The Museum (Jackson)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
Preparation for the Collections
INTERIOR DECORATION
THE finish of the walls in the galleries will to a certain extent determine what may be done in the way of decoration. Where marble or stone facings or wooden panelling is used no further decoration is needed. If the walls are of plaster there are several methods which may be considered; 1. to leave the plaster rough and tint it; 2. to leave the plaster smooth and paint it; 3. to stretch a material over it; 4. to sheathe it in wood and cover with a textile.
If any of the first three is used, paintings shown in the room must be hung from a rod or bar. (Vide infra, page 121.) With the last, however, they can be suspended on hooks or nails driven into the wall.
The rough plaster wall, tinted, is the cheapest method of all to use in decoration and has numerous advantages. It is much to be preferred to smooth plaster in that it gives a slight unevenness of surface which is a distinct advantage because of the vibration of color thus attained. Water color, while it does not last as long as oil paint, is so much cheaper and quicker to put on that it becomes possible to do over a gallery after a year or two without any more outlay than oil paint in the beginning would have necessitated. If a spatter is used, charming effects may be obtained at very little cost. This method has been tried in various places but has nowhere succeeded so well as in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Here a flat ground tint is used, then a large spatter of another color and finally a small spatter of a third. As an example, one room has a reduced white background, a large spatter of a lilac or pale lavender, and a small spatter of golden yellow. These colors are none of them distinctly seen but the general effect is of an interesting surface which forms a good background, especially for the oriental collections shown in the room. Oil paint should, of course, always be used near stairways or where there is a chance of its being much handled, as, if dirty, it can be washed. [The hand rail of a staircase should always be of a material that can be cleaned. Sandstone is inappropriate for this purpose.]
Should method three or four be used the discussion of textiles which follows will apply. Four is by far the most satisfactory, convenient, but expensive method for use in picture galleries and may be rendered as safe from fire danger as any by the use of asbestos covering for the wooden backing or by impregnating the wood with one of the fire-proof chemicals placed on the market for this purpose. If this same chemical is to be used on the textile, it will affect the color; a small piece, therefore, should be tested before the gallery is hung. Care should be taken, however, that such a chemical, if used, is not of a character to injure the works of art which will be placed near it. In certain galleries of the Chicago Art Institute asbestos paper has been used without any textile above it, simply tinted in water color, and has proved a perfectly unobjectionable temporary makeshift.
TEXTILES
What are the requisites in a good wall covering? First of all, it must be adapted to the objects for which it serves as background; second, it must be durable; third, it must be of a sufficiently close weave so that the dirt will not catch; fourth, it must not show nail holes; and fifth, it must not fade, or, if it does fade, it must fade to some agreeable tone.
In regard to the first requisite, one must choose a material which will have, something of the character of the period to which the objects belong. In this country, with our admiration for oriental things, Japanese grass-cloth has been considered a suitable wall covering for use anywhere, but as a background for Italian pictures of the fifteenth or sixteenth century it is inappropriate. Yet there is something to be said in its favor. There is a richness of tone in the grass-cloth which harmonizes well with the gold frames and rich colors of the Italian paintings, but if we are to see these paintings in anything like their original surroundings we must see them with a background either of some rich wood-work or a silk brocade.
Probably burlap has been more used than any other material in our galleries, partly because of its loose texture and partly because of its cheapness. The experiment of painting the walls under the burlap has been tried in different places. This gives a varied effect that makes the material much more attractive, and burlap should never be used unless some such expedient is resorted to, as the dead tone of the natural color is monotonous. The green burlap so often used fades atrociously, as many museums know to their sorrow. This fabric, like all coarse materials of this character, collects dust very rapidly and is hard to clean. It may, however, be painted over to freshen it when it becomes soiled, although this is not recommended, as the material shrinks unevenly and is apt to hang in festoons after being painted. Beware of gilding burlap, as has sometimes been done, for it is bad taste to gild so coarse and cheap a fabric. In figuring the cost of burlap it must be taken into consideration that the price of hanging is the same for a cheap material as for an expensive one, and, therefore, the initial cost will differ merely in the price of the goods. Fortunately, there are many rich men interested in our museums who are glad to make up the difference in price. Certain other inexpensive materials are on the market such as homespun, monk's cloth, friar's cloth, etc. These are all of a closer weave than burlap and less suggestive of potato sacks. The homespun makes a particularly good background for prints. Some of the sun-dure materials are also attractive in color and weave, although they need to be lined for wall coverings. In the slightly more expensive materials there are some good jutes on the market which come in pale grays and fawn color and which may be dyed according to taste. Some of these are very attractive, especially where the pattern is small and inconspicuous. They make particularly good backgrounds for certain XVIII and XIX century objects.
