DOI Heft:
No. 162 (September, 1906)
DOI Artikel:The lay figure: on providing for the future
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0393
The Lay Figure
THE LAY FIGURE: ON PRO-
VIDING FOR THE FUTURE.
“ Have you heard,” asked the Man with
the Red Tie, “that the Government is going to
have inquiries made into the growth of our national
art collections and into the generally admitted
necessity for increasing the accommodation in our
national galleries? ”
“Yes, I have,” replied the Art Critic; “and I
think it is about time that something serious was
■done to put our galleries into a condition that will
enable them to carry on their work in a decent
fashion. They are inefficient, and their inefficiency
is getting worse every year.”
“You put it very mildly,” laughed the Man with
the Red Tie. “ I say that the state of our galleries
is a scandal and disgrace to us, and that it would
not be tolerated in any other civilised country. We
ought to be ashamed of the manner in which we
treat our art treasures, and yet we go on genera-
tion after generation in the same hopeless and
stupid way.”
“What a waste of indignation over a small
matter ! ” broke in the Treasury Official. “ We
maintain quite as many national galleries as could
!be reasonably desired, and we provide them with
ample funds for carrying on the quite unimportant
work they have to do. What more do you
•want ? ”
“ What more do we want ? ” cried the Man with
the Red Tie. “ We want them to do us credit and
to be of some value as ait institutions. We want
them to be able to hold their own in the serious
•competition to which they are now exposed with
the galleries abroad.”
“ You want more money to be spent upon them,
in fact,” replied the Treasury Official; “and I say
that too much is spent already in satisfying what
are called the claims of art. Besides, the more
it gets the more it seems to expect. I am utterly
opposed to all this expenditure upon useless
luxuries when there are so many far more urgent
•demands upon the national resources.”
“ Because you have no soul for art, because it
seems to you useless and a mere luxury,” replied
■•the Critic, “you grudge every halfpenny expended
upon what is to people of more intelligence a
matter of vital importance. Can you not see that
art education, when it is properly conducted, is
•one of the most valuable aids to national progress
and development ? ”
“ But what on earth have picture galleries to do
•with art education ? ” asked the Treasury Official.
372
“We have plenty of schools where art is taught;
the galleries are only places of amusement, and I
am firmly convinced that they are not worth the
money they cost.”
“ Oh, are they ? ” exclaimed the Man with the
Red Tie. “ If that is your view, and if there are
many more officials who share your convictions, I
can understand why our national galleries are so
pinched and starved.”
“ Would anyone seriously argue that these
galleries are of any practical value ? ” enquired the
Treasury Official. “They are to me the dullest
places in the world, and I never go inside them
unless I have by some unlucky chance to visit them
on business.”
“ I will give you credit at least for not being
ashamed of your ignorance,” laughed the Man
with the Red Tie ; “ but at the same time I think
it is very unfortunate that you should have the
power to interfere with the management of places
with whose purposes you are so utterly out of
sympathy.”
“ It is unfortunate indeed,” sighed the Critic,
and the misfortune is all the greater because the
harm which is being done now by this want of
intelligent sympathy will be so terribly difficult to
repair in the future. I regard our national galleries
as educational centres more valuable than all the
art schools put together, and yet I have to see these
supremely important institutions starved into painful
inefficiency. It is not merely the failure to recog-
nise their present needs that I complain about; the
persistent refusal of the people in authority to make
any provision for the future irritates me even more.
The previous generation never seems to have realised
what I should have thought was obvious enough,
that a national collection would necessarily expand
and would outgrow the building in which it was
housed, and so we have now to crowd a mass of art
treasures into rooms too small to show decently
more than half our possessions. The mistake of
our predecessors we are repeating with infinitely
less excuse, and before many years have passed the
difficulties which we have inherited will become
problems almost incapable of solution. It is, I
contend, the duty of a nation not only to maintain
its public galleries at the moment in a proper con-
dition, but to foresee and provide for their needs
in years to come—to do everything in its power
to encourage their improvement and development.
This seems to me to be not only the fulfilment of
a plain and definite national obligation but to be
true economy as well.”
