SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM OF INDUSTRIAL ART.

The origin and objects of the South Kensington Museum of Art are thus given by Mr. Robinson in his Introductory Lecture,* in the Course designed to explain the various objects and operation of the Science and Art Department.

PERMANENT EXHIBITION OF INDUSTRIAL ART.

As the memorable Exhibition of 1851 drew towards its close, and the completeness of its success became apparent, the desire that some permanent institution of an analogous nature should be established, was very generally entertained. While justly proud of our country's preeminence in industrial pursuits, it was yet felt that in one particular, namely, in industrial design, we were outstripped by our neighbors. Some accounted for this inferiority on the old hypothesis of the natural inaptitude of Englishmen in matters of art, while others, with more truth, ascribed it to the want of those aids and appliances to industrial art-education which other countries had long enjoyed.

As to our supposed natural inaptitude, this hackneyed opinion was no longer to be endured; a thousand indications in the Exhibition itself pointed to a contrary conclusion; and in particular it could not be denied, that the preeminent arts of painting and sculpture, although with less of academic aid, flourished as in no ungenial soil, nay even gave evidence of distinctive originality, and a healthy exemption from traditional influences, manifested in no other country. But hitherto painting and sculpture had alone been deemed worthy of serious national regard: schools of design had not flourished, mainly because it was impossible to make people believe that the high and abstract art of their imaginations could have any thing in common with manufactures, or the every-day concerns of life. Our manufacturers and workmen never realized the fact that art could be their practical concern, until 1851 opened their eyes and aroused at once their sympathies and their fears.

Then practical England found out that her nearest neighbor and most formidable industrial rival, France, had made this discovery at least a century ago, and in the superior art-power displayed in the French contributions to the Exhibition, recognized the results of a hundred years' national encouragement of the study of industrial design. The true cause of our relative inferiority was thus evident, and that we were not utterly beaten in this unequal competition was matter for congratulation. Instead of being disheartened, therefore, the general feeling was that of the necessity for redeeming lost time by redoubled activity; and schools and museums of art were felt to be the objects towards which the material resources, as well as the moral influences resulting from the Exhibition, might with especial propriety be directed. The Government Schools of Design, although their action had been languid and irregular, had already exercised an appreciable influence on industrial art; they were, however, experiments only, on a most limited scale; but now something far more extensive and practical was desired. The education of the industrial artist, moreover, was not all-manufacturers complained that their exceptional productions from the designs of eminent artists found but little favor with the general public, who perversely preferred the worthless designs they were accustomed to, and it thus also became evident that the education of the public at large in matters of taste was as essential as that of the artist. School teaching here was inapplicable, or, at any rate, it could only reach the rising generation, and the gradual but sure influence of museums was the only other means. The Exhibition of 1851 itself was a museum, of necessity limited in its teaching functions from representing only the art of the present day; and yet if on this restricted footing its influence had been so remarkable, what might not be expected from a permanent institution, on the widest and most liberal basis, comprising speci

Introductory Address-On the Museum of Art: By J. C. Robinson, F. S. A., Keeper of the Museum of Art, and of the Art Library. Delivered Dec. 14, 1857

mens of all periods and countries, specially directed and arranged with a view to the promotion of taste in ornamental or industrial art? Such an institution it was determined to found.

An application to Government for funds for the purchase of specimens from the Exhibition was immediately responded to, the sum of 5,000l. being granted, and a commission intrusted with its expenditure. The nucleus of a museum was in this manner speedily got together, and its further development was appropriately intrusted to the new Government Department which had been established for the better administration of the Schools of Design.

During the six years that have since elapsed, the Museum has advanced concurrently with the other branches of the Science and Art Department, and has now attained to the proportions of a great national collection. From what has been already stated respecting its origin, it will be evident that from the outset this Museum had a different and more methodic direction than most national collections, which in the beginning have been generally more or less fortuitous gatherings of things rare and curious, only assuming more definite character after long periods of time; whilst it is equally obvious that practical utility in an educational point of view is its most important function.

How Art Collections can be made Educational.

