  they 
would  still  be  far  from  efficient  servitors.  They  would  be  media 
for  voices  from  the  past,  but  not  transparent  media  without 
changes  obviously  necessary  in  their  methods  of  lighting,  of 
giving  information  about  their  exhibits,  and  of  aiding  the  visi- 
tor in  other  ways. 

A  museum  is  a  place  for  the  use  of  the  eyes.  The  word  "visi- 
tor" derives  from  the  visual  powers,  and  their  economy  is  a 

1  Karl  Mobius,  "  Die  Zweckmassige  Einrichtung  grosser  Museen,"   Deutsche 
Rundschau,  vol.  68  (1891),  p.  356.   "Dull  gray-yellow  has  the  advantage  over  a 
white  background  that  it  is  not  blinding,  does  not  tire  the  eye  by  reflecting  light 
too  strongly.    It  differs  from  a  red,  bright  yellow,  green,  blue,  violet  or  black 
background  in  that  it  does  not  produce  any  colored  after  images,  any  train  of 
complementary  tints  in  the  eye  to  disturb  the  pure  and  full  perception  of  the 
exhibited  objects." 

2  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Communications  to  the  Trustees,  vol.  in  (1905), 
p.  54. 


APPENDIX  429 

prime  desideratum  of  museum  methods.  At  present  they  are 
lavishly  wasted.  Light  is  often  provided  in  right  quantity,  but 
generally  also  in  wrong  direction.  Yet  direction  and  not  quan- 
tity of  light  is  the  chief  element  in  good  seeing.  The  eye  is  most 
sensitive  to  form  and  color  under  a  moderate  illumination  only. 
Woods  in  the  rain  are  full  of  gradations  unnoted  in  sunshine. 
But  if  just  dazzled  by  a  burst  of  sun,  the  eye  will  not  perceive 
them.  The  visitor  to  modern  galleries  is  at  frequent  intervals 
dazzled  by  glares  of  light,  now  from  the  ceiling,  now  from  win- 
dows, and  now  reflected  from  the  surface  of  pictures  or  the 
glass  of  cases.  Much  of  the  illumination  is  directed  upon  him- 
self instead  of  upon  the  objects.  Could  the  resulting  ocular 
anaesthesias  be  forestalled,  his  seeing  powers  would  be  greatly 
increased,  one  is  inclined  to  say  multiplied.  In  a  measure  glare 
can  be  provided  against  by  curtaining  the  light-openings,  by 
making  ceiling  lights  narrower  or  higher,  and  by  raising  the  sills 
of  windows.  Of  the  latter  expedient  it  does  not  appear  that 
adequate  advantage  has  yet  been  taken.  A  window  restricted 
to  the  upper  third  of  the  wall  of  a  gallery  of  ordinary  dimensions 
would  not  be  directly  in  the  visitor's  eyes  unless  he  looked  to- 
ward it  from  the  centre  of  the  room  or  beyond;  nor  be  reflected 
into  them  excepting  from  the  upper  part  of  large  pictures  and 
cases  against  the  opposite  wall.  Sculpture,  pictures  of  moder- 
ate size,  and  works  of  minor  art  will  be  well  lighted  both  on  this 
and  the  window  wall,  where  the  milder  light  would  still  suffice 
for  eyes  undazzled  by  the  window  above.  On  the  end  walls  of 
the  room  works  of  art  of  any  kind  or  size  would  show  to  better 
advantage  than  in  any  part  of  a  top-lighted  gallery.  The  light 
would  fall  at  an  angle  approaching  forty-five  degrees  both  with 
the  perpendicular  and  with  the  line  of  vision  of  the  spectator, 
—  the  general  direction  called  by  Leonardo  the  best  for  all 
objects.1  Further,  instead  of  the  even  mediocrity  of  illumina- 

1  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Libro  della  Piltura, 

Cap.  85.  In  drawing  from  nature  "the  height  of  the  light  should  be  such  that 
objects  will  cast  shadows  equal  to  their  height."    (Forty-five  degrees  in  elevation.) 

