248 AMERICAN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE 



Buckingham Palace. It had long been generally recognised that the old, dingy and 

 rather featureless facade was unworthy of the residence of the British monarch. At 



the same time, when Sir Aston Webb was asked to prepare his designs, the 

 Palace. am restrictions and conditions were such that the result was bound to be an 



unsatisfactory compromise. The design for the new facade, with its 

 raised cornice and balustrade and its rows of pilasters introduced between the windows, 

 is certainly richer and more ornate, but is lacking in clear articulation and in that 

 breadth which, despite all shortcomings, distinguished the original building. ; . -;>\,. 



The violent manifestoes issued by the leaders of the Italian Futurist movement, 

 who advocate the wholesale destruction of old buildings, museums and monuments, 



should not be taken in too literal a sense. They are meant to express 



The nothing more than a patriotic desire that Italy should take her place among 



Campanile ,. j j i . ,. . 



ia Venice, modern nations and develop her natural resources, instead of living on 

 the bounty of foreign tourists. That the growing consciousness of power 

 and the spread of a new imperialism are accompanied by respect of the great achieve- 

 ments of Italy in the past is proved by the adherence to the best tradition of the Re- 

 naissance in the many fine buildings that have been erected all over Italy in recent 

 years, and in such works as the restoration, or rather rebuilding, of the Campanile 

 in Venice. The decision to undertake the formidable task of rebuilding this tower 

 brick by brick, exactly as it was before the fall, was taken immediately after the catas- 

 trophe of July 12, 1902; and the new Campanile, in every way an exact replica of the 

 original building, but on stronger foundations and provided with a passenger lift, was 

 inaugurated on April 25, 1912. Over 1,200,000 twelve-inch bricks, 24,000 cwt. of 

 cement, 58,000 cubic feet of Istrian stone and 1,000 cwt. of iron were used for the 

 gigantic structure, the total cost, including the laborious reconstruction of Sansovini's 

 Loggetta with all its sculptural adornments, being not more than 88,000. 



(P. G. KONODY.) 



AMERICAN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE 



In the conditions promoting the development of these arts in the United States 

 it has become peculiarly necessary to recognise certain civic influences. Large plans 

 for the beautification of great centres like Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, 

 plans embracing new streets and park systems as well as monuments of architecture 

 and sculpture, have reacted upon the ambitions of smaller communities, and out of a 

 national movement for the improvement of taste there have come richer opportunities 

 for artists. This movement has also stimulated the activities of the museums, which 

 have increased in number and are steadily exercising more and more useful functions. 

 The most important of the museums built between 1910 and 1913 is the one at Toledo, 

 Ohio, which was dedicated with a remarkable loan exhibition in January 1912. In 

 addition to the educational work done .through their permanent collections of old and 

 modern works of art the museums are more than ever leavening public taste and en- 

 couraging native talent by the organisation of special exhibitions. Thus the annual 

 shows at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburg, the Pennsylvania Academy in Phila- 

 delphia, and the Art Institute in Chicago^ and the biennial exhibition at the Corcoran 

 Gallery in Washington, have had a profound effect upon painters and sculptors and upon 

 the interest of the people in artistic matters. It is now customary, too, for some exhi- 

 bitions to be carried about the country, the season from the autumn to the spring 

 being divided up amongst half a dozen of the larger and smaller museums. The result 

 is to widen the artist's audience, multiply the prizes for which he may compete and 

 extend his market. 



The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the principal institution of its 

 kind in the United States, has successfully assumed as one of its special tasks the ar- 

 rangement of those commemorative exhibitions which consecrate in some sort the 

 genius of the country's leading artists. Following its memorial exhibitions of works 

 by Whistler and Saint-Gaudens, it has more recently paid similar tribute to the late 