In almost every country, museums are too much surrounded by a sort of exclusive repellant atmosphere. People visit them with the feeling of being admitted on sufferance; the very want of sympathy with the ignorance of the general public, shown in the absence of any provision for their special instruction, being construed as an indirect intimation that such establishments are not intended for them, and that they are, on the contrary, to be regarded as costly foundations for the abstract encouragement of knowledge, meant only for the use and benefit of a favored, few.

It may be true that the imaginary prestige thus created, even though it be the merest sham and delusion, is of some benefit to the cause of learning and science in the abstract; inasmuch as uneducated persons admire and respect much more that which is exalted, and apparently beyond their sphere of comprehension, than that which, being brought down to their own level, loses this charm of dignified mystery; while, at the same time, it may be urged that in endeavors at popular explanatory illustration there is danger of imparting only that little knowledge which is a dangerous thing.

But the two influences of museums here hinted at are compatible with each other. To elucidate and explain a work of art down even to the capacity of a child is not necessarily to vulgarize it. The refined connoisseur may enjoy the choicest specimen none the less because it is made the vehicle of instruction to the unlearned, while, whatever may be the effect on the irretrievably ignorant, it may be safely asserted, that if the general public are inclined to reverence that which, being truly noteworthy, they yet do not understand, their respect will not be lessened when they do.

Generally speaking, in all public collections the following points are, in an instructional aspect, of vital importance:-First, a well-ordered division of the collection into classes, in each of which methodical series of specimens should be got together, showing their historical or chronological and technical development; while in addition, casts, drawings, engravings, and photographs, of remarkable analogous specimens in foreign or private collections, or of complete monuments or objects in situ, of which the specimens in the collection may be fragments or details, should be arranged together with them. Every specimen, also, should be accompanied by a label-card amply yet succinctly describing it. Catalogues full and complete, and also judiciously abridged, should be prepared, accompanied by historical and descriptive essays, and illustrated by engravings; by these aids each section of the collection would be as it were a standing treatise, designed to allure and lead on the observer to the methodic study of the subject; and the most indifferent visitor would perforce be taught something.

In the next place the collection should be fully accessible to all without distinction, every day, as early and as late as possible; this as a matter of public right, remembering that the slightest impediment thrown in the way of the vis

itor, any thing in short which gives to admission the aspect of a favor conferred, is striking at the root of all success. Students and others should be afforded all possible facilities for copying, under regulations involving no unnecessary forms of application or delay; and finally, every object susceptible or worthy of it should be reproduced by molding, the electrotype process, photography, or engraving, and be made available to the public at a minimum price.

A glance at the converse picture, which too generally prevails at present both at home and abroad, will serve to put these desiderata in a clearer light. Collections irregularly developed, rich in one direction as opportunity or personal bias may have brought about, meagre or absolutely wanting in specimens of other classes of equal importance; objects of the most heterogeneous nature grouped together for the mere convenience of display; descriptive labels either entirely wanting or only partially affixed at hap-hazard to perhaps insignificant objects, whilst others of far higher interest are left unnoticed. No catalogue, or it may be one twenty years old, entirely out of date and superseded, while the numbers on the objects are at variance with those in the book. No attempt at collateral illustration-the getting of casts or photographs, a matter of high favor only to be obtained by great influence and long negotiation; admission so hedged about with difficulties, open one day, closed the next; to-day free, to-morrow on sufferance, as if the object were to deter rather than invite the visitor. And it is then evident why museums are either mere lounging places for the idle crowd, or kept up for the sole benefit of the refined connoisseur or the scientific few. The former or popular condition of museums is clearly the only one which modern enlightenment will henceforth be inclined to sanction, and however much a sentimental respect for old ways and merely curious connoisseurship may retard those changes in the administration of museums that in almost every country are being loudly called for, it may safely be predicted that in England, at least, the national good sense will insist on every institution supported by the public funds being made to yield an adequate amount of definite instruction to the public in general.

Objections to Popularizing Public Museums answered.

