• A NATIONAL ART COLLECTIONS FUND.
APROPOSAL has been made this week which we heartily welcome. It is to found a Society in the United Kingdom with an object similar to those of Societies already existing in Paris and Berlin—the Societe des Amis du Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Verein- namely, to purchase and present pictures and other works of art to our national collections. Some such Society, it is claimed, is urgently needed in this country if it is to be possible for our national galleries and museums to meet the competition, not only of private collectors, but of public institutions in America and on the Continent ; and at present the income available for purposes of purchase by our own public institutions is far too small to render British competition effective.
Of course, the first need is money, and at first sight it might seem an inopportune moment to ask the public to put its hand in its pocket. Perhaps it would be inoppor- tune if it were proposed to raise immediately a large capital sum, the income from the investment of which was to supply the funds necessary for the Society's yearly work. We doubt, indeed, whether a large sum would be raised in this way,—especially when remem- bering the progress of the Victoria Memorial Fund, though in that case, it is true, the people were kept so much in the dark as to what was proposed to be done that after a time they naturally lost interest in the scheme. The fact is that though the British public, from its richest to its poorest members, is the most generous in the world, is asked to give more, and does give more, to charitable objects than any other public, it only gives really large sums under certain conditions. Its imagination must be fired, its pulse must be stirred, by some striking situation or some sudden need. It has on two occasions lately, for instance, subscribed enormous sums for Indian famine relief funds ; the Hospital Fund has received many hundreds of thousands of pounds ; there have been the various war relief funds, all of them most generously supported,—all these during the last few years, and in addition there has always been enough money forthcoming to provide such sums as have been needed for disasters from hurricanes in the West Indies, Canada, and so on, and to pension the widows and orphans of men who have perished in accidents like that which befel the Cobra.' Here are only a few instances of funds to which the people have subscribed generously and rapidly, but each of them is governed by one condition, namely, that of urgent necessity. Men felt that money must be forthcoming, and therefore dipped deeply into their pockets. But now, what is the differ- ence between these funds and that which it is proposed to raise for the National Art Collections ? This; that it will be difficult to convince the general public that a large capital sum is needed at once. That is to say, the man of moderate means who gave five or ten pounds to any one of the charitable funds just mentioned will not be stirred to give as large a sum down. And that, we believe, is a consideration which has not missed the attention of the promoters of this scheme. With extremely good judgment, therefore, they have decided not to ask for a large capital sum down, but to enrol as many members as possible who will pay the yearly sum of a guinea. We believe they will obtain a very large membership indeed. There are hundreds of men who would not, and, indeed, could not afford to, write out a cheque for £30 and hand it to the secretary of a Society such as this, but who would gladly instruct their bankers to send an order for a guinea every year till further notice. A guinea a year is a small matter after all, and if in addition some definite return were to be obtained for that guinea in the shape of some such privileges as we wish to suggest, we believe the support given to the Society would be not only encouraging but enthusiastic.
Before making suggestions of our own, however, and in order that those of our readers who may not have seen the details of the scheme as originally proposed may grasp its meaning, we will set out one or two more of the main objects and provisions of the Society. First, then, it is thought that in addition to the number of those who v desire to become members paying a yearly subscription of a guinea, there will be a certain number who may be willing to con- tribute donations in proportion to their interest and means. Here we find a little difficulty in following the intentions of the Society, as outlined by the provisional body which has been formed to promote its objects. "It will be from these sums " (i.e., the donations, not the subscriptions), we are told, "that the bulk of purchases will be made," and it is further stated that "such donations may be allocated to any of three separate funds : (1) for ancient pictures and drawings ; (2) for other ancient works of art; (3) for modern works of art. The Executive will appoint Pur- chasing Committees, in whom a certain discretion will be vested." Our difficulty is this :—What becomes of the annual subscriptions ? Supposing that it happened—we should like to see it happen, and we believe, if proper steps are taken, that it will happen—that. the Society were joined by many thousands of annual subscribers ; suppose that it became a magnified edition of such an institution as the Royal Horticultural Society, numbering among its subscribers, and personally interesting, thousands of Englishmen all over the world. How would their annual subscriptions be spent ? We recognise, of course, that a certain sum must be set aside every year for the Society's expenses ; but what we would urge is that the best way to interest a large number of subscribers is to show each of them year by year a number of purchases made by the help of his own subscription. If that were done, not only the few who could afford to give now and then some such sum as a thousand pounds down would feel that this or that gift to a public institution in a sense belonged to them, or rather was placed there by their action, but thousands of poorer men might be able to look at a picture in the National Gallery of British Art, or a piece of sculpture in the British Museum, or a specimen of Renais- sance goldsmith's work in the Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Society, and say to themselves that the picture, or whatever it was, was, so to speak, bought with their money. That is the best way of interesting a large body of English- men in any project such as this. It may not be a very high standard of public opinion to which appeal would thus be made ; the public ought, no doubt, to feel satis- fied that somehow, somewhere, the money they might sub- scribe would be spent wisely and well ; but we believe that a due regard for this feeling would make all the difference between success and failure, so far as interesting annual subscribers to the Society is concerned. "Where is my picture ? " or "What have they bought with my money this time ? " may not be questions wholly devoid of selfish- ness; but if they were asked by a hundred thousand sub- scribers of a guinea once every year at our public galleries and institutions, there would be a good deal more spent on art, and many more works of art brought into the possession of the nation, than there are to-day.
When we have mentioned that the Society's funds would be so constituted as to admit of the reception of legacies, and that special arrangements would be made in order to obtain the free services of expert buyers when- ever a work of art happened to come into the market, we have pointed out nearly all the provisions which have at present been proposed. We would now make a suggestion of our own. Why should not an arrangement be made between such public institutions as the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery of British Art, the National Gallery of Scotland, and so on— in fact, between all public institutions devoted to the pro- motion of art—by which annual subscribers of a guinea to the National Art Collections Fund should be entitled to free passes to those institutions ? We are sure that in the end such institutions would not suffer in pocket. If there
were a hundred thousand annual subscribers to a Fund instituted for the purpose of buying works of art for the nation, the national institutions benefited by purchases made by this hundred-thousand-pound income would have more to show, and consequently would attract more sightseers. We should doubt whether the prospective hundred thousand yearly subscribers of a guinea at present spend five shillings apiece per annum in visiting public art galleries ; and. if they were induced not only to spend between them a hundred thousand pounds a year on art, but also were induced, as they would be induced, to take their friends to look at the works of art which they had helped to buy for the nation, we believe that even the actual takings at the doors of our public institutions would be largely increased. Is our estimate of the tendency of mind of the art-loving section of the nation too low? We do not think it is, when you con- sider that the point to aim at in asking for money for a plan such as this is to interest as many men as possible. For the natural fact remains that there is nothing that the average giver of money likes more than to know how and on what his money is spent. If the prospective yearly subscribers of a guinea could be satisfactorily shown that, we believe that the National Art Collections Society would prove one of the most successful ventures of the kind ever inaugurated in the United Kingdom.
Previous page