Cap.  415.  "Where  should  one  stand  to  look  at  a  picture?  Assuming  that  AB 
is  the  picture,  the  light  coming  from  D;  1  say  that  a  person 
placing  himself  between  C  and  E  will  grasp  it  very  badly, 
and  especially  if  it  is  an  oil  painting  or  varnished  to  have 
some  lustre  like  a  mirror.   It  will  be  less  visible  on  this  ac- 
count the  nearer  the  eye  approaches  C,  where  the  rays  are 
reflected  coming  from  the  window.    If  a  person  places  him- 
self between  E  and  D,  he  will  see  the  picture  well,  and  the  better  the  nearer 
he  is  to  D,  because  this  position  shares  less  in  reflected  rays."     (Forty-five 
degrees  or  less  with  the  line  of  vision  of  the  spectator.) 


430  APPENDIX 

tion  afforded  by  top  light,  the  end,  window,  and  opposite  walls 
of  a  high  side-lighted  gallery  would  each  have  its  individual 
lighting.  Gradations  of  prominence  in  installation,  which  the 
contents  of  most  galleries  call  for,  would  be  possible.  The  interior 
porticoes  of  the  Naples  Museum,  now  walled  up  as  galleries  of 
sculpture,  instance  the  agreeable  and  favorable  effect  of  very 
high  side  lighting;  but  in  most  side-lighted  galleries,  new  and 
old,  the  windows  run  well  into  the  lower  half  of  the  wall  and, 
unless  curtained,  leave  the  visitor  no  eyes  for  anything  else. 

Information  about  exhibits  in  museums  is  chiefly  given  in  the 
form  of  inscriptions  affixed  to  them,  or  labels.  Two  facts  about 
museum  labels  indicate  the  limitations  of  their  use.  First,  a 
placard  affixed  to  a  work  of  art,  while  it  may  be  an  aid  to  igno- 
rance, may  also  be  a  hindrance  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  work  by 
one  who  comes  prepared.  Second,  the  information  given  on 
labels  is  apt  not  to  be  germane  to  the  artistic  content  of  the 
object  labelled.  Some  form  of  printed  information  is  called  for 
which  shall  neither  stand  in  the  way  of  the  spectator  when  in- 
structed, nor  lead  the  thoughts  of  the  uninstructed  away  from 
the  work.  The  rigid  subordination  of  labels  and  the  exclusion 
therefrom  of  irrelevant  information  is  an  essential  factor  in 
training  the  visitor  to  study  the  objects  themselves  —  the  pur- 
pose for  which  a  museum  is  established. 

The  problem  of  the  form  of  labels  offers  no  difficulty  in  the 
case  of  pictures  and  sculptures,  where  the  frame  and  the  pedestal 
provide  appropriate  places,  at  once  connected  and  subordinate, 
for  an  inscription.  In  the  National  Gallery  and  elsewhere  in 
England  the  names  of  artist  and  subject  are  painted  along  the 
frame  below  and  immediately  next  the  canvas,  and  upon  occa- 
sion the  source  on  the  corresponding  upper  margin.  It  is  partic- 
ularly desirable  that  the  names  of  givers  or  lenders  should 
have,  as  by  this  practice,  a  separate  place  from  the  label  proper. 
This  both  emphasizes  such  data  and  enables  the  visitor  to  ig- 
nore them  if  he  choose.  At  the  National  Gallery  one  always 
knows  where  to  look  for  both  kinds  of  information,  and  neither 
is  noticeable  at  the  ordinary  distance  of  seeing,  although  a  step 
makes  the  words  legible.  The  pedestals  of  sculptures  are  open 
to  labelling  in  a  way  equally  orderly  and  no  less  inconspicuous 
and  effective. 