It is often asked, "After all, what practical result is expected to follow from such popular collections?" And it is argued that designers and workmen are more likely to make a wrong than a right use of the beautiful objects set before them; that is to say, they will, at best, simply imitate without a due power of selection, and thus the pedantic eclecticism which already prevails will be still more strongly confirmed. Again, it is objected that the producers of the beautiful original works we now collect and admire had no museums to go to in search of inspiration; that the old goldsmiths of Florence or Augsburg, the majolica painters, enamelers, wood-carvers, and glass painters, had no such methodic collections to refer to as it is now proposed to form; and that if the minor arts are to have any true development in this country, it must be from the same innate and original genius which was the sole mover of old, and which now in a great measure alone animates our painters and sculptors.

These arguments, however, although specious enough at first sight, involve fallacies which it will be no difficult task to unmask, although to follow them out in all their bearings would be beyond the limits of a lecture.

In the first place, then, it is not true that the old artists received no assistance from collections of works of art, and an inquiry into the social condition and method of training of art-workmen in former times would doubtless reveal a state of matters, as regards instructional facilities, entirely to the advantage of the ancient artist.

Although museums, properly speaking, can scarcely be said to have been formed in modern times before the seventeenth century, collections virtually deserving of the name existed in great numbers from a much earlier period. In the middle ages, every abbey and cathedral, indeed almost every parish church, had its treasury, in which the most exquisite works of art were preserved, to an extent of which we can now form but an imperfect estimate, from the diminished contents of the few that remain after centuries of spoliation. Rich men, moreover, of every degree invested their wealth in costly objects in the precious metals, as the only means of investment offering a prospect of

prompt realization. Bullion and precious gems then formed the only real me. dium of value, and the habits of personal display and pomp of pageantry, so passionate a characteristic of the middle ages, irresistibly prompted the possessors of wealth to display it in the most effective and dazzling manner. Rich cups and salvers, hanaps, coffrets, ewers, jewelry, every object of use or luxury in fact on which the precious metals and gems could be lavished, which would otherwise have lain idle and useless as in their native mines, were accumulated by nobles and princes in an abundance that their descendants at the present day would never dream of rivaling. It will not perhaps be out of place to state, in confirmation of this, that, at the present time, the richest collection in Europe of works analogous to those we are now endeavoring to collect is actually an ancient royal treasury; the almost inestimable riches of the green vaults at Dresden still occupy the same ancient locality, and are in fact the accumulated hoards of the earlier princes of the royal house of Saxony. By an easy and natural transition the treasuries both of the laity and the church became the repositories of every rare and curious, and consequently precious, object an ostrich's egg, a cocoa-nut, a nautilus shell, or a specimen of Chinese porcelain, an elephant's tusk, or a narwal horn, to say nothing of saintly relics innumerable, things little thought of now, were then curiosities of great actual value, and were immediately mounted and adorned in the most exquisite taste with the most precious materials, presented as offerings at some famous shrine, or deposited in the iron-bound chests of potent seigneurs, to be displayed on state occasions to their curious guests or dependents.

Thus connoisseurship, or the taste for collecting, prevailed as strongly in the middle ages as at present, while there can be no doubt but that artisans and the people generally found little difficulty in gaining access to these collections. The church treasuries, we know, were then as now standing exhibitions, accessible alike to the devotee and to the merely curious visitor.

We need but allude to the storied walls of churches and public buildings, to the painted windows, glowing with saintly histories and the richest ornaments; to the armies of statues and innumerable relievi which adorned the noble edifices of the middle ages: these edifices are still the best museums of high art. How far more powerful must their influence have been when in their first blaze of freshness, complete, where now we find but faded and moldering remains!

Modern mechanical contrivances and the division of labor, moreover, have tended to deaden the taste and intelligence of the artisan, by narrowing the field for their exercise, whilst the exigencies of mechanical processes, and other economical reasons, have imposed fresh restraints on the designer; but these again are strong reasons for the extension of instructional facilities. Moreover, the modern artisan, being virtually debarred from obtaining that distinction which is the meed of recognized personal talent, is now less than ever likely to spend his hours of relaxation in the acquisition of knowledge which, though certain to be of great eventual benefit to him, involves additional and present exertion, while it brings no immediate profit or consideration. Thus, again, the means of study and self-improvement must be brought home to the artisan, or he will scarcely go out of his way to obtain them. And as respects uneducated students making a wrong use of the treasures got together for their instruction, even the power of mere lifeless imitation, which is so much dreaded, can scarcely be acquired without a great amount of valuable historical and technical information accruing at the same time. But on this score it may be roundly said, that the man of dull parts, whatever be his previous training, will in all probability always be an imitator, while the taste and judgment of the gifted student will be chastened and refined, not unduly warped, by the influence of good models. It is an indisputable truth that the ignorant or the sostyled self-instructed artist is always the least original. In short, there is nothing to fear and every thing to hope from the influence of well-chosen and wellarranged Art collections.

