the plan for removing the National Gallery to this site; and the present conclusion seems to be that the pictures will remain where they are.
Is it possible to render the structure in Trafalgar Square suitable for a National Picture Gallery? And, if so, how is this desirable object to be effected? We submit, for the consideration of our readers, a very practical answer to these questions.
But first, let us take a view of the extent of the national possessions in pictures. Since the nation acquired the thirty-eight pictures of Mr. Angerstein, its possessions have increased above twenty-five fold: and they would probably have been even much larger, had suitable arrangements been made to exhibit them. To Sir George Beaumont, the Rev. Holwell Carr, Mr. Coningham, and others, the nation is indebted for many fine pictures of the older masters; whilst to Sir John Soane, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Jacob Bell, and Mr. Sheepshanks the country owes its numerous and choice selection of the works of British artists. The collection of his own paintings and drawings bequeathed by the great landscape painter, J. M. W. Turner, would fill a gallery of itself; and in a few years, Chantrey's bequest of 2,000l. a year to buy modern works will come into operation.
It would be a misappropriation of these artistic treasures to accumulate them all in one gallery, fatiguing the visitor with acres of painted canvas. As national possessions, it would be out of all reason that the metropolis alone should monopolize the enjoyment of them. Since the formation of the National Gallery, the State has aided in the erection of picture-galleries in Dublin and Edinburgh. Even if the principle of centralization were admitted, it would be impossible to find any centre of London equally accessible to its three millions of inhabitants. In the abstract, the central spot would be Smithfield; but no one would be bold enough to say that the public would frequent that spot in greater numbers than they do Trafalgar Square.
The wise and liberal course of dealing with the national pictures would be to render them as useful as possible to the whole of the United Kingdom; to retain in the metropolis a selection, and to circulate the others wherever localities shall provide suitable accommodation for the reception and exhibition of pictures. It would be more useful and interesting that there should be a change of pictures in the provincial localities than fixed collections.[1] The idea of circulation is not new. The public, of its own accord, brings together exhibitions of modern pictures every year in the large towns; and choice works of the old masters, lent by their possessors, and sent from mansions in all parts of the kingdom, are every year entrusted to the managers of the British Institution in
- ↑ Mr. T. Fairbairn is usefully striving to establish a public Gallery of Art at Manchester; but however rich it may become in local resources, specimens of Beato Angelicos, Raffaelles, and the like, successively introduced, for a season, from time to time, would have a very beneficial influence on the tastes of the visitors.