The  real  physical  difficulties  of  labelling  begin  with  the  minor 
arts.  It  is  in  the  first  place  admittedly  impracticable  in  a  col- 
Cap.  104.  "On  the  quality  of  illumination."  "A  large  volume  of  high  light 
not  too  brilliant  is  that  which  renders  the  details  of  objects  most  pleasing." 


APPENDIX  431 

lection  of  smaller  things  to  give  a  label  to  every  object  needing 
one.  The  application  of  a  separate  inscription  to  every  individ- 
ual exhibit  whose  proper  comprehension  will  be  impossible  to 
most  people  without  special  information  is  in  many  cases  com- 
pletely destructive  of  the  effect  of  all  as  works  of  art.1  For 
the  most  part  the  attempt  is  abandoned  in  European  muse- 
ums, many  of  the  richest  exhibits  of  textiles,  metal-work  and 
woodwork  containing  only  an  occasional  label.  The  problem, 
as  at  present  conceived,  must  and  evidently  does  present  insu- 
perable difficulties.  It  is  time  to  attack  it  at  some  other  angle. 
Commercial  show  windows  enforce  a  similar  lesson.  The  cheap 
and  mean  appearance  of  the  shops  on  Regent  Street,  Bond 
Street,  and  Piccadilly  compared  with  those  on  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix  or  Fifth  Avenue  is  due  in  great  measure  to  the  immoder- 
ate labelling  of  objects  in  London,  not  only  with  prices  but  with 
other  information,  and  their  scanty  placarding  in  Paris  and  New 
York.  The  profusion  of  printed  cards  is  convenient  but  also 
unmannerly.  The  shops  of  the  chief  dealers  in  works  of  art  are 
a  marked  exception,  and  museums  should  heed  this  testimony 
of  business  experience  combined  with  good  taste. 

In  the  second  place,  a  label  on  any  small  object  is  necessarily 
either  obtrusive  or  difficult  to  read.  Common  practice  inclines 
to  the  latter  fault,  with  the  result  that  if  the  visitor  to  exhibits  of 
minor  art  exerts  himself  to  read  labels,  he  is  soon  too  fatigued  in 
body  and  eyes  to  observe  the  objects  adequately.  My  notebooks 
of  last  summer  often  contain  the  remark:  "Labels  illegible." 

The  problem  of  composing  labels  is  a  difficult  one  for  the 
major  and  minor  arts  alike.  Printed  information  on  objects 
which  shall  answer  the  uninformed  spectator's  chief  questions 
without  uselessly  occupying  his  thoughts  or  forcing  them  into 
other  than  artistic  channels  is  still  in  the  main  a  desideratum 
of  museum  economy.  As  commonly  composed  for  pictures, 
labels  act  perceptibly  to  lower  the  elan  with  which  the  eyes 
search  the  canvas  for  new  conceptions  and  for  points  of  attach- 
ment in  memory,  interposing  a  rush  of  abstract  historical  ideas 
and  even  indifferent  registration  data  between  the  visitor's  per- 
ception and  the  artist's  intention.  It  is  especially  undesirable 
that  they  should  be  filled  as  they  frequently  are  in  Europe  with 

1  In  the  Tokio  Museum  the  little  collection  of  netsuke  consists  principally, 
for  the  eye,  of  white  labels  which  tell  in  two  languages  and  under  many  pre- 
scribed heads  very  little  and  mostly  the  self-evident;  while  the  miniature  sculp- 
tures, often  of  the  most  fascinating  kind,  almost  disappear  in  comparison." 
Curt  Glaser,  Ostasiatische  Kunstmuseen,  Museumskunde,  vol.  vra,  3  (1912), 
p.  148. 


