Studio: international art (9.1897)

A Victorian Gallery

is required; for the desire, felt in every section of
the community, to find some great and lasting way
of showing respect to a Sovereign whose reign is
already the longest and one of the most momen-
tous in our history could not be satisfied more
completely. No memorial of our Queen could
appeal more vividly to future generations than the
collected evidence of the artistic advance which
has synchronised with her life and prospered under
her rule. We have cause to be proud of what we
have done, and to be grateful to her for the ready
sympathy and encouragement which she has in-
variably given to effort after real progress; and
both our justifiable pride and our sincere gratitude
can be fully expressed by means of a monument
which will definitely commemorate our art revival.

This then is what we want: a Victorian Gallery,
a building in which we can collect the best evi-
dences of the change that has come over us since
the accession of our Queen, a great storehouse of
the art of the last sixty years, where fully and
unmistakably will be set forth the proof of our
national ability to fight our way in the face of the
most serious odds to conspicuous success. Both
the building itself and the collection it should con-
tain must be worthy of the occasion. No small
economies, no triviality of conception or carrying
out, must be allowed to mar the scheme. The
whole thing must be planned from the very first
on the most generous lines, and never must it be
forgotten that upon the perfection of the memorial
depends its value and its appropriateness. A
nation doing honour to itself for the glorification
of its devoted ruler must be at pains to prove itself
conscious of the national greatness, and must show
itself anxious to impress others by the force of its
own self-consciousness. To be parsimonious in
dealing with the record of its own achievements
would be to stamp itself for all time as wanting in
respect for the position it holds, and unequal to
the duties it has to fulfil.

From the practical point of view a Victorian
Gallery is quite feasible. A national subscription
would, if the response to the appeal were at all in
proportion to the importance of the undertaking,
supply in a very short time funds quite sufficiently
ample to build and endow an art palace worthy to
rank among the finest institutions of its kind
either in this country or on the Continent. The
collection to be housed in the building could be
partly purchased and partly made up of gifts of
works of art from those generous donors who
would, if we may reason by the analogy of the
past, be ready enough to show their active sym-

pathy with an institution created for such purposes.
No artists but those who have lived during the
Queen's reign would be given places in the gallery,
and of their work only what has been produced
since the date of the accession would be eligible.
Every art worker of note during this period should
be represented, and by the best procurable examples
of his performance, so that the worthiest aspect of
Victorian art might be presented, and both its
aggregate strength and variety in detail made
apparent. As many branches of art practice as
possible would have to be illustrated—painting,
sculpture, decoration and design of the finer kinds,
architecture, water-colour, and black-and-white
drawing; and, if a building of sufficient dimensions
were provided, space should also be found to
exemplify the progress made in the more important
applied arts. The one great aim would be to gain
all possible completeness, to make the gallery a
permanent record of a great era, and an adequate
review of work done under conditions which are
scarcely likely ever to recur.

A memorial so significant as this would need to be
placed where its importance would be emphasised
by location, and where its lessons would be made
more valuable by its ready accessibility. It would
require, in fact, to be treated as one of the features
of London, and as entitled to rank among the
greatest of our national institutions. The site,
indeed, should be provided by the nation ; and in
justice to ourselves as a great people we should be
prepared to deal with such a monument in the
manner best calculated to prove that its double
function was universally appreciated. Therefore,
no better place could be imagined for the gallery
than in one of the parks, preferably in the Green
Park, where it would be visible on all sides, easy
to reach, and appropriately situated in the vital
centre of the capital. If the quite legitimate ob-
jection to utilising any portion of the space in the
parks even for a public edifice of a character so
exceptional proved to be insuperable, an equally
convenient piece of ground could be found else-
where in the same district, or an already existing
building might be adapted; but at all events no
effort should be spared to make the expression of
the purposes of the Victorian Gallery dignified in
the highest degree and definite beyond all possi-
bility of dispute. The occasion is absolutely
unique, the opportunity one that can hardly recur,
therefore there must be no hesitation in turning to
account one of the greatest chances of doing
justice to ourselves that our national history has as
yet provided.

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