i6 
Land & Water 
August I, 19 1 8 
Life and Letters ^J.CSquize 
Galleries 
MR. lOSKFH DUVKEX has presented the 
nation with a sum of money to build a ("lalleiy 
of Modern Foreign Art. It is certainly needed. 
The neglect of modern foreign art— especially 
l"rench and Dutch art— has not been com- 
plete in this countrv- ; British collectors were early to appre- 
ciate the Barbizon school, and in the last fifteen years there 
has certainlv been enough writing and exhibiting to famil- 
iarize the public with the nature of almost everything that 
has been done in Europe in our time. But, owing to lack 
of money, or conservatism, or timidity, or all of these, it 
s just to say that for our National Gallery modern painting 
does not exist. One or two donors have presented us with 
a few pictures by Corot, Daubigny, Diaz, and the Marises ; 
Courbet may be "found at South Kensington and a few pn)- 
vincial galleries have gone a little farther. But it is nobody's 
business to watch what is being done and fo see— to put it 
cnidely— that we get in early and cheap. As things stand 
there are masters, recognised as such by competent persons 
in every country, who are quite unrepresented in the national 
collections, and of whom, if things went on as they 
are, we should, fifty years hence, be buying inferior examples 
tit prodigious prices. We need not have been quite so badly 
off as we are. If Dr. Bode was able — as he was — to acquire 
j)ictures bv Cezanne and hang them at Berlin (Cezanne and 
his contemporaries are also to be seen at Munich) and if 
the Kejks Museum at Amsterdam found van Gogh worthy 
of a room to himself, it is clear that the care of a collection 
of old masters, and the liking for them, does not necessarily 
preclude a judgment upon and taste for what has been done 
quite recently. But our National Gallery has laboured under 
obvious difficulties, and a new gallery and separate control 
is the obvious solution. There will be httle difficulty in 
starting such' a collection. France, Belgium, and Holland 
will provide the obvious basis, Corot and his contemporaries, 
the Marises, Mauve, probably Israels and Bosboom. The 
more venerable critics will be shocked when (as they 
will have to) Gaus;uin and Cezinne get in ; but they 
will scarcely lift their voices against Renoir and Degas — 
who, if I remember rightly, are still totally unrepresented 
in London. There are dozens of other Frenchmen of all 
sizes from Manet to Boudin and Cazin. Spain, Sweden, and, 
if wc are really enterprising, Russia, will provide something. 
It will not be necessary to trade with the enemy for any- 
thing German. Since Durer and Altdorfer it can only be 
supposed that German painters have written music. Lenbach 
was a good academic portrait jjainter ; Menzel (whom they 
attempted to pass off as a great master), a skilful, if dull, 
illustrator ; the colour of the romantic Bocklin has to be 
seen to be believed ; and the best of the living Germans 
would not be conspicuous in our current art shows. We 
must be grateful for the new gallery ; but I should like to 
add a few qualifying remarks. 
****** 
To illustrate ttie limitations of tliese huge public collec- 
tions a parallel from literature may be drawn. They are 
like anthologies. The National Gallery resembles one of 
those works which give in five or ten volumes representative 
selections from the world's Greatest Masters, specimens 
drawn from all countries and periods. The Tate Gallery is 
like an anthology of nineteenth century literature ; the new 
Du\-een Gallery will be like a volume of selections from 
modern foreign writers. Picture galleries have disadvantages 
peculiar to themselves, of course. If they are overcrowded 
with pictures, one cannot escape the clash and confusion 
by "opening" a wall at one place and then shutting it up 
again ; if they are overcrowded with people concentration is 
difficult. And in the ordinary way, so much trouble and 
time is involved in reaching them, that the visitor, not 
knowing when he will be there again, is faced with the 
necessity of either rushing through them or getting tired 
limbs and a crick in the neck. But their principal defect as 
an element in "artistic education" is inseparable from their 
principal merit ; tliey cover too much ground and they cover 
it inadequately. Large and, within their reference, "com- 
plete" anthologies are, like histories of hterature, indis- 
pensable to those who desire to find their way about. With- 
out such works we might never come into contact with those 
writers who aie most likely to appeal to us. \\'ere it not 
for the few examples of the early Flemings in the National 
Gallery many a man might never have gone to Belgium and 
Bedin to see the Memlings and the van Eycks.lthe Matsys 
and the Patinirs, the van der Weydens, Davids, and van 
der Goes. But you cannot get the fullest and the intensest 
pleasure out of "Milton and Keats by reading the examples 
of thcm,lhowcver numerous, in the Oxford Book of English 
verse ; still less can you fully know and enjoy Vermeer or 
Mantegna from one or two pictures in a National Gallery. 
