by Leigh Hunt (?; uncredited).
Originally published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (William Tait) vol.3 #15 (Jun 1833).
Now in a certain long street called the Strand stands a certain large building called Somerset House, whence so called, and wherefore erected, history will declare. This building, being an exceedingly capacious building, is for the most part appropriated to sundry offices for the management of some multitudinous matters under Government, connected with taxation and other delightful pursuits; some portion is allotted to certain learned societies; and (all that immediately concerns us now) one entire moiety of the front portion is assigned to that august body, the Royal Academy. Here it is that the members are wont to congregate to conduct its corporate affairs, to lecture to rising genius, to instruct unfledged academicians, to exhibit the works of their own handicraft, (and sell them if any body will buy,) and, occasionally, to indulge in the more fleshly recreation of eating, drinking, and making merry.
For forty and six weeks of the year, or thereabouts, are they employed in the culture and diffusion of all that is glorious in art, and worthy of being known in the mysteries of picture-painting; the remaining half-dozen, commencing with the first in May, being devoted to the philanthropic purpose of improving the national taste, and titilating the public eye. With a view to the efficient consummation of this object, preparatory notice is given, by advertisement, to all aspirants to fame, that their productions are to be forwarded by a given day, and submitted to the solemn decision of the council,—if approved, to be exhibited,—if not, rejected. That work accomplished, and judgment pronounced, the hanging committee (some three of the academicians appointed to select and direct what and whereabouts the various pictures are to be hung) forthwith proceed to exercise their functions, and if any person insinuates that they first carefully dispose of their own, and the works of their associated brethren and friends in the best places, selecting for immediate contiguity such others, as by colour, by frame, or by defect, may bring them into the greatest relief, and ensure conspicuity; and afterwards distribute the remainder above, below, in corners, where they can, accidentally consigning to obscurity those which might prove formidable as rivals, that person must be a libeller,—that insinuation scandalously base.
There are altogether seven rooms employed for exhibition, yet but one any way fit for such a purpose, that being capacions, and admitting the light to fall as it should do from above. Into this the canvass of all the elite goes, as most naturally it ought; considerable grumbling follows the labours of the hanging committee of course, for which they being expectant and prepared, care little. All being duly suspended in their respective places, a favoured few receive the welcome hint that they may now come, pallet in hand, and retouch their several works as they hang, heighten effects, modulate tints, re-arrange the "warms" and the "cools," sober down little bits of raw;" in short, to do what a painter knows so well is wanting te accommodate his picture to situation. This closes preliminaries; the rooms are dusted and cleaned, and—Doff your cap, O Jupiter, escorted by president, keeper, librarian, and the whole array of R.A.'s; enter royalty and rank, to have the virgin peep. Hither and thither they wander, smirking, complimenting, congratulating, and eulogizing, till a right sumptuous dinner, previously provided, is announced, to which they sit and do needful honour—drinking healths and costly wines, making tine speeches, grinning the civil, and stammering something about "progress of art—English school—excellent president—princely auspices—success, and all that." On the following Monday, the public have license to tread in the very footsteps of Dukes, Chancellors, Archbishops, noble Lords, and Right Henourable gentlemen; an honour of which they avail themselves with especial avidity. Carriages, commoners, pedestrians, plebeians, patricians, men-folk, and women-folk, in all varieties, accordingly assemble in crowding shoals, on that happy day, to see "The Exhibition."
The visiter enters the great gateway at Somerset House, between rows of massive pillars, and lots of flunkies lounging with most aristocratic ease on seats considerately placed for their comfort. A guard of honour, composed of a couple of soldiers, with fierce looks and fire-locks, mounted, ready to shoot to death any body who misconducts himself, patrol before the doors. One of these doors opens into a square-paved hall, in which are placed high baized counters, or pay tables, where money is received, and returns made. A splendid blue card with gilt letters is placed into your hands upon the payment of a shilling, (moderate enough,) which card is received by a check-taker, placed at a distance of six inches from the money-man, whereupon the barrier may be legally passed. Three feet further forward sits a redoubtable octogenarian, whose solitary occupation consists in the dispensation of "catalogues," for which shilling the second is disbursed; and, equipped with this necessary apparatus, the visiter finds himself privileged to enjoy himself to the top of his inclination.
Previous to mounting into the regions above he is arrested by an object which commands an attentive gaze. Beside, and at the foot of the staircase, stands, in all his majestic sulkiness, the Farnese Hercules, cabined, cribbed, confined in one-half of a rascally wire-work cage, and looking for all the world as though he were ashamed of his situation, and well he may. It is ever a pitiable reflection with the lovers of the Grand that St. Paul's should be hemmed in to its very ribs by a host of Lilliputian tenements, which answer no purpose, but very effectually to obstruct the view of that noble pile; but St. Paul's, as all reflecting persons are aware cannot cleverly be moved to a more convenient site, so that we must put up with the shame resignedly. Not so, however, is it with Hercules in Somerset House: there he stands, has stood for years past, and in all probability will stand for years to come, in a miserable dark den, scarce higher than himself, so narrow and restricted, that the magnificence of his figure, its glorious amplitude, the fulness of its beauty, its symmetry and just proportions, are as totally obscured as if the council had some sharp reason for concealing it. One might imagine that a fitter position might be found for him somewhere in all London; but no doubt we are wrong.