If the wall is sheathed with wood, the textile whatever it may be, will need to be lined, otherwise the dirt will collect in the cracks of the wood and gradually show through in streaks. A cotton lining is best, but if too expensive, paper may be used.
Pattern is a very serious consideration. A certain amount of inequality in the weave of the material enhances its value as a background because the light and shade that comes with an uneven surface makes the color less constant, and, therefore adapted to a larger number of objects, but where the pattern is too large it becomes obtrusive and suggests the landscape wall-paper used by our Colonial ancestors which was never meant as a background but which, on the contrary, in itself decorated the room.
Velvet makes an interesting wall covering, but it is a great care, especially if exhibitions are to be changed frequently. Should the museum Director choose a velvet, he must be careful that the pile is short, as otherwise the marks made by the frames will be very conspicuous. Also, a velvet with a short pile is easier to keep clean, as the dust clings to a long pile and is almost impossible to brush off. A velvet wall covering should be brushed or cleaned with vacuum at least every six months in an ordinarily clean city and oftener where the air is dust-laden.
Among the most attractive backgrounds, especially for ancient pictures, are the reproductions of the old Italian or French brocades. These reproductions are comparatively inexpensive and may be had from the manufacturers in Italy. If carefully chosen as to pattern and color they are satisfactory, well woven and durable. They may be had in linen, silk and cotton, or pure silk, as desired. Where it is possible, these materials should be bought directly of the Italian manufacturers, as our American buyers usually procure their stock in France, thus necessitating payment of double duty. The beauty and durability of these fabrics is proved by the wall coverings in the Vatican Pinacoteca and the Casino Borghese in Rome. Certain of the German museums have been successful in the use of stencilled wall coverings. In this case an inexpensive Arras cloth in plain color is put on the walls. A pattern is then added by means of a stencil and shaded in such a way as to imitate old brocade. (See Museumskunde, vol. I, p. i, Bode, Das Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin.) At the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, for instance, some of these imitations are remarkably good. This is, however, a subterfuge and one which is not wholly justifiable. The reason it was done in Germany was that it was found difficult to obtain a German made silk brocade which was fast color.
Care should be taken that the material used has no wool in it, as few museums are free from moths, and the greatest care must always be taken to eliminate any possibility of their getting in. Frequently flannel or cashmere is used as a background in cases and occasionally the woolen cloth used in making soldiers' uniforms has been considered a proper and safe background for a case. Nothing attracts the moths more quickly. If felt is needed a cotton or linen felt should be chosen and never a woolen one. There are many charming wall coverings that are made with some woolen threads. These must be excluded from a museum, as the danger is too great. With the impossibility of eliminating dust is bound to come the presence of the moths, who love dust and seek it.
COLOR
One of the most fascinating studies which the museum director must undertake is that of color. On this subject much has been written and good authority may be cited for almost any choice that may be made. One of the most interesting articles on this subject is that written by Professor Dedekam of the Central Museum in Trondhjem, Norway. The substance of this paper was presented to the English Museum Association at one of their annual meetings. Museums Journal, Vol. IV, p. 173. See also introduction to the guide to the Parma Gallery, by Corrado Ricci. Color and its Application, by M. Luckiesch. New York. 1915.