The Lay Figure.
THE LAY FIGURE: ON PRO-
VIDING FOR THE FUTURE.
“ Have you heard,” asked the Man with
the Red Tie, “that the Government is going to
have inquiries made into the growth of our national
art collections and into the generally admitted
necessity for increasing the accommodation in our
national galleries? ”
“Yes, I have,” replied the Art Critic; “and I
think it is about time that something serious was
■done to put our galleries into a condition that will
enable them to carry on their work in a decent
fashion. They are inefficient, and their inefficiency
is getting worse every year.”
“You put it very mildly,” laughed the Man with
the Red Tie. “ I say that the state of our galleries
is a scandal and disgrace to us, and that it would
not be tolerated in any other civilised country. We
ought to be ashamed of the manner in which we
treat our art treasures, and yet we go on genera-
tion after generation in the same hopeless and
stupid way.”
“What a waste of indignation over a small
matter ! ” broke in the Treasury Official. “ We
maintain quite as many national galleries as could
!be reasonably desired, and we provide them with
ample funds for carrying on the quite unimportant
work they have to do. What more do you
•want ? ”
“ What more do we want ? ” cried the Man with
the Red Tie. “ We want them to do us credit and
to be of some value as ait institutions. We want
them to be able to hold their own in the serious
•competition to which they are now exposed with
the galleries abroad.”
“ You want more money to be spent upon them,
in fact,” replied the Treasury Official; “and I say
that too much is spent already in satisfying what
are called the claims of art. Besides, the more
it gets the more it seems to expect. I am utterly
opposed to all this expenditure upon useless
luxuries when there are so many far more urgent
•demands upon the national resources.”
“ Because you have no soul for art, because it
seems to you useless and a mere luxury,” replied
■•the Critic, “you grudge every halfpenny expended
upon what is to people of more intelligence a
matter of vital importance. Can you not see that
art education, when it is properly conducted, is
•one of the most valuable aids to national progress
and development ? ”
“ But what on earth have picture galleries to do
•with art education ? ” asked the Treasury Official.
372
“We have plenty of schools where art is taught;
the galleries are only places of amusement, and I
am firmly convinced that they are not worth the
money they cost.”
“ Oh, are they ? ” exclaimed the Man with the
Red Tie. “ If that is your view, and if there are
many more officials who share your convictions, I
can understand why our national galleries are so
pinched and starved.”
“ Would anyone seriously argue that these
galleries are of any practical value ? ” enquired the
Treasury Official. “They are to me the dullest
places in the world, and I never go inside them
unless I have by some unlucky chance to visit them
on business.”
“ I will give you credit at least for not being
ashamed of your ignorance,” laughed the Man
with the Red Tie ; “ but at the same time I think
it is very unfortunate that you should have the
power to interfere with the management of places
with whose purposes you are so utterly out of
sympathy.”
“ It is unfortunate indeed,” sighed the Critic,
and the misfortune is all the greater because the
harm which is being done now by this want of
intelligent sympathy will be so terribly difficult to
repair in the future. I regard our national galleries
as educational centres more valuable than all the
art schools put together, and yet I have to see these
supremely important institutions starved into painful
inefficiency. It is not merely the failure to recog-
nise their present needs that I complain about; the
persistent refusal of the people in authority to make
any provision for the future irritates me even more.
The previous generation never seems to have realised
what I should have thought was obvious enough,
that a national collection would necessarily expand
and would outgrow the building in which it was
housed, and so we have now to crowd a mass of art
treasures into rooms too small to show decently
more than half our possessions. The mistake of
our predecessors we are repeating with infinitely
less excuse, and before many years have passed the
difficulties which we have inherited will become
problems almost incapable of solution. It is, I
contend, the duty of a nation not only to maintain
its public galleries at the moment in a proper con-
dition, but to foresee and provide for their needs
in years to come—to do everything in its power
to encourage their improvement and development.
This seems to me to be not only the fulfilment of
a plain and definite national obligation but to be
true economy as well.”
The Lay Figure.