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For the Literary Magazine.

plan for the improvement
and diffusion of the arts,
adapted to the united
states.

THE scarcity of taste and of
skill in the fine arts of painting,
sculpture, and architecture, in the
United States, is a subject of great
wonder to travellers. It is a pa-
radox of difficult, but surely not
of impossible, solution, that a ci-
vilized, peaceful, free, industrious,
and opulent nation, of four or five
millions of persons, sprung from one
of the most enlightened nations of
the globe, and maintaining incessant
intercourse with every part of Eu-
rope, should have so few monuments
of these arts among them, either in
public or private collections. There
was not a single public collection of
this kind in the United States till
the establishment of one, a few
years since, at New York; and it
is well known with what slender
encouragement and support the rich
have honoured the New York in-
stitution.

Under such impressions the fol-
lowing plan is published with little
ardour or confidence. But if it has
no influence at present, the time
may come, and, perhaps, be not
very distant, when some of its regu-
lations may be carried into execu-
tion.

It is proposed that a subscription
be commenced in order to raise the
sum of ———, which, when com-
pleted, application should be made
to congress for further assistance;
the total of which sums, under their
sanction, should be consolidated into
a perpetual fund, to which proper
trustees may be nominated, for the
declared purposes, out of the annual

interest, of commencing two gal-
leries, and filling them, as fast as
the interest accrues, with plaster
casts from antique statues, bas-re-
liefs, fragments of architecture, fine
bronzes, &c. collected not only from
Italy, but from all parts of Europe.

That these galleries should be
placed so as to enjoy a northern
light, being parallel to each other,
and consist of strong but simple
forms; void, at first, of all orna-
ment, and solely calculated for the
purpose of containing, in a good
point of view, and well lighted, the
several specimens of art. A conve-
nient space for visitors to pass in
view of them below and between the
objects and the artists, who should
be possessed of a raised stage, under
a continued window, contrived so as
to illuminate at once their drawing-
desk and the images on the opposite
wall.

These galleries, one for statues
and architectural models, and one
for bas-reliefs, should be commenced
at the same time in parallel direc-
tions, and each annually extended
and furnished with casts, in the pro-
portion that the funds would admit.
They should be indiscriminately
opened to all students in the arts,
and the public, under proper regu-
lations, during the greatest part of
the day, throughout the year.

All fine bas-reliefs, &c. should, if
possible, be obtained in moulds, with
a cast in them, by which means
they not only come the safest from
injury, but it would enable the ma-
nagers to place in the gallery two
or three casts of such as best de-
served imitation; and then the
moulds might be sold to our moulders
in plaster of Paris, by which means
other cities would be enriched with
many fine objects at a reasonable
expence, to the great advantage of
architects, schools, and the public in
general.

There are not wanting people
who think that such objects, by be-
ing cheaply multiplied, would injure
the progress of our artists: but ex-
perience teaches otherwise; for
those nations which most abound in

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such things most abound in artists;
and the more any thing is multiplied
by casts or impressions, the more is
the original esteemed; for while the
narrow-minded amateur hides his
fine Cameo, lest a sulphur should be
obtained from it, both he and his
ring are forgot; when, on the other
hand, the liberal collector, whose
chief pleasure it is to gratify all
lovers with a copy of the fine origi-
nals he possesses, finds, to his sur-
prise, the fame of his antique, and
the credit of its owner, increased in
the same proportion; and hence we
may rest assured, that the multipli-
cation of works of art always ends
in a multiplied demand for the la-
bours of artists.

The cheapness of paste has by no
means decreased the esteem of dia-
monds; and man, happily for the
multitude, has always considered
richness and rareness of materials
as no small addition to the merit of
workmanship; even pictures have
been painted, by good artists, on
silver to enhance their value. And
here I cannot avoid observing the
utility it would be of to sculpture if
artists would, as was done by the
ablest of both Greece and Rome,
make models for builders, in clay,
at reasonable prices; for there are
many who cannot afford marble,
that would gladly encourage them
in this effort in monuments, friezes,
&c. The frequency of which in
public would probably encrease the
ambition of the wealthy to be repre-
sented in more expensive materials,
and thence afford the artists more
numerous opportunities of display-
ing their talents.

As each specimen must of neces-
sity be placed at some distance from
the ground, the space below should
be filled with a concise history of
the cast, or with the conjectures of
antiquarians as to its original and
author, to which should be added,
the time and place, when and where
it was found, and the name of the
country and situation the original at
present ornaments.

The pedestal of each statue might
contain the like inscriptions, in

painted letters, the more easily to
correct them on any new informa-
tion.

How useful such inscriptions
would be to travellers, antiquarians,
and artists, I need not point out;
neither need I add the utility that
would arise from marking with a
line on each object the division of
the restored parts; which lines
might be made, by whatever artist
was employed to send home the
moulds, on the spot: for the baneful
effects of partial ignorance, which,
like a weed, springs up among the
best crops of human learning, are
seldom more manifest than among
those whose labours are directed to
the elucidation of fine art in antique
monuments.

Such galleries, when finished,
would possess advantages that are
wanting in foreign museums; where
often, to gratify the love of orna-
ment in the architect, fine bas-re-
liefs are placed so high, as to be of
little use to students, and as traps
only to the antiquarian; of which,
having with younger limbs, and
younger eyes, often followed the en-
thusiastic Winkelman, I could give
many instances.

Here, however, all would be
brought to a level, and to light; all
the restorations carefully distin-
guished; and such men of learning,
as, without great detriment to their
affairs, can never go abroad, would
hence find daily opportunities of be-
nefiting and crediting their country,
as well as themselves, by their eru-
dite remarks on monuments that re-
late entirely to classic ground.

In a word, well prepared, both by
the knowledge and study of these
casts, our yet unborn artists would
be less confused on their arrival in
Europe among the originals; and a
much shorter stay would then suf-
fice: lastly, on their return, these
galleries would help to perpetuate
in their memories the result of their
studies; a fund of employment
would be afforded to young artists
in copying these antiques for fo-
reigners, as well as natives; and
our engravers, either native or im-

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ported, would here always find ob-
jects from whence great works
might be executed, equally inte-
resting and much more correct, as
well as less expesive, than any that
have hitherto appeared in elucida-
tion of antiquities.