The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 3, March 1860)Various
History
The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 3, March 1860)
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
REVISED ELEVATION. Fig. 4.]
By the arrangement proposed, a space of 3,300 square feet will be
available for exhibiting drawings of the old masters; and these rooms
will be entered at once from the entrance-hall, by an _ascending_
staircase, by which the disagreeable impression above alluded to would be
avoided.
The proposed changes would also greatly benefit both the exhibitions
and the schools of the Royal Academy. They would increase and improve
the exhibiting space; giving five large rooms, instead of seven small
ones, as at present: two large rooms being obtained by the suppression
of four small ones. (See Figs. 1 and 2.) The Royal Academy, at present,
has a room appropriated to sculpture, which has long been designated “the
Cellar,” and in which works are deposited, rather than exhibited: the
loss of such a room is almost a gain. Next, it would lose the dark little
octagon room; which, after many efforts to make it a room for exhibition,
has lapsed into the condition of an ante-room, containing a few prints.
The other two rooms suppressed by the new plan are the two small side
rooms at present appropriated to the architectural drawings and the
miniatures; though they are confessedly far too small for their purpose.
The distribution of the increased space available for the exhibitions of
the Royal Academy might be as follows:—The first great room at the top of
the new staircase might be devoted to the sculptors; visitors would then
pass through it, and examine the works of sculpture, instead of having
to diverge to a “cellar,” as at present, or quitting the Exhibition
without seeing the sculpture, as many do. As the entrance would be in the
centre of the building, and lighted from the top, the sculpture might
be arranged in two noble semicircles, forming a grand art entrance into
the collections, and giving that importance to the sculpture which it
deserves. The sculptors would thus at least double the number of their
visitors. From this room the visitors would proceed into the next,
where the space on the left might be devoted to architectural drawings,
and that on the right to miniatures and water-colour paintings. These
works, especially the architectural, would be appropriately placed, and
the miniatures and pictures in water-colours would gain in richness
by being viewed after the colourless marbles, and before the eye had
become accustomed to the fuller richness of the paintings in oil. After
thus greatly improving the exhibitions of sculpture, architecture, and
water-colour paintings, there would still remain the same amount of
exhibiting space as at present for oil pictures. Thus far the change is
clearly a great gain to all the exhibitors.
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