It is important to make a complete distinction between an exhibition intended for the general public and that intended for advanced students in schools, colleges and universities. The confusion of these two kinds of exhibition is the cause of the failure of many museums and of the dislike with which most people regard a visit to them. The public museum—metropolitan or local—should not include in its purpose the "academic" instruction of schoolboys and university students. That requires a different kind of museum, which is (or should be) provided by the school or university, though, of course, the students should also visit the more popular museums. The funds and staff and space required for the one are not sufficient for both. If both are attempted, the unpopular academic, or scholars', exhibition will get the upper hand and suppress the other, since it is a far easier thing to carry out successfully (for the class aimed at) than is the carefully planned exhibition intended for the "edification" of the greater public. The university museum aims at imparting a much greater amount of detailed and elaborate information than does the great public museum, and requires from the student who uses it a special previous study of the subject, and an exceptional amount of attention and pains in examining the objects exhibited.
Too many of the public museums of Europe aim at the "instruction" of the special student rather than at the "edification" of the general public, whilst most aim at nothing at all except showing, without explanation or comment, a vast mass of specimens or pictures, at the sight of which the patient but bored public gapes with wonder. The public galleries of the Natural History Museum in London have been arranged more distinctly with a view to the edification of the public than those of any other museum which I know. But they still contain too large a number of specimens, and still require an immense amount of work in weeding, selection and labelling, and in deliberately making the specimens exhibited tell a tale which is worth remembering, and can be remembered. Except in the case of the larger specimens, and especially those of fossilized skeletons and shells of extinct animals, it must be remembered that the bulk of the specimens (and, indeed, all the valuable skins of animals and birds, and the vast series of insects and such small things) in that, as in every other large museum, are contained in cabinets protected from the destructive action of light, and arranged for the most part in rooms to which access is obtained only by serious workers after special application. The fishes and other animals preserved in alcohol are kept in a special fire-proof "spirit-building."
A provincial public museum, even if it does not aim at the guardianship of important local "records" of natural history and antiquity, should aim at the edification of the public—the grown-up public—and not at the instruction of school children. The notion that museums are meant for children, which exists, I am sorry to say, even in regard to so splendid and expensive a display of wonderful things as that to be seen at the Natural History Museum, is due to the bad tradition justified by the condition of other museums, where a child may enjoy being astonished, but a grown-up person can take in nothing which appeals to the intelligence. A new city museum is, it is reported, to be established at Birmingham. We may hope that it will not contain the usual unsatisfactory series of badly stuffed exotic animals, birds, and reptiles, and trophies of South Sea islanders' clubs and spears. It should contain first-rate specimens of the living and extinct fauna of Warwickshire, and specimens of foreign animals carefully selected to compare with them and throw light on them; also local prehistoric and antiquarian specimens, illustrated by comparison with the work of savage and remote races. The excellent suggestion has been made that it should contain specimens of the insect-pests of Warwickshire crops. It should also exhibit the minerals from which manufactories of Birmingham draw their metals, and should show the stages of their preparation. It should appeal, not to the boys and girls of Birmingham in the first place, but to the adults, and to do this it should be placed under the care of a really first-rate and ingenious man, who might possibly do for the Birmingham Museum what skilful arrangement and sound knowledge have done for its Art Gallery—an institution intended to appeal not to school children, but to the reasonable adult population of the city.
The principle of exhibiting permanently in public galleries a portion of our great national collections and of preserving another and larger portion in smaller rooms, where they can be more closely but not less carefully disposed and brought out into perfect light and position when required, should be applied to collections of pottery, metal-work, carving, embroidery and such objects, and also to pictures as well as to collections relating to natural history. The chief reason for this is the enormous space required in order to place permanently "on exhibition" all the objects contained in our national art collections, which are continually growing. The vast size of the galleries required, if the entire collections are to be exhibited so that the public may walk in and see anything and everything in it, permanently displayed on walls or in cases—entails gigantic and ever-increasing expenditure of public funds.