Distinctive Character of the Art Museum.

It should first be clearly understood that the Art Museum has no connection with the various other collections grouped with it-the Educational Museum, the Museums of Patent Inventions, of Animal Produce, &c., which, as has been

explained on previous occasions, are distinct and separate collections, having nothing in common except the fact of their temporary juxtaposition under the same roof, and their being administered by the same Department of Government. There are, however, other national establishments in the metropolis with which our Museum has some analogy, in particular the National Gallery and the British Museum-the one entirely, the other incidentally devoted to the illustration of art; and it will here not be out of place to state, that from the first the acquisitions to the Kensington Museum have been confined to classes of objects not systematically represented in those collections.

The National Gallery at present occupies a well-defined ground with which the Art Museum is little likely to interfere. This institution confines itself to the collection of paintings as monuments of fine art only, while it may be observed in passing, by an anomalous arrangement, the Print Room of the British Museum takes possession of the drawings and cartoons of ancient masters which have served for the production of pictures. The scope of our own Museum does, however, to a certain extent, approximate to that of both these institutions, and one or more instances of this approximation may with propriety be now adduced. In the first place the decorative works of great painters executed in embellishment of architecture or furniture may be specified. As far as this important brauch can be illustrated by means of full-sized copies from fresco or other paintings, or reduced drawings of works in situ, and likewise by the original sketches and designs of artists for such works, the work is now being done at Kensington, where already a very extensive series is exhibited. Again, the Print Room of the British Museum contains an inestimable treasure of engravings, which, from want of space, it is impossible to exhibit; but there is one section even here, which obviously falls within the province of the Kensington Museum-it is that of engravings of an ornamental or decorative character, the literally-innumerable engraved designs of industrial artists of every speciality, of goldsmiths, armorers, watchmakers, enamelers, embroiderers, cabinet-makers, house-docorators, &c.; these had never been adequately collected at the Print Room, because the scheme of that establishment was to illustrate the history and development of engraving as an art, and not ornamental design exemplified by engravings. In the space of a few months a collection in this speciality numbering several thousand specimens has been got together at Kensington, and a more numerous collection than is probably visible in any other public museum is already arranged and exhibited in glazed frames.

The substantive design of this Museum may be defined as the illustration, by actual monuments, of all art which is materially embodied or expressed in objects of utility. This comprehensive scheme obviously includes works of all periods and countries, from the earliest dawnings of art in classical antiquity to the elaborate products of contemporary art-industry; and a historical or chronological arrangement has been especially, though not exclusively, adhered to. It is not desirable to enter on a lengthy disquisition as to scientific methods of arrangement, and a free description of some of the leading sections of the Collection will alone be possible within the limits of this lecture. It will be as well previously to state, however, that in a chronological point of view few of the specimens hitherto acquired actually go further back than the commencement of the middle ages, and for this reason, that in the British Museum the nation already possesses a most extensive collection illustrative of the arts of antiquity; not, it is true, selected or arranged from the point of view of art, but still mainly valuable in that aspect. We have, then, taken up the chain of development at the point where it has been left by that institution, and which may be broadly said to end with the era of Pagan antiquity.

Sculpture.

The decorative arts in immediate alliance with architecture are of the highest importance, and objects of an architectural nature in stone, marble, wood, terra cotta, bronze, &c, under the general head of sculpture, may very properly be first noticed. An enumeration of a few of the leading specimens will, perhaps, be the best mode of illustration. On entering the new galleries now being arranged, the visitor will remark the great chimney-piece in carved stone from