It is highly desirable that we should have these enormous 
museums of pictures, in ordex that we may easily know the 
best that has been done in the worid and discover, whether 
we are practising art or merely "consuming" it, our affinities. 
But it will be a bad thing if all the good pictures in the world 
get sprinkled evenly throughout the world's great galleries, 
each gallery achieving its aim of getting one or two examples 
of every good painter. 
« * * * * * 
Whenever I see even a single good picture well hung in 
a private house I reflect how much more pleasure I get out 
of it there than I should have done had I seen it amid the 
conflicting clamours of a heterogeneous public gallery. (I 
do not {hink the reflection is peculiar to myself but, in deference 
to a recent correspondent, I am trying to avoid "one" in 
doubtful cases). And it is a commonplace of observation 
that an unusual degree of enjoyment is obtained at a gallery 
which is so fortunate as to possess a whole room, or a whole 
wall, of one artist's works. How much less effective w-ould 
the Giottos at Assisi be were they scattered throughout the 
capitals of Europe ; how much more effective would the . 
great (Ihent altarpiece be if it were reunited instead of being 
in pieces at Ghent, Brussels, and Berlin. No man can get 
the most out of Rubens, Velasquez or Turner unless he has 
seen the Rubenses at Antwerp or Munich, the Velasquez 
at the Prado, or the Turners at the Tate. Surely the ideal 
would be. a dual system under which the great miscellaneous 
collections were supplemented by srriall, public collections 
devoted to particular artists or groups of artists. I do not 
know what sort of public gallery) if any, is owned by the 
City of Norwich. The only time I was ever there I saw the 
Cathedral and then found so admirable a hostelry that I 
was not tempted to explore further. But if it has one 1 
am sure it would be much more delightful and useful were 
it entirely composed of the best works of old Crome and two 
or three other Norwich artists, than if it contained, like 
most provincial galleries, a mixture of minor local works, 
ephemeral academic successes and dubious old masters, 
landscapes by Binks, poor copies of Titian and Palma Vecchio, 
and painted acres by Mr. Blair Leighton or Mr. Sigismund 
Goetze. We ought to diffuse our masterpieces as widely as 
possible without breaking up the groups. And I don't think 
there is any doubt tliat a small town or a country place is 
a better setting for a one man gallery than a room or a sej)arate 
building in a large city. 
****** 
Three considerable collections exist of works by the late 
G. F. Watts. People differ, understandably, about his 
eminence ; but he will do as an illustration. There is the 
collection of portraits in the National Portrait Gallery ; 
there is the room full of allegories, including most of his ' 
major works at the Tate ; and there is the miscellaneous 
gallery, filled mostly with small things, at his home near 
Guildford. For myself I remember that when I visited 
the last, one small room in a village with trees all around 
and a haycart in the road, I got more pleasure out of it than 
I have ever got out of the others, which are surrounded with 
crowds of other pictures, and have to be approached first 
through London streets and then through turnstiles laden 
with catalogues and guarded by braided commissionaires. 
I remember thinking that had I my way I would shift half 
the Tate Wattses to Compton to join the others. Suppose 
that the cream of Constable were established similarly at 
Flatford on the Stour, in a little white building by the 
mill, where his own river runs through his own valley. Suffolk 
would have an added attraction ; Constable would be seen 
to better advantage than he ever has been ; and a pilgrimage 
to Flatford would be as exciting as a visit to Haarlem where, 
in a very small and otherwise not notable collection, one finds 
the great series of Raises, painted in and for his own town, 
and still there to his and the town's glory. Provincial 
towns beginning collections, and philanthropists making 
collections which they intend to leave to the pubHc, would 
do well to bear this in mind. They .should specialize ; and, 
where there is a local product worth it, they should specialise 
in that. 
