The National Gallery Of Art Department Of Fine Arts Of The National Museum

Author : Richard Rathbun
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780265364079
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (64 download)

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Download or read book The National Gallery of Art written by Richard Rathbun and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The National Gallery of Art: Department of Fine Arts of the National Museum Among the objects of the Smithsonian Institution, as defined by the act of establishment by Congress in 1846, was the forma tion of a museum, a gallery of art and a library. That the museum, including the gallery of art, was intended to be com prehensive in scope and national in character is evident from the wording of the law, which directed the erection of a building with suitable rooms and halls for the reception and arrange ment on a liberal scale, among other things, of specimens of natural history and a gallery of art, and the transfer to this building of all objects of art, of foreign and curious research and of natural history, belonging to the United States. The Board of Regents, holding their first meeting in Septem ber, 1846, adopted in January following a general programme of operations, in which four main branches were recognized as appropriate to the classification of the museum, namely, natural history; ethnology and archeology; the applied arts and sciences; and the fine arts. The division last named was to include paintings, sculpture, engravings and architectural designs, and provide studios for artists. Realizing that the collection of paintings and sculp ture would accumulate slowly, it was proposed to assemble loan collections during the winter season while Congress was in session, and for the furtherance of this project the cooperation of art associations was to be solicited. After the lapse of sixty years it is impossible to conceive of a wiser or more effective fundamental scheme, the unification under one administrative body of practically all the functions proper to the museum of a great nation, thereby forestalling duplication, overlapping and the waste of public funds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.