432  APPENDIX 

self-evident  information.  To  be  halted  in  the  inspection  of  a 
landscape  to  learn  that  it  represents  "Cottage  with  Covered 
Haystack  by  a  River,"  "Forest  Scene,"  "View  over  a  Flat, 
Wooded  Country"  (one  of  many  sequences  noted)  is  to  have 
one's  vision  remanded  to  nursery  conditions.  Again,  in  a  col- 
lection of  Eastern  art  the  first  half  of  the  label,  "Reliures  Orien- 
tales  xvi-xvin  Siecles"  unnecessarily  occupies  the  visitor's 
mind  and  eyes.  The  objects  are  patently  book-bindings  and 
the  collection  wholly  oriental.  In  another  collection  an  object 
is  carefully  labelled  "Small  Bronze  Horse";  the  facts  that  it  is 
small,  of  bronze,  and  a  horse  being  already  plain.  An  important 
indirect  advantage  of  a  label  is  that  it  provides  a  name  by  which 
to  call  a  work  of  art.  This  advantage  is  missed  when  the  name  is 
such  as  could  be  invented  forthwith  by  any  one  who  remembered 
the  object  at  all. 

For  objects  of  minor  art  there  seems  no  alternative  generally 
applicable,  owing  to  the  two  physical  difficulties  just  mentioned, 
other  than  to  employ  collective  labels  giving  a  general  descrip- 
tion of  a  whole  class  of  exhibits.  Such  signs  could  be  composed 
to  answer  the  essential  questions  of  visitors;  and  a  legible  num- 
ber, which  it  is  always  possible  to  affix  to  any  object  however 
small,  might  refer  to  a  list  or  catalogue  which  should  be  duly  ad- 
vertised and  made  accessible.  As  matters  now  stand,  the  visi- 
tor looking  through  an  exhibit  of  minor  art  for  what  may  chance 
to  interest  him  is  often,  perhaps  generally,  disappointed  when 
he  seeks  a  label  on  the  object  of  his  choice.  Such  collective 
signs,  unobtrusively  placed  high  on  a  wall  or  on  the  frame  of  a 
case,  are  not  infrequent  at  present  in  European  museums  and 
were  to  me  always  welcome.  But  because  their  use  is  not  made 
a  system,  they  still  betray  the  prevailing  vice  of  labels  —  that 
of  getting  themselves  forgotten  and  becoming  out  of  date.  In 
one  important  new  gallery,  immediately  under  the  sign  "In- 
dian and  Persian  Cashmeres"  the  principal  one  of  three  objects 
was  labelled  "Mortlake  Tapestry,  England,  18th  century." 
What  was  the  uninstructed  visitor  to  think? 

A  collective  label  applied  to  the  contents  of  a  whole  gallery 
becomes  the  designation  of  the  room.  Such  gallery  names  are 
frequently  found  both  on  the  Continent  and  in  England,  and 
one  inclines  to  recommend  their  invariable  use.  They  are  often 
inscribed  high  on  the  wrall,  but  for  purposes  of  experiment  might 
be  painted  on  boards.  If  the  design  and  lettering  of  such  boards 
were  carefully  chosen  and  given  a  certain  uniformity  throughout 
a  museum,  they  might  become  a  permanent  form  of  gallery 


APPENDIX  433 

sign,  adapted  to  changing  exhibitions  as  well.  The  upper  part 
of  a  gallery  wall  is  nearly  always  vacant,  and  offers  for  every 
form  of  exhibit  a  place  analogous  to  that  afforded  for  individual 
pictures  and  statues  by  the  frame  and  pedestal.  To  such  a  posi- 
tion, connected  and  yet  subordinate,  printed  information  about 
museum  objects  should  always  be  relegated.  Placed  high  on 
a  wall,  the  visitor  already  informed  ignores  it  without  effort,  and 
the  uninformed  obtains  it  by  only  raising  his  eyes.  This  habit 
is  quickly  acquired  when  the  device  is  found  everywhere.  The 
systematic  use  of  high  wall  signs  would,  I  believe,  go  far  to 
solve  the  problem  of  labels  in  museum  galleries. 

Among  other  aids  to  visitors,  plans  of  the  building  are  dis- 
tributed about  several  English  museums.  In  some  cases  they 
outline  the  department,  and  are  hung  on  the  jambs  of  doors  like 
the  doorway  plans  adopted  at  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Bos- 
ton, but  one  misses  the  gold  star  which  in  our  plans  tells  the 
visitor  just  where  he  is  at  the  time. 