But this is not the only objection to these great galleries. The multitude of objects—it may be of pictures—exhibited creates a state of mind in the visitor which prevents his enjoyment of the works of art so exhibited. He is overwhelmed by the vastness of the series offered for his examination and confused and distressed by the close setting of things which require isolation and appropriate surroundings each in its own special way, if they are to be duly appreciated. Not only this, but pictures, as well as other works of art, are, in consequence of the necessity of placing them all in the great public galleries used for the purpose, rarely placed in the most favourable conditions of lighting, and are very often so ill-lighted as to lose all their beauty even if they are not nearly invisible. More public money would be available for the proper care and study of works of art were less spent on the land, building and up-keep necessary for huge galleries.
The desirability of separating a large unexhibited portion from the well-chosen and well-shown exhibited portion of works of art, exclusive of pictures, is, I believe, generally admitted. In the case of pictures the opinion has been expressed that there would be great difficulty in managing a reserved unexhibited portion of our national collections so that the pictures could be properly cared for and yet readily brought into view when required. One can well believe that a similar difficulty was anticipated when it was first proposed to keep books on shelves instead of on tables. Those who take this objection have overlooked the resources of modern engineering. Reserved pictures could be affixed in perfect security in appropriate groups on large screens, and these disposed, like the scenery above a stage, upright and in series, each screen 4 ft. distant from its neighbours. There could be three or four floors of such closely packed screens arranged in two rows, twenty in a row. On a lower floor there would be provided a room with the most perfect light possible for seeing, enjoying and studying a single one of these screens. They would all be numbered and the pictures on each catalogued. A person duly authorised and approved desires to see such and such a picture. He is given a seat in the special exhibition room. The attendant or assistant in charge touches the appropriate button, and by simple electric-lift machinery the screen upstairs carrying the desired picture travels automatically into position and then gently descends into the special exhibition room. There the other pictures on the screen may be, if it be so desired, covered by drapery, the light may be varied in intensity or direction, and, in fact, the most perfect examination of the picture in question may be made. When another button is touched, the picture-screen returns automatically to its place upstairs.
It seems to me that in the case of the growing collection of pictures known as "The National Portrait Gallery," this treatment would not only avoid the necessity of constantly providing new galleries for new acquisitions—but would enable the Trustees to separate those portraits, which are of more general interest and suitable for permanent exhibition in a good position, from less important portraits, which nevertheless must be acquired and preserved as public records. From time to time special groups of the reserved or unexhibited portraits might be put for six months in one of the public rooms—thus providing a change and variety of interest for the general public.
The same plan might be adopted with regard to the pictures in the National Gallery—though no doubt a large number of splendid pictures would be permanently placed in the exhibition rooms. Three things should be remembered in regard to the disposal of these pictures: Firstly, that not one in a hundred among them was intended by the painter to be hung in a gallery closely side by side with other pictures; secondly, that no picture should be exhibited in a public gallery unless it is worthy of the best lighting and surroundings; thirdly, that it is reasonable that the expert and the student should be asked to take some special trouble in order to see special pictures not on public exhibition, and that "the man in the street" who says that he likes to walk in and see all his pictures at any time and without any trouble, will value his collection more when he can only see some of it on special occasions.
The heavy and sometimes fragile character of the "frames" affixed to large pictures has been made an objection to the proposal that they should be fixed to screens moved by electric gear. I cannot venture to discuss the subject of picture frames here. I am aware that it is a very serious and important subject, and that a great deal of the effect of a picture depends on its being bordered by a frame of sufficient size and dignity and one which is really and artistically fitted to allow the finer qualities of the picture to become apparent. How often is such a frame seen? Who is there who has an adequate understanding of picture-frames as adjuncts to, or necessary accompaniments of, great pictures? The splendid carved and gilded wooden frames of some great pictures have a value of their own as examples of design. But how many of them are really suited to the picture which they surround? How much attention has been given by art experts to the question of the best possible "exhibitional" surroundings—nearer and more distant—for this, that and the other, among the great pictures of Europe?