Red is beginning to be used again in some of our galleries. Some twenty years ago when Corrado Ricci was doing over the Brera, in Milan, he used a green which has since become known among museum men as "Ricci green." This was so much in vogue at one time and it was considered so perfect as a background that almost all of the older museums became imbued with the desire to tear off the beef-blood red in fashion fifty years ago and be up-to-date by using what they supposed to be the "Ricci green." The original color in the Brera has faded to such an extent now that almost any shade of green may be called "Ricci green" with impunity. Undoubtedly certain shades of green are more becoming to paintings than almost any shade of red, but it is impossible to generalize in regard to color. A very important point, however, that should be taken into consideration is the fact that to the average museum visitor a series of galleries in which the background colors are made to harmonize from room to room is much less tiresome than a similar series of rooms in which the backgrounds are all of the same color.
Careful study should be made of the paintings that are to go in any one room before the color is selected. Where the collection is growing rapidly, certain rooms should be devoted to certain schools, and a study should be made of each school with a view to determining the color which will be most successful as a background for that school. In this connection, the environment for which the pictures were painted should be considered, as important hints may be obtained from such a study. If a color characteristic of a period is to be used, however, it must not be too vivid, as otherwise it will clash with the objects, all of which have faded with time.
In studying any treatise on color of backgrounds, it is necessary to consider the fact that the light in the different countries varies in intensity, and therefore a color which is beautiful in Italy is not necessarily equally suitable in the United States. Few of our northern cities have at any time of the year the brilliant, glowing, penetrating sunshine that is a characteristic of Italian weather. Even rainy days in Italy are not as dark as rainy days in the North, and the chief necessity in an Italian Museum is to exclude the abundant light. In Germany, on the other hand, the prevalent winter weather is gray and foggy and the light in summer never becomes exceedingly brilliant. A color, therefore, in Italy will look much brighter than that same color in Germany. The position of the gallery and the light which enters will also tend to make the. same color look different in different rooms. Thus, for instance, in Berlin, in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, almost all the side-lit cabinets to the south are covered with the same green velvet, but the color seems quite varied in the different rooms even though they all have approximately the same exposure. In this country most of our museums are so situated that the light which they receive is about half-way in intensity between the light of Germany and the light of Italy. What is true of the German light is also true of light in France and in England, with the exception of London and Liverpool, where the dust and soot in the air further increase the grayness. In Sweden and Norway and other northern countries the light is much more nearly like ours in America, but even here it would be a doubtful experiment to copy directly any color used in a museum without first trying it in this country. Successful backgrounds are rare, as we have already said, nor can the same color be used with equally good effect for sculpture and painting.
Of the many successfully decorated galleries to be seen in Europe, among the most typical is the new picture gallery of the Vatican, where a deep earthy-green moire covers the walls and harmonizes delightfully with the Italian walnut of the woodwork. Perhaps no more successful single example of gallery decoration exists than this. The color brings out all the most beautiful tones in the pictures, the design is enough to give variety, but not enough to be disturbing. The whole atmosphere is that of refined simplicity, a very rare attribute of a picture gallery. One European gallery made the tremendous mistake of thinking that a color which did not appear in any of the pictures would be the most successful background. The room contains paintings by Rubens, Snyders, and other Flemish artists of that time, in whose pictures red predominates. The color chosen for the walls was also a red, but one which did not appear in any of the paintings. The effect was terrible. Almost any of the reds used in the pictures would have been better.
In a certain German museum there are two rooms which will serve as illustrations of the good and the bad in the use of daring colors for grounds. One is a room hung with a cerise satin which has a blinding and dazzling effect upon the eyes of the visitor. No one who has seen it could ever forget it. To make the effect worse, the room is top-lighted so that the glare upon the lustrous surface of the satin adds to the brilliancy of the color and one finds that after looking at one or two of the really beautiful objects displayed in the room, one is seeing green spots and feeling so faint that one moves quickly away. Equally daring, but far more successful is the use of color in the second room where a soft violet about the color of little wood violets has been used as a background for some XVIII century Italian paintings, Canalettos, Guardis, etc. Never have pictures of this period appeared to such wonderful advantage. The soft pearly tints of the sky and water, which ordinarily look so gray, against this color become transparent, opalescent, vital, and the atmosphere of Venice lives again. Compare these with other Canalettos which have been placed on a dull, dust-colored background, where they seem to have lost all power of expression, and it is easy to judge of the influence that the background has on the picture. The Rubens room in the Louvre in Paris is by common consent one of the best examples of a room decorated for a special purpose.
