MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
SOME weeks ago, in describing the exhibition of Treaties which was being held at the Public Record Office, I took occasion to deplore the fact that London possesses so few small exhibition buildings. This has brought me a certain amount of correspondence. My attention was drawn to the strange circumstance that the Duke of Devonshire, when showing his pictures as chairman of the Chatsworth Estates, Limited, could find no better premises than a shop in Bond Street. Had an exhibition of similar importance been held in Paris, there would have been five or six small galleries from which the Duke could have chosen. Our poverty in this respect was a reflection upon our national culture and exposed us to con- tempt and ridicule on the part of foreign observers. The fact, moreover, that the only exhibition premises available in London are the rooms of Burlington House obliges us from time to time to subsidise the Royal Academy—an institution which has for years been past a joke and which should be allowed to die a natural and unlamented death. Could we not, my correspondent pleaded, turn some of our ruined churches into galleries, suitable for small or special exhibitions ? The lovely baroque church in Smith Square would, as I had myself suggested, make an admirable small gallery. Could not the authorities do something about it, and if not, my correspondent enquired, why not ? The misfortune is, of course, that in this country we do not possess a single authority who is responsible in such matters. The thought that we should establish a Ministry of Fine Arts makes my blood run cold. But the Minister of Education might well assume actual as well as technical authority, and might well appoint a committee to enquire into our lack of exhibition premises and to examine the problem whether any of our abandoned palaces or churches could be converted for such purposes. I have a feeling, none the less, that Mr. Tomlinson will do nothing of the sort. So sleepy a dog as England's artistic conscience had far better be allowed Io lie.
* In Scotland, where education has for centuries been a national habit, things are better. The Scots, in that they respect learning, are not content merely to slouch through their galleries, gazing at the pictures abstractedly, and only noticing those which arouse the pleasure of recognition or have some story to tell. They want to know something about the artist and about the period in which he lived ; they like to be shown photographs of other pictures by the same hand ; and they actually enjoy being told why it is exactly that any given picture is regarded as important. I spent two hours last week in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, and was much impressed by the ingenuity and enterprise devoted to rendering this superb collection part of the life of the community. The present director, Dr. T. J. Honeyman, is not the type of specialist who believes that pictures can only be appreciated by the experts. Apart from the lectures and conducted tours such as we have in our own galleries, an Association has been formed with the object of pro- moting public interest in the Art Gallery and Museum. Admirably illustrated pamphlets have been prepared which in simple words provide the visitor with such information as he may require. New experiments in hanging and lighting are continually being made. The long length of the galleries has been broken up by screens on which the smaller pictures are displayed ; each of these screens contains sliding panels to which explanatory diagrams and illustra- tions are attached. Regular classes are held every Saturday morning which are well attended by students and others, and in which courses are given in the history of art and the merits of each picture in the gallery explained by experts. And the citizens of Glasgow are thus encouraged to regard their Gallery as a proud personal possession and as a source of enlightenment and pleasure.
• It is indeed a delight to pass from the roar and rattle of the Glasgow streets, to cross the bridge which spans the murky Kelvin, and to spend an hour or two among these striking masterpieces. There is Rembrandt's portrait of "The Man in Armour" which was once owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; there is the Giorgione which Bernard Berenson contends is really a Titian ; there is a fine Frans Hals and a lovely Watteau ; and there is a most beautiful " Virgin by the Fountain," at one time ascribed to Mabuse, but now recognised as by Bernard van Orley. Perhaps the most striking merit of the Glasgow Art Gallery is that it contains one of the most comprehensive and illuminating collection of French pictures, from Delacroix to Matisse, that I have ever seen. Renoir, Degas, Daumier, van Gogh, Braque, they are all well represented. A recent acquisi- tion is a magnificent Utrillo, and the gallery contains as many as three pictures by Seurat. Any person wishing to understand the development of French nineteenth-century painting would find in this gallery a succinct summary of the whole movement. It is an education in itself. And if a Glasgow student feels discouraged by all this Parisian brilliance, he can pass on to the long gallery in which his own Clydeside painters are displayed. Glasgow itself is not perhaps the loveliest city this island contains ; I am assured by those who live there that one ends by acquiring an affection for its immense vitality, its granite strength. Yet to the visitor from the south it possesses a quality of grimness not immediately mitigated by the mists which veil its forcefulness ; it is perhaps because of this dark .background that the pictures seem to throb with light and colour.
One emerges from the Gallery with that sense of elation which only masterpieces can arouse. I have often found that in moments of depression, in those sad moments when man appears to be a maniac scattering dust, it is a salutary experience to visit a collection of fine pictures and thereby to have one's faith restored. One enters feeling bruised and exhausted by the rattle of this angry world and in a second one is transported into an atmosphere of calm. Here assuredly is evidence that man can act without self-interest, that man can make and convey beauty, that man can create things which are independent of economic theory and entirely divorced from determinism. I like to believe that Leonardo really wrote: "Cosa bella mortal' passa: ma non d'arte" ; and that there are certain expressions of human genius which are independent of space and time. I am refreshed when I can observe evidence of the perfect- ibility of mankind ; and the contemplation of the masterpieces of painting and sculpture do in fact produce in me that comforting illusion. I am assured, however, by those who devote their lives to the study of art that this is an amateurish experience. For them the contemplation of masterpieces does not produce that sense of elation which I invariably derive ; they are so saddened by bad pictures that the delight which they take in good pictures is poisoned at the source. To derive nothing but pleasure from a visit to an art gallery indicates, so they assure me, that one cannot really know much about art.
I should hesitate to credit these pessimistic assertions, were it not that I often experience similar reactions in regard to books. Really bad books do not disturb me any more than really bad pictures disturb the art expert. But the depression caused by books which have all the appearance of being good books, but which are in fact incompetent or insincere, is for me like a lump of lead upon the soul. I do not say that it makes me appreciate good books any the less, but I do admit that it robs me of the elation which writing ought to produce. A masterpiece which does not create that sense of elation is not a masterpiece ; and books which have all the appear- ance of masterpieces while being in fact trivial or insincere do create doubt and depression in the mind. It is perhaps a good thing therefore that I know so little about pictures. Were I also an art expert, I might be saddened by the second-rate, and I should not be able to leave the Glasgow Art Gallery rejoicing in man's unconquer- able mind, or feeling as I recross the murky Kelvin that I have spent two hours on Cythera.
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