As in the Pitti Gallery, pictures were generally hung so
as to conform to the symmetry of the rooms,--various styles, schools,
and epochs being intermixed. As the progress of ideas is of more
importance to note than the variations of styles or the degree of
technical merit, the chief attention in selection and position should
be given to lucidly exhibiting the varied phases of artistic thought
among the diverse races and widely separated eras and inspirations
which gave them being. The mechanism of art is, however, go
intimately interwoven with the idea, that by giving precedence to the
latter we most readily arrive at the best arrangement of the former.
Each cycle of civilization should have its special department,
Paganism and Christianity being kept apart, and not, as in the
Florentine Gallery, intermixed,--presenting a strange jumble of
classical statuary and modern paintings in anachronistic disorder, to
the loss of the finest properties of each to the eye, and the
destruction of that unity of motive and harmonious association so
essential to the proper exhibition of art. For it is essential that
every variety of artistic development should be associated solely
with those objects or conditions most in keeping with its
inspirations.
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