The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-18 00:00:00

cise laws, in their restrictions on the manufacture and the
form of bricks, have obstructed the exercise of art in that
material. The window duty acts injuriously on the pro-
portion and. beauty of our buildings. The paper duty has
been extensively detrimental in its effects on periodical pub-
lications, on the arts, on the use of drawing-paper, on the
employment of cards in the jacquard-loom, and in its op-
pressive application to the whole trade of paper-staining.
The glass duties have fettered the arts in their endeavours
to restore painting on glass, in which (contrary to common
belief) we are able to surpass the artists of former times.
The same duties have restricted the adoption of engravings
as ornaments in dwelling-houses. The lower cost of glass
in France has encouraged a much more extended use of en-
gravings in private residences.
In reference to the diffusion of a knowledge of the arts
your Committee have already adverted incidentally to ex-
hibitions. Among exhibitions connected with the encou-
ragement of art their attention has been called to the in-
stitutions established in Germany under the name of
Kunst-Verine, and now becoming prevalent in this coun-
try. These associations, for the purchase of pictures to be
distributed by lot, form one of the many instances in the
present age of the advantages of combination. The small-
ness of the contribution required brings together a large
mass of subscribers, many of whom without such a system
of association would never have bean patrons of the arts.
Messrs. Waagen and Von Klense highly estimate the ad-
vantages conferred on the arts by such associations, which
appear to have been introduced into Prussia by M. Von
Humboldt.
From the subject of exhibitions the Committee have na-
turally been led to inquire into the constitution and manage-
ment of those institutions which have prevailed in Europe
for the last two hundred years, under the name of Acade-
mies. Academies appear to have been originally designed
to prevent or to retard the supposed decline of elevated art.
Political economists have denied the advantages of such
institutions, and artists themselves, of late years, have more
than doubted them. It appears, on the evidence of some
of the witnesses, that M. H. Vernet, the celebrated Di-
rector of the French Academy at Rome, has recommended
the suppression of that establishment. It is maintained by
Dr. Waagen that what is called the academic system gives
an artificial elevation to mediocrity, and that the restriction
of academic rules prevents the artist from catching the feeling
and spirit of the great master whom he studies ; like the
regulations of those literary institutions of former times,
which set more value on scanning the metres of the ancients
than on transfusing into the mind, the thoughts, and feelings
of the poet. Many of the witnesses concur with Doctor
Waagen in the opinion that academies ought properly to
be schools only, wherein such instruction may be given as
is not attainable in the studio of a private master. When
academies go beyond this, their proper province, they dege-
nerate into mannerism, and fetter genius ; and when they
assume too exclusive and oligarchical a character they
damp the moral independence of the artist, and narrow the
proper basis of all intellectual excellence—mental freedom.
It seems probable that the principle of free competition in
art (as in commerce) will ultimately triumph over all arti-
ficial institutions. Governments may, at some future
per.oi, content themselves with holding out prizes cr com-
missions to the different but co-equal societies of artists,
and refuse the dangerous gift of pre-eminence to any.
It is more than probable that our Royal Academy is
indebted for the distinguished names which adorn its an-
nals to the necessity of competing, as a private society,
with other institutions, rather than to the extraneous dis-
tinctions and privileges with which it is decorated, and
perhaps, encumbered. As it stands, it is not a public rht-
tional institution, like the French Academy, since it lives by
exhibition, and takes money at the door. Yet it possesses
many of the privileges of a public body, without bearing the
direct burthen of public responsibility.
The artists examined by the Committee frequently con-
cur in admitting the eminence of the present and of former
members of the Royal Academy ; but they complain of
the exclusive nature of its rules, of the limitation of its
numbers, and of the principle of self election which per-
vades it. Among its exclusive rules has been named one
which prohibits the members of the Academy from belong-
ing to any other institution of artists in London ; and ano-
ther which restricts a candidate for academic honours from
exhibiting beyond the walls of the Academy. It is true
that the inexpediency of the former of these regulations
is acknowledged on the part of the Academy ; but it
still exists, and has recently been carried into execu-
tion. The private and irresponsible nature of the pro-
ceedings of the Academy ; the privilege enjoyed by
the Academicans of exclusively consorting with the
patrons of art at the annual dinner ; their preroga-
tive of retouching their own works previous to exhibition
(a power denied to the other artists who exhibit) ; and
the monopoly of the best places by the pictures of the
acadarnecians, have been adverted to by various witnesses.
