DOI Heft:
No. 345 (December 1921)
DOI Artikel:Manson, James Bolivar: The Aberdeen Art Gallery
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21393#0261
THE ABERDEEN ART GALLERY.
BY J. B. MANSON. 000
ART Galleries, like all human institu-
. tions, and more than most, owe their
success, character and usefulness or other-
wise to the personality of the individuals
who control them. Upon the taste, know-
ledge and courage of their directors depend
the quality of their existence, whether, that
is, they are to exist as a force for truth,
beauty and enlightenment, or merely as
collections of popular and pretty pictures
pandering to uneducated taste. 0 0
The path of the director in the first case
is beset with difficulties ; it has to be cut
through the jungle of popular prejudice ;
in the other it is a well-trodden highway
along which ignorance moves without
difficulty and without thought. But the
results of these two procedures are infi-
nitely different; in the one case, enduring
and progressive ; in the other, momentary
and stagnant. 0000
The Aberdeen Art Gallery is in an un-
usually fortunate position. It has a chair-
man who, by the strength of his personality
and his determination to have the real
thing at any cost, has endowed it with a
vital spark as a force for the cultivation, in
the public mind, of a feeling for beauty. In
this he is, and has been, aided and sup-
ported by a director, Mr. Harry Townend,
single-minded in his devotion and en-
lightened in his taste. As a result of their
combined efforts the Aberdeen Gallery has
taken a leading place among the art galleries
of the Kingdom—apart, that is, from the
National Galleries, whose superior re-
sources put them in an unassailable
position. 00000
An art gallery has a duty to the public
which is by no means an easy one. The
essence of its purpose is the education of
the community to an understanding and
love of beauty by showing on its walls
nothing that is not a genuine work of art
in painting, sculpture, or what method so-
ever. It is thus a vital force for the spiritual
development of a people. 000
"ploughing." by
g. clausen, r.a.
LXXXII. No. 345.—December 1921 245
BY J. B. MANSON. 000
ART Galleries, like all human institu-
. tions, and more than most, owe their
success, character and usefulness or other-
wise to the personality of the individuals
who control them. Upon the taste, know-
ledge and courage of their directors depend
the quality of their existence, whether, that
is, they are to exist as a force for truth,
beauty and enlightenment, or merely as
collections of popular and pretty pictures
pandering to uneducated taste. 0 0
The path of the director in the first case
is beset with difficulties ; it has to be cut
through the jungle of popular prejudice ;
in the other it is a well-trodden highway
along which ignorance moves without
difficulty and without thought. But the
results of these two procedures are infi-
nitely different; in the one case, enduring
and progressive ; in the other, momentary
and stagnant. 0000
The Aberdeen Art Gallery is in an un-
usually fortunate position. It has a chair-
man who, by the strength of his personality
and his determination to have the real
thing at any cost, has endowed it with a
vital spark as a force for the cultivation, in
the public mind, of a feeling for beauty. In
this he is, and has been, aided and sup-
ported by a director, Mr. Harry Townend,
single-minded in his devotion and en-
lightened in his taste. As a result of their
combined efforts the Aberdeen Gallery has
taken a leading place among the art galleries
of the Kingdom—apart, that is, from the
National Galleries, whose superior re-
sources put them in an unassailable
position. 00000
An art gallery has a duty to the public
which is by no means an easy one. The
essence of its purpose is the education of
the community to an understanding and
love of beauty by showing on its walls
nothing that is not a genuine work of art
in painting, sculpture, or what method so-
ever. It is thus a vital force for the spiritual
development of a people. 000
"ploughing." by
g. clausen, r.a.
LXXXII. No. 345.—December 1921 245