DOI Heft:
No. 327 (June 1920)
DOI Artikel:The Royal Academy Exhibition, 1920
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21360#0129
THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBI-
TION, 1920. 0000
FOR many years past critics of the
Royal Academy have been accus-
tomed to attack it as an obsolete institution,
persistently out of touch with modern
thought, incapable of progress, and op-
posed to all reforms which were likely
to advance the interests and help on the
development of British Art. It is possible
that there was at one time some justifica-
tion for this reproach ; it is possible that a
generation or two ago the Academy was
too wedded to its earlier traditions to show
much sympathy with new ideas ; but it
certainly cannot be said that the Burlington
House policy has undergone no change
during the last few years. Indeed, any
one who can go back for half a century
and compare the Academy as it was then
with the Academy of to-day, must admit
that there have been in it developments
and alterations of a very definite kind.
Artists of remarkably unacademic views
and methods have been freely admitted
to membership ; works which would have
been formerly regarded as revolutionary
are now given places in the galleries,
the annual exhibitions have taken on a
new atmosphere and a new character.
All this implies that the Academy has
undergone a process of reform which,
if it has not been hurried, has, at all events,
been effective and significant. 0 0
The present exhibition shows well the
effects of this change. There is no longer
the crowd of ill-assorted pictures plastered
over the walls from floor to ceiling, a
jumble of things, good, bad, and indifferent.
There is, instead, a collection of moderate
size, which has been selected with dis-
crimination and hung with serious con-
sideration, and in which paintings of very
divergent intention have been given places
of reasonable prominence. There are few
things, it is true, of spectacular importance,
but there is a solid mass of sound work
by men who have tried honestly to do their
best, and there is little that falls appreciably
below a worthy average of production.
Generally, the work which best deserves
EPSOM DOWNS : CITY AND SUBURBAN
DAY.” BY A. J. MUNNINGS, A.R.A.
(Purchased under the Chan trey Bequest.—
Copyright strictly reserved for the artist
by Walter Judd I.td., publishers of “The
Royal Academy Illustrated”)
LXXIX. No. 327.—June 1920
123
TION, 1920. 0000
FOR many years past critics of the
Royal Academy have been accus-
tomed to attack it as an obsolete institution,
persistently out of touch with modern
thought, incapable of progress, and op-
posed to all reforms which were likely
to advance the interests and help on the
development of British Art. It is possible
that there was at one time some justifica-
tion for this reproach ; it is possible that a
generation or two ago the Academy was
too wedded to its earlier traditions to show
much sympathy with new ideas ; but it
certainly cannot be said that the Burlington
House policy has undergone no change
during the last few years. Indeed, any
one who can go back for half a century
and compare the Academy as it was then
with the Academy of to-day, must admit
that there have been in it developments
and alterations of a very definite kind.
Artists of remarkably unacademic views
and methods have been freely admitted
to membership ; works which would have
been formerly regarded as revolutionary
are now given places in the galleries,
the annual exhibitions have taken on a
new atmosphere and a new character.
All this implies that the Academy has
undergone a process of reform which,
if it has not been hurried, has, at all events,
been effective and significant. 0 0
The present exhibition shows well the
effects of this change. There is no longer
the crowd of ill-assorted pictures plastered
over the walls from floor to ceiling, a
jumble of things, good, bad, and indifferent.
There is, instead, a collection of moderate
size, which has been selected with dis-
crimination and hung with serious con-
sideration, and in which paintings of very
divergent intention have been given places
of reasonable prominence. There are few
things, it is true, of spectacular importance,
but there is a solid mass of sound work
by men who have tried honestly to do their
best, and there is little that falls appreciably
below a worthy average of production.
Generally, the work which best deserves
EPSOM DOWNS : CITY AND SUBURBAN
DAY.” BY A. J. MUNNINGS, A.R.A.
(Purchased under the Chan trey Bequest.—
Copyright strictly reserved for the artist
by Walter Judd I.td., publishers of “The
Royal Academy Illustrated”)
LXXIX. No. 327.—June 1920
123