On an elevation of three steps is found an umbrella-and-stick shop, not for the actual vending of these necessary articles of personal adornment, but for the reception and safe deposit of such parasols and crystal-headed bamboos as may be witlessly taken thither. It is a well authenticated fact that an English public have a strange propensity to poke at pictures if they happen to have at hand any thing to poke withal, and, for such a purpose, than an umbrella or a stick, nothing can be more capital. This singular fact was shrewdly enough observed by the council aforetime, and a prohibitory interdiction to the transit of all pokeable instruments from below upwards was accordingly ruled. For all that, however, poking is not wholly averted; elbows and fingers cannot be left behind; and if there happen to be a glazed picture present the sun in summer does not shine more certainly than that the glass thereof will suffer a solution of continuity before the end of the first three hours of opening the Exhibition.
The sight-seer now commences his tread-mill journey up a dull, dark, dingy, ill-shaped, "well-shaped" stair, jostling with, and, in turns, jostled by those who, like himself, are ascending under the agitation of bliss in prospect, and who, unlike himself, have had their appetites appeased till their very eyes ache above. A little labour brings him opposite a room bearing the imposing title of "Antique Academy," and to enter therein becomes the immediate business of his soul; here first is heard the hum and the shoe-shuffling,—here felt the squeeze, the elbowing, the toe-treading, the spirit-rending, the bonnet-bending, and the straining. Let no man of woman born, or woman, whencesoever sprung, ever so little irascibly inclined, penetrate the mysteries of "the Exhibition;" if he or she do not go under the influence of a solemn oath to "keep their temper," they are undone. But—the visiter, after some ingenious and insinuating movements on the triple principle of the wedge, the lever, and the screw, gains admission, and the first sensation whereof he is conscious is being jammed against frame-edges and pictures, the canvass, the paper, or the glazing of which, he can but breathe a silent prayer, may, for the artist's sake, be sufficiently tough to resist the pressure of his person in one or other of its parts. He looks ('tis where alone he can look) upwards, and above the height of surrounding heads, he sees, glaring in all the lustre of light and copal, what may be pictures possibly. The antique academy is nothing better than a moderate-size room, having three windows placed on that side of it which faces the light, and through which the light, of course and as usual, comes. Such paintings, therefore, as are opposite the windows, have a decent chance of being seen; such as are at the sides, are viewed under the usual effect of varnished canvass looked at angularly; and others are so arranged as to defy the inspection of the keenest-eyed. The council, with considerable adroitness, have projected a couple of three-sided screens from those two portions of the walls which interspace the windows, so as to form three distinct recesses; the advantage gained is, that an infinity of miniatures may be suspended, and conveniently seen from the proximity of the light. It is clear that that side of the screen which is between, and parallel to the two windows, must necessarily be in outer darkness, and it is: and this side is actually made to subserve the purposes of the Exhibition. Pictures which nobody can see are hung where nobody ever look,—the interstitial light always proving to be a sufficient stimulus to the eye, without its wanderings being forced into gloom and obscurity for attraction. We notice this as one of those clever devices which sometimes result from the congregation of geniuses.
After having been mobbed through and about the "Antique Academy" for some half-hour or more, he may suddenly find himself upon the entrance of a doorless chamber called the Council Room, round which are ranged marbles, models, and plaster-casts, in some profusion, Two or three bewildered spirits may be seen crawling about, each uncertain whether his presence there comes within the strict rules of propriety, and justifying the doubt only by the comparative elysium which free space and cool air are imparting. The difference between the two rooms is striking, this being thronged te suffocation, that chillingly deserted, as if there existed magic line between the two which none might pass. Such line does exist. Laocoon and the fighting gladiator, are very magnificient models, and as studies, superb; but ladies are not all artists or students, and in these days when society is essentially artificial and refined, the nude excellence of Phidean chiseling is hardly meet for the contemplation of a female eye. Next to positive outrage, nothing more surely wounds a woman's feelings than the consciousness of being in public proximity to that which is offensive.
Another apartment called the Library adjoins and opens into the "Antique Academy;" and in this was wont to be deposited architectural models, drawings, designs, and casts; this year, however, the former, much to the diseomfiture of those fair creatures, who delight in cork-carving, and papyro-what-is-it, have been removed to the council room, and there they may not wend their steps. Gentlemen of the council, this must not be in future years.
Ere he can "make" the "Great Room," another tedious flight of steps must be ascended; and by passing through the Ante-noom, the dullest of all the number, or the School or Painting, which, for ourselves, we never loved, the sanctum sanctorum may be opened to him. Seats are commodiously placed in the centre, which are always full; happy he who can repose his awearied limbs on one. This is a scene of bustle and confusion; the people seem greedy of shoulder-rubbing, and are not abashed at a squeeze.
There being no barrier to keep the visiters at a respectable distance from the exhibited pictures, every person goes to them as closely as he can of course; so that it is not a little amusing to see in what manner the works are viewed. In front of one, for instance, of very extensive surface, which may require a dozen feet of distance to enable its contents to come within the field of vision, fifty heads may be clotted together, every nose within a few inches of the canvass so that all light being obstructed, the opinions of the beholders must be tolerably sound. Courtesy or commonsense must not be looked for too closely: if while intently occupied in the perusal of a picture, a party of two or three should quietly make a path between it and the gazer, and there stop, let him put his incense in his pocket, and walk away; it is an act tolerated by long custom, and indignation must pass into thin air.
Pinched in feet, buffeted in person, and eyes smarting under the influence of colouring, he at length prepares for descent; and, jaded in mind and body, stares at the sparkling eyes of those who, all excitement, have just entered, (unhappy beings, they little dream of what they have to encounter,) to be, as he has been, pinched, buffeted, jostled, annoyed, harassed, and disappointed,—to see, as he has seen, the Exhibition.