File:Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries (1907) (14589700639).jpg

Identifier: studiesinpicture00vand (find matches)
Title: Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Van Dyke, John Charles, 1856-1932
Subjects: Painting -- Study and teaching Painting
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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oseproduced by the old museums. Mrs. Gardners Fen-way Court in Boston is another successful attemptat reconstructing a setting for pictures, at makingan ensemble, a harmonious unity of art objects; andin this connection it is worthy of note that the Metro-politan Museum in Xew York has undertaken a simi-lar enterprise with its pictures. Of course a narrow gallery like that in the Louvredoes little harm to a snuill picture as big as yourhand, by Gerard Don or Meissonier. They are likeminiatures, and need a microscope rather than set-ting and distance. Nor is a portrait by Van Dyckor Holbein either greatly harmed or helped by gal-lery light; but it is very different with a wall pictureby Tintoretto, or a series of foreshortened ceilingpieces by Paolo Veronese. Seen at shoit range thefigur(>s in the Tintoretto seem great lumpy giantsfalling out of the canvas, and the foreshortening ofPaolos figures and architecture you, perhaps, thinksome egregious blunder, because you are seeing them
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(V —PAOLO VERONESE (?), Triunriph of Mordecai. S. Sebastiano, Venice. OLD MASTERS OUT OF PLACE 15 placed upright on the wall instead of flattened onthe ceiling (Plate 4). In Venice, when you sawPaolo and Tintoretto on the walls and ceilings of theDucal Palace did you have any protest to make aboutforeshortening or large figures? In Antwerp, whenyou saw Eubenss Descent from the Cross at longrange in the Cathedral, did you think anything abouthis figures being gigantic, coarse, and Flemish? The truth is that all the pictures by these greatmasters are rightly planned, scaled, and painted forthe places they were originally-intGnded. to occupy.If we do not see them to-day from the proper pointof view the fault is ours, not theirs. And the gistof what I would say just now is that the galleriesare largely responsible for our false vision. We mustmake allowance then in picture viewing, as in almostevery other pursuit or study in life, for our own blun-derings—the obstacles that we unwitti

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