Considering the success with which reduced white has been used in the rooms of the German primitives in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, it is rather remarkable that this color has not been more in vogue in this country. One of the few instances where it has been successfully used is in the rooms devoted to the study series of paintings in the Evans Wing of the Boston Museum. Here the rough plaster has been left in its natural color, which is a reduced white. Another room where this color has been used is the gallery for paintings in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, but here the north light makes the color appear somewhat cold.
A word of warning is, perhaps, not amiss in regard to samples. Any color depends so largely upon the light in the room in which it is to be used that it should be tried out with a large sample actually on the walls of the room before any decision is made in regard to it. Wherever possible, also, one of the pictures which is to go in the room should be placed against the color to try the effect. A certain wall covering which has been used recently in this country which, in the sample, is a lovely green, on the walls of the room in which it is hung appears much too brilliant. Another green which in the sample looks rather unattractive, as a background is one of the best. In the use of textiles for wall coverings many museum Directors have been disappointed to find that the color faded very rapidly after being put on the wall. To offset any such misfortune, it is only necessary to cut off a small piece of the material to be used and to expose it to strong sunlight for a week or two. By comparing this small piece with the larger sample a tendency to fade can easily be discovered.
It has generally been conceded that for sculpture in marble a warm darkish tone is much more agreeable than a cold light tone. Here we have to deal with a cold light surface, in which the shadows are all-important. If we can place it in such a way that it will receive a warm light and be surrounded by a color which will make the shadows darker, we shall have best attained our object. Terra cotta figures, on the other hand, already have a considerable amount of warmth and it is not well to place them against too strong a color. Bronzes, being by nature dark, look well against a larger variety of backgrounds than marble or terra cottas, yet here, too, care must be taken that the color is not too light, as otherwise the contrast will be too sharp. The red color used as a background in the Naples Museum in the room of the Farnese Bull has been highly praised as an excellent color for sculpture, its warm and glowing tone enlivening the cold marble. A more attractive room is the small gallery in the Terme Museum in Rome, where the Fanciulla d'Anzio stands. This is hung with a blue cloth, according to classical precedent, which may be variously described according to the nomenclature in fashion, as Nattier blue or old blue. The warm, creamy tone of the marble is particularly beautiful against this cool background.
A similar color is the Gothic blue used with much success in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts where, as a background for wooden sculpture, tapestries and paintings shown together, it has been much praised. It is difficult to find a color which will show off equally well a collection of miscellaneous objects. An atmospheric blue, such as that described as Gothic blue above, and the blue used in the Altman collection at the Metropolitan Museum in New York are very effective. There is also a gray-brown which was used in the Renaissance rooms at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts which has similar properties.
OTHER BACKGROUNDS
Another background which has been used successfully for paintings is wooden panelling, such as may be seen in the rooms containing the German and Italian primitives in the Evans Wing of the Boston Museum. Here the wood is oak, slightly stained but not polished. In the central cupola room of the Dresden Pinakothek, a very elaborate panelling of some dark wood, perhaps walnut, has been used. This is darker in color and forms an admirable foil for the gold of the frames and the jewel-like colors of the wonderful paintings shown there.
In the long tapestry gallery connecting the Evans Wing with the main building of the Boston Museum the walls have been lined with blocks of travertine brought from the neighborhood of Rome. The effect is delightful. There is a certain warmth of tone in the travertine and an unevenness of surface that make a beautiful background for the tapestries hung in this hall. A similar use of stone may be seen in some of the galleries of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin.