The  opportunity  to  sit  down  occasionally  may  be  said  to 
double  the  productiveness  of  a  museum  visit.  Without  it  one 
is  unable  during  the  latter  part  of  a  visit  extending  over  hours 
to  give  the  proper  attention  to  works  of  art,  to  say  nothing  of 
enjoying  them,  while,  if  time  be  taken  for  two  or  three  short 
rests,  the  last  hour  may  be  as  agreeable  and  profitable  as  the 
first.  Seats  should  be  used  to  forestall,  not  recover  from  fatigue, 
and  should  be  so  scattered  as  to  make  this  possible  everywhere 
in  the  museum.  They  are  often  provided  abroad,  and  some- 
times in  greater  number  than  necessary.  Even  in  galleries  full 
of  visitors  and  containing  comparatively  few  seats,  some  were 
always  to  be  found  vacant.  The  long  gallery  of  the  Louvre  was 
the  only  exception  noted.  The  elaborate  upholstered  divans 
frequently  provided  in  Europe,  beside  being  unattractive,  offer 
an  unnecessary  amount  of  ease.  Plain  chairs  or  benches  are 
more  common,  and  care  is  often  taken  to  give  them  the  same 
color  as  the  other  woodwork  of  the  room.  Chairs  are  arranged 
in  groups  along  the  centre  of  the  gallery  without  apparently 
being  much  displaced.  At  the  Brera  they  are  of  antique  pat- 
tern in  the  form  of  a  curving  "X"  and  are  very  pleasing  in 
effect.  Chairs  of  such  a  design  would  be  a  harmonious  note  in 
any  gallery  of  European  art.  In  the  Elgin  Room  at  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  plain  oak  benches  are  in  no  discord  with  the 
marbles  about,  and  for  purposes  of  forestalling  fatigue  are  ample. 

To  the  tourist  from  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston,  the 
opportunity  of  personally  meeting  representatives  of  foreign 


434  APPENDIX 

galleries,  like  that  offered  by  our  decent  service  and  conferences, 
is  conspicuous  by  its  absence.  Within  the  past  two  years  guides 
at  stated  times  make  the  rounds  of  departments  of  the  British 
Museum  and,  to  judge  by  a  similar  service  in  Canterbury  and 
other  cathedrals,  render  a  real  and  great  service  to  visitors.  At 
the  Musee  Guimet  the  conferences  announced  were  without 
exception  devoted  to  subjects  and  not  to  objects.  Yet  it  is 
objects  that  visitors  to  museums  come  to  see,  and  would  be 
glad  to  hear  about.  Standing  at  the  threshold  of  the  immense 
treasury  of  the  Louvre,  and  conscious  of  one's  impotence  to 
appropriate  more  than  the  merest  crumbs  of  such  a  feast,  noth- 
ing less  than  a  perpetual  series  of  conferences  every  hour  and 
every  day  that  the  Museum  was  open  seemed  adequate  to  the 
requirements  of  its  throngs  of  visitors.  A  corps  of  many  men 
of  culture  and  education  would  be  needed,  going  far  beyond  the 
personnel  of  the  Museum,  and  the  larger  the  better.  Instead 
of  the  works  themselves,  lantern  reproductions  and  plaster  casts 
might  be  used  by  the  speakers  for  the  purposes  of  comment  in 
a  lecture  room,  to  be  applied  forthwith  by  the  hearers  to  the 
originals  in  the  galleries.  In  view  of  the  start  we  have  made  in 
America  at  offering  museum  visitors  the  personal  companion- 
ship of  trained  men,  it  seems  not  too  much  to  anticipate  that 
groups  of  scholars  may  before  long  be  found  everywhere 
combining  in  these  ways  to  make  the  wealth  of  our  museums 
the  real  property  of  contemporary  society  and  a  vital  force  in 
its  life. 


403 


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