The Principles of Museum Adniiuistration. 209 



2. The greater art collections illustrate, in a manner peculiarly their 

 own, not only the successive phases in the intellectual progress of the 

 civilized races of man, their sentiments, passions, and morals, but also 

 their habits and customs, their dress, implements, and the minor acces- 

 sories of their culture often not otherwise recorded. 



3. Museums of art, wherever they may be situated, have a certain 

 general similarity to each other in purpose, contents, and method of man- 

 agement. Those which most fully represent the art of the communities 

 to which they belong, other things being equal, are the most useful and 

 famous. 



Comment.— Since Cosmo de'Medici founded in Florence, at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, the Museum of the Uffizi— perhaps the oldest museum of art now 

 in existence — every great city in the civilized world has become the seat of a museum 

 or gallery of art. Besides the great general collections of art, there are special 

 museums devoted to the work of single masters, such as the Thorwaldsen Museum 

 in Copenhagen, and the one at Brussels containing only the works of the eccentric 

 painter, Wiertz; the Donatello Museum in the Bargello at Florence, and the Michael 

 Angelo collections in its Academy of Fine Arts and in the Casa Buonarrotti. 



4. The distinction between art museum and a gallery of art is a valid 

 one. It depends upon the system of administration and the character of 

 the officers who control it. 



Comment.— The scientific tendencies of modern thought have permeated every 

 department of human activity, even influencing the artist. Many art galleries are 

 now called museums, and the assumption of the name usually tends toward the adop- 

 tion in some degree of a scientific method of installation. The Cluny Museum in Paris 

 is, notwithstanding its name, simply a gallery of curious objects. Its contents are 

 arranged primarily with reference to their effect. The old monastery in which they 

 are placed, affords a magnificent example of the interior decorative art of the Mid- 

 dle Ages. 



The Cluny Museum is a most fascinating and instructive place. I would not have 

 it otherwise than it is, but it will always be unique, the sole representative of its kind. 

 The features which render it attractive would be ruinous to any museum. It is, 

 more than any other that I know, a collection from the standpoint of the artist. 

 The same material, in the hands of a Klemm or Pitt-Rivers, arranged to show the 

 history of human thought, would, however, be much more interesting, and, if the 

 work were judiciously done, would lose none of its aesthetic allurements. 



Another collection of the same general character as the one just described is the 

 Soane Museum in London. Another, the famous collection of crown jewels and 

 metal work in the Green Vaults at Dresden, a counterpart of which may be cited in 

 the collection in the Tower of London. The Museum of the Hohenzollerns in Berlin 

 and the Museum of the City of Paris are of necessity unique. Such collections can 

 not be created. They grow in obedience to the action of natiural law, just as a tree 

 or a sponge may grow. 



The city which is in possession of such an heirloom is blessed just as is the 

 possessor of an historic surname, or he who inherits the cumulative genius of gene- 

 rations of gifted forefathers. The possession of one or a score of such shrines does 

 not, however, free any community from the obligation to form a museum for pur- 

 poses of education and scientific research. 



NAT MUS 97, PT 2 1 4 