FLOORS
Note the Excessive Glare and the Reflections in the Marble, Glyptothek, Copenhagen, Denmark
it is necessary for the museum Director to remember that the function of the museum is to form a good setting for the objects in the collections and not to be in itself more interesting or more beautiful than its contents.
Tiled floors have been used rather freely in some of our museums, and in the National Museum in Munich the attempt has been made to have the floor representative of the period; thus, a room containing Roman remains is finished with a sort of terazzo. The room with Romanesque and Byzantine silver has a tiled floor. The Gothic room has also a tiled floor but the tiles are of a different pattern. In the Boston Museum the corridors in the main building are tiled, but the tiles have been laid in such a way that there are little grooves between each of them. This makes a roughness which not only hurts the feet but makes the wheeling of a truck both difficult and dangerous to the objects upon it. If tiles are used they should be laid flat and as smooth as possible. The advantages in a tiled floor are: 1. it is washable; 2. it is cheaper than marble; 3. it reflects the light very little; 4. it sheds the dust easily; 5. it is more easily repaired. The terazzo floor is liable to crack with changes of temperature or slight shifting of a building, and should be avoided. Concrete is the cheapest but is hard to walk upon and should always be painted, as otherwise it is impossible to keep it clean.
The most agreeable floor to walk upon is cork tiling. The process has not been sufficiently perfected yet to be thoroughly dependable, however. Some treatment will doubtless soon be invented which will preserve the surface and render it more durable. It is noiseless and unobtrusive in coloring and very restful to stand upon. Hardwood floors are useful and agreeable, and the museum visitor will always be grateful to the architect who has provided them. In order to make these fire-proof, the parquet is laid in mastic cement. This black liquid, containing a certain amount of creosote, is poured hot upon the concrete and the little wooden blocks are laid in it without nails. This device holds the floor firmly in place and there is little danger of the seams opening up or of its becoming uneven. If the blocks are not laid directly in the mastic they are apt to become loose with time. The mastic also helps to deaden the noise of footsteps. In using a hardwood floor, it is well, if possible, to lay it in a pattern with small blocks, as where the floor is laid without a pattern, using long strips, there is found to be more wear and tear in certain places than in others and it is more difficult to replace a worn patch in a floor laid in this manner than where there is a definite pattern which permits taking out a small portion and laying new pieces in that place. Only one kind of wood should be used in a room and the grain should be as nearly matched as possible, as more than one color in a floor is disturbing. Laying floors with a pattern in this way has another advantage in that it gives a variety in passing from room to room that is most agreeable.
As for the finish of these wooden floors, the most attractive and also the most expensive is wax. It is more attractive because it was most used in the periods which are usually represented by the objects in our museums. It is much cleaner than the oiled floor, because a floor which has once been treated with oil must, in order to be kept in good condition, have the treatment repeated at frequent intervals. This means that the floor gets darker and darker with each additional coat, and particles of dust which sift in after lying on the floor, absorb sufficient oil so that they become more or less of a menace to any delicate objects which may be in the room, as in sweeping there is bound to be a certain amount of dust raised which will not fall back on the floor again but will alight on the objects in the room. A varnished or shellaced floor may be so treated as closely to resemble in finish the waxed surface and is much more easily kept in condition than this latter. To avoid reflection the shellac or varnish must be rubbed down until the gloss has disappeared. The waxed floor is the most agreeable, but here the museum man must be cautioned that it requires very frequent cleaning and polishing. If a floor is allowed to go too long without polishing, the wood becomes worn by the dirt brought in on the visitors' shoes and will never look as well again. In a museum with the ordinary number of visitors, the floors should be polished by the janitors once a month; if the attendance is especially large, every two weeks.
