On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2). Ruskin John
Читать онлайн книгу.
class to be unlimited, with a very limited number of Academicians.
171. Has formed no opinion on the question of introducing laymen into the Academy; in matters of revenue they might be joined with artists, but not in the selection and hanging of pictures: opposed on the whole to their introduction, considering the present state of art education.—As he would like to see the Academy constituted, thinks the president ought to be an artist.
172. General effect of the Academy's teaching upon the art of the country merely nugatory.—Would have a much more comprehensive system of teaching.
173. The Academy education to correspond wholly to the University education.
174. Not easy but very necessary for the Academy to adopt an authoritative system of teaching.
175. His idea of what the Academy teaching should be; would have a school of chemistry.
176. The teaching of wall-painting in permanent materials should be a branch, possibly the principal branch.
177. Not satisfied with the selection of artists to be members of the Academy.
178. In some cases the selection of pictures has been injudicious, but this a matter of small importance; the main point is how the pictures that are admitted are to be best seen.
179. In favor of an educational test for candidates for admission into the Academy.
180. And of professors of art at the Universities.
181. Causes of the want of refinement observable in many modern pictures; the large prices they fetch harmful.
182. Teaching by visitors constantly changing mischievous.
183. How a picture should be hung.—An ill-worked picture ought not to be admitted by the Academy.—Bearing of this last opinion upon the present Exhibition.
184. Would have works of sculpture placed permanently in the painting-room, but not any of those sent in for the Exhibition of the year.
185. In favor of the present honorary members being made of use in their positions.
186. Introduction of laymen into the Academy deprecated under present circumstances, and why.—Present feeling towards art and artists at the Universities.
187. Desirable that Government grants should be made to obtain for the pupils of the Academy beautiful examples of every kind of art.
188. In favor of separate exhibitions of the works of Associates (or Graduates) and Academicians.
189. In favor of art-fellowships, but not of a fixed school in connection with the Academy at Rome.
190. Comparison of the French, and English systems (as regards assistance from pupils) in the production of great public paintings.
191. How the works of the Italian masters were executed.—Desirable that pupils should be trained to assist great masters in public works.
A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY: ITS FUNCTIONS AND ITS FORMATION.4
My dear –,
192. If I put off writing the paper you asked me for, till I can do it conveniently, it may hang fire till this time next year. If you will accept a note on the subject now and then, keeping them till there are enough to be worth printing, all practical ends may be enough answered, and much more quickly.
The first function of a Museum—(for a little while I shall speak of Art and Natural History as alike cared for in an ideal one)—is to give example of perfect order and perfect elegance, in the true sense of that test word, to the disorderly and rude populace. Everything in its own place, everything looking its best because it is there, nothing crowded, nothing unnecessary, nothing puzzling. Therefore, after a room has been once arranged, there must be no change in it. For new possessions there must be new rooms, and after twenty years' absence—coming back to the room in which one learned one's bird or beast alphabet, we should be able to show our children the old bird on the old perch in the accustomed corner. But—first of all, let the room be beautifully complete, i.e. complete enough for its proper business.
193. In the British Museum, at the top of the stairs, we encounter in a terrific alliance a giraffe, a hippopotamus, and a basking shark. The public—young and old—pass with a start and a stare, and remain as wise as they were before about all the three creatures. The day before yesterday I was standing by the big fish—a father came up to it with his little boy. "That's a shark," says he; "it turns on its side when it wants to eat you," and so went on—literally as wise as he was before; for he had read in a book that sharks turn on their side to bite, and he never looked at the ticket, which told him this particular shark only ate small fish. Now he never looked at the ticket, because he didn't expect to find anything on it except that this was the Sharkogobalus Smith-Jonesianius. But if, round the walls of the room, there had been all the well-known kinds of shark, going down, in graduated sizes, from that basking one to our waggling dog-fish, and if every one of these had had a plain English ticket, with ten words of common sense on it, saying where and how the beast lived, and a number (unchangeable) referring to a properly arranged manual of the shark tribe (sold by the Museum publisher, who ought to have his little shop close by the porter's lodge), both father and son must have been much below the level of average English man and boy in mother wit if they did not go out of the room by the door in front of them very distinctly, and—to themselves—amazingly, wiser than they had come in by the door behind them.
194. If I venture to give instances of fault from the British Museum, it is because, on the whole, it is the best-ordered and pleasantest institution in all England, and the grandest concentration of the means of human knowledge in the world. And I am heartily sorry for the break-up of it, and augur no good from any changes of arrangement likely to take place in concurrence with Kensington, where, the same day that I had been meditating by the old shark, I lost myself in a Cretan labyrinth of military ironmongery, advertisements of spring blinds, model fish-farming, and plaster bathing nymphs with a year's smut on all the noses of them; and had to put myself in charge of a policeman to get out again. Ever affectionately yours,
My dear –,
195. The only chance of my getting these letters themselves into fairly consistent and Museum-like order is by writing a word or two always the first thing in the morning till I get them done; so, I shall at least remember what I was talking of the day before; but for the rest—I must speak of one thing or another as it may come into my head, for there are too many to classify without pedantry and loss of time.
My requirement of "elegance" in that last letter contemplates chiefly architecture and fittings. These should not only be perfect in stateliness, durability, and comfort, but beautiful to the utmost point consistent with due subordination to the objects displayed. To enter a room in the Louvre is an education in itself; but two steps on the filthy floor and under the iron forks, half scaffold, half gallows, of the big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind and eye at once below possibility of looking at anything with profit all the day afterwards. I have just heard that a French picture dealer is to have charge of the picture gallery there, and that the whole interior is to become virtually a large café, when—it is hoped—the glass monster may at last "pay." Concerning which beautiful consummation of Mr. Dickens's "Fairyland" (see my pamphlet5 on the opening of the so-called "palace"), be it here at once noted, that all idea of any "payment," in that sense, must be utterly and scornfully abjured on the foundation stone of every National or Civic Museum. There must be neither companies to fill their own pockets out of it, nor trustees who can cramp the management, or interfere with the officering, or shorten the supplies of it. Put one man of reputation and sense at its head; give him what staff he asks for, and a fixed annual sum for expenditure—specific accounts to be printed annually for all the world's seeing—and let him alone. The original expenditure for building and fitting must be magnificent, and the current expenditure for cleaning and refitting magnanimous; but a certain proportion of this current cost should be covered by small entrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly
These letters are reprinted from the
The letter which was "open to some misconstruction" may be found in
Reprinted in vol. i., §§ 253-273.—Ed.