On the Old Road, Vol. 2 | Page 9

to a certain
period? Do you think that that would be the best division, or should you
prefer any division which takes special arts, and keeps those arts
together?--I should like the Pagan and Christian division. I think it very
essential that wherever the sculpture of a nation was, there its iron work
should be--that wherever its iron work was, there its pottery should be,
and so on.
And you would keep the mediæval works together, in whatever form
those mediæval works existed?--Yes; I should not at all feel injured by
having to take a cab-drive from one century to another century.
Or from the ancient to the modern world?--No.
Mr. Richmond. If it were found convenient to keep separate the Pagan
and the Christian art, with which would you associate the
mediæval?--By "Christian and Pagan Art" I mean, before Christ and
after Christ.

Then the mediæval would come with the paintings?--Yes; and also the
Mahomedan, and all the Pagan art which was after Christ, I should
associate as part, and a most essential part, because it seems to me that
the history of Christianity is complicated perpetually with that which
Christianity was effecting. Therefore, it is a matter of date, not of
Christianity. Everything before Christ I should be glad to see separated,
or you may take any other date that you like.
But the inspiration of the two schools--the Pagan and the
Christian--seems so different, that there would be no great violence
done to the true theory of a National Gallery in dividing these two,
would there, if each were made complete in itself?--That is to say,
taking the spirit of the world after Christianity was in it, and the spirit
of the world before Christianity was in it.
Dean of St. Paul's. The birth of Christ, you say, is the commencement
of Christian art?--Yes.
Then Christian influence began, and, of course, that would leave a
small debatable ground, particularly among the ivories for instance,
which we must settle according to circumstances?--Wide of any
debatable ground, all the art of a nation which had never heard of
Christianity, the Hindoo art and so on, would, I suppose, if of the
Christian era, go into the Christian gallery.
I was speaking rather of the transition period, which, of course, there
must be?--Yes.
Mr. Cockerell. There must be a distinction between the terms
"museum" and "gallery." What are the distinctions which you would
draw in the present case?--I should think "museum" was the right name
of the whole building. A "gallery" is, I think, merely a room in a
museum adapted for the exhibition of works in a series, whose effect
depends upon their collateral showing forth.
135. There are certainly persons who would derive their chief
advantage from the historical and chronological arrangement which
you propose, but there are others who look alone for the beautiful, and

who say, "I have nothing to do with your pedantry. I desire to have the
beautiful before me. Show me those complete and perfect works which
are received and known as the works of Phidias and the great Greek
masters as far as we possess them, and the works of the great Italian
painters. I have not time, nor does my genius permit that I should
trouble myself with those details." There is a large class who are guided
by those feelings?--And I hope who always will be guided by them; but
I should consult their feelings enough in the setting before them of the
most beautiful works of art. All that I should beg of them to yield to me
would be that they should look at Titian only, or at Raphael only, and
not wish to have Titian and Raphael side by side; and I think I should
be able to teach them, as a matter of beauty, that they did enjoy Titian
and Raphael alone better than mingled. Then I would provide them
beautiful galleries full of the most-noble sculpture. Whenever we come
as a country and a nation to provide beautiful sculpture, it seems to me
that the greatest pains should be taken to set it off beautifully. You
should have beautiful sculpture in the middle of the room, with dark
walls round it to throw out its profile, and you should have all the
arrangements made there so as to harmonize with it, and to set forth
every line of it. So the painting gallery, I think, might be made a
glorious thing, if the pictures were level, and the architecture above
produced unity of impression from the beauty and glow of color and
the purity of form.
Mr. Richmond. And you would not exclude a Crevelli because it was
quaint, or an early master of any school--you would have the infancy,
the youth, and the age, of each