Certain museums, both in this country and abroad, have used linoleum or some sort of cork compound on their floors, and this has two advantages. In the first place it is much less tiring for the museum visitor to walk upon and in the second place the clicking of heels that is often so annoying, especially on marble and the floors, is almost completely silenced by the linoleum. The disadvantages are, in the first place, its great expense, and in the second place, the disagreeable odor that it emits when wet. Many of the Italian museums protect their floors with strips of rope carpet which are very strong and durable, also very difficult to clean. A vacuum cleaner is the only thing that can be used on them and even this never seems to fully remove the dust. In the Pinakothek in Dresden the experiment has been made of using a carpet with a thick pile in one of the rooms. This is, of course, a great luxury and is most welcome to the museum visitor, but whether it is practical or not one is inclined to doubt. At the time that the writer was in Dresden, the carpet had only been laid a few months and looked very well, but one would want to see the carpet after it had been down three years in order to judge whether the expense was justifiable. The fire danger is, of course, slightly enhanced by a carpet, and also as a moth breeder it is to be avoided.
TRIM
Marble doorways and baseboards should never be used in exhibition galleries. The reasons for this are, that the museum Director is hampered, in choosing the color of his decoration, by the color in the marble, and, as stated before, the museum must not be in itself so grand as to rival in interest the exhibits. A plain wooden trim in a neutral tone, neither too light nor too dark, is to be preferred. In many cases it will be found possible to do away with door trim entirely, making the plaster turn around the opening. Where the floor is of marble the baseboard should also be of marble because of ease in cleaning. For the same reason, when the floor is of wood the baseboard should be of wood. The so-called hospital finish is of doubtful usefulness in a museum and it must be remembered if this is specified that no furniture, pedestal, or case can be made to set really flush with the wall.
GALLERY FURNITURE
An eloquent plea for seats for museum visitors was made by Dr. Grosse, of Freiburg, at the Mannheim conference, in his article entitled "Die Ausstellung und die Bezeichnung in Kunstmuseen," and many other museum men have followed in his train. It is now universally the custom to provide some sort of seats. What they shall be depends upon the taste of the museum committee and director. The Vatican picture gallery is in this respect, as in many others, a model. In the deep window embrasures are built wooden benches of simple design with backs reaching up to the high window sills, while in the middle of the room are modern copies of the comfortable renaissance folding armchairs with leathern back and seat. These look well and lend dignity and character to the room. The Kaiser Friedrich Museum also uses this type of chair. Some museums use really old chairs of inferior merit for this purpose, but they are never as satisfactory as modern copies because they are more fragile and are not plainly intended for the public. A copy of a chair of ancient design is more appropriate in galleries containing old things than a modern oak chair. In the modern galleries modern chairs can be used. They should not be too heavy nor too comfortable. There is a type of expensive wicker chair which makes a good-looking gallery chair. Benches without backs are less conspicuous than those with backs, and if simply designed are very pleasant additions to the gallery. The museum that is short of funds should be content with ordinary bentwood chairs with cane seats. They may be finished inconspicuously to simulate "fumed oak" and are light, durable, cheap, and portable.
For a top-lighted gallery, most of the museums which are provided with radiators in the middle of the room have resorted to a system of masking the radiator by a circular bench. This makes a heavy and cumbersome object in the centre of the room which greatly detracts from the continuity of the impression one gains when entering the gallery.
There should be, in each room, or in every other room at least, a chair provided for the custodian in order that he may not be obliged to be on his feet all day. He should not use the chair if there are people in the gallery, but there are many hours in the day when he could use it when there is no one present.
There is an art in the arrangement of furniture in a gallery. Brass rods or silken cords to keep people from going too near to objects of value are unsightly and have a bad psychological effect. Children always want to crawl under a rope "just to see what will happen," while grown-ups invariably long to touch objects marked "please do not handle." Skilfully adjusted chairs and tables have the same effect as cords or rods, but seem so naturally a part of the room that no one realizes that they are placed under some valuable tapestry to keep the public from handling it. This is one of the strong arguments in favor of the so-called "period" arrangement of rooms; that is, if you have a notable tapestry or fine painting of renaissance workmanship you can keep the public at a proper distance and at the same time improve the appearance of your gallery by putting a fine chest or an old credenza underneath it. A framed tapestry is much less apt to be handled than one hanging loose. In the case of wooden sculpture, furniture cannot be used to keep the public away. Here, the object must either be placed in a glass case, which is necessary if the polychroming is in a delicate condition, or rope must be used. If ropes are used the standards must be heavily weighted in the base. Iron or brass rods firmly fixed to the floor should never be used because, if they are moved, the holes in the floor always show.
