PICTURE GALLERIES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17742, 19 April 1923, Page 6

PICTURE GALLERIES.

MR S. HURST SEAGER'S SYSTEM OF LIGHTING. DISPLAY OF OBSTINACY. (racit our 6w>t conp.EsroNmwr.) LONDON, March 8. Visitors from the Dominions often accuse the people of this country of possessing a conservatism amounting almost to obstinacy. After further acquaintance with people and methods this impression is generally modified, especially with regard to commerce and business.

Thut this conservatism does really exist among some important sections of people was amply demonstrated two nights ago at a meeting of the Eoynl Institute of British Architects. Mr S. Hurst Seager, F/R.1.8.A. (Christchurch), has spent a great many years studying the question of the lighting of picture galleries and museums, and the youngest schoolboy would liavo to admit that tho principles he suggests are the most adequate methods —indeed, the on!}' satisfactory methods — that can be applied. Ho seems to have made a personal investigation of all the important galleries of Great Britain and Europe, and he has taken innumerable photographs, most of which point to the fact that hitherto no architect has taken into consideration even the primary laws of light. Most galleries, indeed, arc SO constructed as to obtain the best' light on the floor in the middlo of tho room. They have their light either through glass in the centre of the ceiling, or through glass at tho sides of tho ceiling. The result is that the spectators are illuminated in such a way as to be reflected in The glazed front of the pictures, or glazed pictures reflect the exhibits on the opj)osite wall. In Mr Hurst Seager's Top-Side-Lighted method there must be a double pitched roof, and .the skylights must be, not in the slopes of the roofs nex r . the walls, but in the inner slopes of the roof next the ceiling. This may be more graphically described by comparing tho roof to two inverted V's with a portion of flat solid roofing botween them. Only the inner sides of the V's would be glassed, and thus the light would strike directly on to the picture, and the angle of light would be such that no light-reflection would be seen by spectators standing in front of the picture. To obtain a light-re-flection it- would be necessary to place the eye on a level with the floor. All this seems very simple, but very ingenious, and that it is tho only scientific method possible is easily appreciated from the illustrations that Mr Seager is able to produce. Recently he has written a long article, with illustrations, for the "Journal'' of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and this week he lectured before tho Institute, and gave an interesting and instructive set of lantern views. He traced the attempts in various galleries to obviate the" effects of reflections, the efforts to place the spectators in shadows, or to make tho light on the two sides of the room unequal — a state of affairs which produces much the same effect as the Top-Side-Lighted system. He showed the effect of tho system ■in tho Wanganui Art Gallery, completed in 1917; he demonstrated how the system will be applied to the New Zealand art-gallery at the British Empire Exhibition. Finally, ho showed how many of the well-known galleries could be improved, even iwithout any structural alterations.

- '. ifot to be Convinced. ."" No stranger who attended the meeting could have? been prepared for what followed. Curators and directors of art galleries had evidently been invited to be present, and here, lest any reflection should be cast on the Koyal Institute of British Architects, it must be admitted that, the curators—and not the architects—wbre the speakers t> One architect certainly opened the discussion and cast some reflections upon the structure of tho galleries. Three speakers followed—two wero the curators of galleries, and one a peer of tho realm and a trustee of a national institution. . The. fact that it, had boon suggested that the buildings they held in affection were not perfect sepms to have had the same effect upon all three. They all talked a great deal of pleasant nonsense, which would not bear reporting. With one accord they said in so many words: "Wo like reflections on our glazed pictures, and we are not going to have anything altered—at least- unless wo think of the alterations ourselves." Ono maintained that it was no inconvenience to him to dodge about a room until he had found an angle which was suitable to view a picture. Another admitted he knew nothing about angles of incidence and angles of reflexion, and he simply shut his mind to such things so that he might not be prejudiced. The third just talked about other things, but he thought the question of lighting galleries might be left to develon of its own accord. In any case, they all said as it were in unison: "We are not going to have a stranger telling us what we ought to do. Go away and let us just remain as we are. What was good enough for our fathers is'good enough for us." It was a lamentable display of childishnes on the part of grown men, but no doubt when Mr Seager is well out of sight in the years tc come they will adopt his system and say, "What progressive and cleyer people we really are."