Of the privileges above-named some have been denied to
be exclusive ; others have been claimed by the Academy
as essential to the nature of such an institution.
It is certainly to be lamented that artists so distinguished
as Mr. Martin and Mr. Haydon should complain of the
treatment of their works within the walls of the Academy ;
and particularly that Mr. Martin should declare that his
paintings have found that encouragement in the foreign ex-
hibitions of France and Belgium which they have been
denied at home.
Sonic irregularities have been noticed in the delivery of
lectures at the Academy. The neglect of architecture has
been complained of by several artists extra mares ; and the
inadequacy of the instruction given in that important branch
of art is admitted by the President himself.
The exclusion of engravers from the highest rank in the
Academy has often called forth the animadversions of fo-
rein artists. In the French Academy engravers are admit-
ted into the highest class of members. So are they in
Milan, Venice, Florence, and in Rome. In England their
rise is limited to the class of associates. This mark of de-
preciation drove such eminent men as Woollett, Strange,
and Sharpe far from the Academy. Such a distinction
seems the more extraordinary, because British engraving
has attained a high degree of excellence. Foreigners send
pupils hither for education ; and the works of British en-
gravers are diffused and admired throughout the Continent.
The remarks of foreign critics have frequently been elicited
by the unusual predominance of portraits over other works
of art in our annual academic exhibitions. It appears
(from the returns appended to the Report) that fully half
of the paintings annually exhibited have been portraits,
which often inconsistently obtrude themselves before ideal
and historical compositions. In the arrangement of a
national exhibition a more appropriate classification ought
surely to be adopted.
The plan annexed to the evidence of Mr. Wilkins will
explain that fully one-half of the new National Gallery
has been given up to the Royal Academy. Against this
apportionment of the national building a large number of
artists have remonstrated ; and two bodies of painters
have petitioned the House of Commons on the subject.
They declare their inability to compete with an institution
so favoured at the public expense. It is true that the
Academy may be compelled to quit the National Gallery
whenever public convenience requires their removal ; but
the great body of non-academic artists contend that a society
which possesses not only this but many other public advan-
tages ought to be responsible to those who contribute to
their exhibitions, and whose interests they are supposed to
represent. A strong feeling pervades the artists generally
on this subject. They are uneasy under the ambiguous,
half-public, half-private character of the Academy ; and they
suggest that it should either stand in the simple position of
a private institution, or, if it really represents the artists of
Great Britain, that it should be responsible to, and eligible
by, them.
Few circumstances can more fully exhibit the hitherto ex-
clusive nature of our institutions than the fact that we have
only just begun to form a National Gallery. The new
building, now nearly completed, has been thrown back to
open the facade of St. Martin's to Pall-mall—an alteration
in his original design which the architect much deplores.
It is to be lamented that the whole edifice is not fire-proof.
The portion allotted to the Royal Academy is not so. As,
according to the plan, the officers and servants of the Aca-
demy reside on the premises, there will be fires in the acade-
mic portion of the building ; a circumstance which must
more or less endanger the adjacent national collection. In
the construction of the new picture gallery at Munich (des-
cribed in the evidence of Baron Von Klenze) the removal
of all danger from fire seems to have been particularly at-
tended to.
The description of the magnificent galleries of sculpture
the
and
painting at Munich, given by Baron Von Klenze, at
end of the evidence, will be read with interest and in-
struction.
The subject of a catalogue, or descriptions Of the paintings,
is an important element in a national collection. Besides
a catalogue raisonne, Mr. Waagen, in the Berlin Gallery,
and Baron Von Klenze, in the gallery at Munich, have
placed in each compartment of the gallery a descriptive
map of the walls, by reference to which the spectator de-
rives some brief information respecting the several pictures
and their painters. It appears to the Committee that
the most ready and compendious information would be
given to the public by fixing its name over every separate
school, and under every picture the name, with the time
of the birth and death, of thepainter ; the name also of
the master, or the most celebrated pupil, of the artist, might
in certain cases be added. This ready (though limited)
information is important to those whose time is much ab-
sorbed by the mental or bodily labour. For their sakes
also, it is essential that the gallery be opened, in summer,
after the usual hours of labour. It is far better for the na-
tion to pay a few additional attendants in the rooms than
to close the doors on the laborious classes, to whose recrea-
tion and refinement a national collection ought to be prin-
cipally devoted.
It appears to your Committee that some portion of the