GLASS
In equipping top-lighted galleries, the building committee and the director will find themselves confronted with the interesting problem of choosing suitable glazing. Under present conditions, on account of the war, this will prove a difficult matter, as all the glass best adapted to gallery purposes was produced abroad; the finest of all in Belgium. There are a number of requisites that need to be complied with: 1. the glass must be as white as possible; 2. the figure must be inconspicuous; 3. it must be so designed as to hide beams, outer skylight and electric fixtures; 4. it must diffuse the light well. In order to test these different qualities it is well to arrange in the ceiling of one large room samples of different glasses available in the market. The samples should not be too small, four or six large sheets of each should be used. It will be found that the ordinary ground glass, while it answers the second and third requirements best of any, has yet so green a color that the wall beneath changes perceptibly in tone. The white cathedral glass is thinner than most and perhaps for that reason gives the whitest test; it conforms to two and four also, but is not very successful in three. The rippled glass which has been used in the Metropolitan fulfils all four requirements well. It is subject to one disadvantage, however, in that it is made only in small sizes.
The danger of breaking a pane of glass is great, especially during cleaning, but there is no wired glass on the market sufficiently clear to be used in skylights. Wire netting stretched under the glass serves the same purpose.
The color can be seen in a small sample on the cut edges. All thick glass shows green when cut, but the shade and intensity of the color vary with the kind of glass. On this subject see: Charles L. Norton, A New Era in Interior Lighting. Technology Quarterly, vol. XIV, No. i, page 33. E. J. Edwards, The Lighting of Rooms Through Translucent Glass Ceilings, paper read at the eighth annual convention of the Illuminating Engineering Society, Cleveland, Ohio. September, 1914.
VELARIA
In many matters the museum man would do well to copy methods of installation used by the dealer. The psychology of the art loving and art buying public is studied by him to a profound degree. And yet one abomination has been invented which the dealer persists in using that should never find a place in a museum. This is the velarium. Whether in its form of stained-glass canopy, or as a thick velvet ceiling or as simply a thin cheese-cloth umbrella with flounces on the sides it has no place in a gallery. The mechanism that holds it up is always visible and clumsy, it catches quantities of dust, it dwarfs the size of a room, it gives one a very uncomfortable sensation of heavy pressure on the head, and it is impossible to clean. There is no doubt that the excessive glare on the floor of a gallery is disagreeable, but this may be remedied in various ways, by curtains above the ceiling lights, by fin-like diffusing glasses, and by means of the louvre-like revolving shutters above the ceiling glass such as have been used in Cleveland. The velarium does not in any way increase the amount of light on the picture, it simply darkens the spot in which the spectator stands. On this subject see: Communications to the Trustees IV, p. 14, Boston Museum Publications.
On the subjects so far discussed there are interesting and highly instructive articles by H. Dedekam, Reise Studien, Museumskunde, vol. I, pp. 75, 153, 229; vol. II, p. 92. F. A. Bather, Presidential Address, Museums Journal, vol. Ill, p. 72, and appendix, p. no. Sir W. Armstrong, Necessity for Æsthetic Harmony Between Museums and Galleries and their Contents, Museums Journal, XII, 133. E. Rimbault Didbin, The Care of Art Treasures, Museums Journal, vol. XII, p. 101. Benjamin Ives Gilman, Aims and Principles of the Construction and Management of Museums of Fine Art, Museums Journal, IX, 28. L. Réau, L'Organization des Musées, Paris, 1909. Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunst und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, Leipzig, 1908. Theodor Volbehr, Das "Theatrum Quicchebergicum," Museumskunde, V, 201. M. E. Chevreul, Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors.