Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-23
A NATIONAL ART GALLERY
1T SHOULD BE LOCATED IN THE
CAPITAL CITY.
We Must Lead In Art as Well rs I'm
Commerce - Should Have
Historic Character.

from the Memphis Commercial Appeal
The completion of the magnificent Con-
gresional Library at Washington has
| caused quite a number of persons to ask
why We cannot have also a national art
gallery devoted to pictures. sculpture, archf-
lecture and, in short, to all the fine arts.
Nearly all the European countries have
national galleries. Why should not the
great republic have one?
The idea at first will probably provoke
opposition and even ridicule. We are too
prone to consider ourselves practical and
material persons who relegate art to the
effeminate nations; but he must be a poor
student OF the times who does not realize
the growth of artistic aspiration as well as
artistic achievement in the United States.
Our artists are received into the interna-
tional brotherhood, and ability, not nation
atty, counts. 1t may be said that the re-
public has no national traditions no great
treasures of art, that, in short, there is no
great nucleus for an art gallery; but every
art gallery has to begin young, and IT is
not such a disadvantage as some persons
might imagine.
Very few of the art galleries of Europe
have been conducted on absolutely correct
principles. All Of them have made mis-
takes which have marred the merit of each
national enterprise, and these mistakes
would serve as a warning to the young
republic of the west. When some of the
foreign galleries We're started years ago
their managers were glad to get any sort
of contribution that might be made. The
governors of the various institutions did
not feel at liberty to exercise selective
power. AS consequence. as some one has
said their walls ARE crowded with repe-
titions of primitive cock-eyed Madonnas
and the cabinets are damned with tedious
Flemish reVelS and Dutch trivialities.
The nucleus of some Of the foreign gall
leries has been royal or a papal collec-
'tion, which with many art treasures con-
tained much that was offensive or bizarre.
But the whole collection had to go in, or
nothing.
The Past Before Us.
So 1t is not so Instantaneous as might
be supposed for an art gallery to begin
without traditions, treasures or lump col
lections. All the past would be before us
as an example. We could avoid the pitfalls
into which the European galleries have
been led. There are certain things We could
never hope to have In our national gallery.
Amsterdam has a series OF Rembrandts,
Venice OF TitanS and TtntorettoS, London
Of Turner'S, the Louvre of Rubenses and
the Prado of Velasquez. These could never
be ours save through some great upheaval
that made America the mistress OF Europe
But our gallery could start out on catholic
yet selective lines. We could resolve on
having the best Of all nations. To realize
the highest ideal, the National Gallery of
an artistic character. The visitor and the
artist should be able to trace the various
arts from their most primitive stages up to
the modern eff1orescence. There would of
course. be intervals of poor achievement,
but samples Of the best obtainable art dur
ing those periods Of artistic poverty should
be displayed in order to secure historic
continuity.
problem presents itself at the start as
to what should be admitted to this gallery.
In this connection the following suggestion
from a writer in the New York Evening
Post occurs to us as being sensible and per-
tinent: ITO begin with, the National CAL
lery should be in Washington. The capital
of the United States, and not Of any one
state, Is the place for 1t, because Of many
obvious reasons; one of the strongest being
that National Museum is already in ex-
istence there. Then 1t would not be prac-
tical to encourage art nationally without
the appointment of a minister Of the fine
arts, though he might, as In France, be
connected with education. 1t would be
necessary to draw up very stringent and
strong rules on the same lines as those OBJ
served all over Europe. The first is that
the work of no living artist should be hung
in the gallery; not until at least ten years
after an artists death should his claims
be even considered.
Should BE International.
The gallery should be international, and
not for the sole benefit Of American artists
who, If it is to be Of real excellence. must