RUINED BY CLEANING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19199, 16 June 1924, Page 11

RUINED BY CLEANING.

BRITISH NATION’S PICTURES. GEORGE MOORE’S ATTACK. Tho National Gallery, which recently celebrated its 100th birthday, has been described by Mr George Moore, the wellknown novelist, as one of the most disagreeable places in London. “I have compared the National Gallery to a hospital,” he said to a Daily Chronicle representative. ‘‘Patients in a hospital, however, are not massacred as are the unfortunate patients in the National Gallery. ‘‘Groups of pictures, once enormously valuable, have been ruined by cleaning. It is a fact that Claude’s great picture ‘The Embarkation of St. Ursula,’ has been made worthless by cleaning. I do not know what its value was supposed to be—£2o,ooo to £50.000 perhaps. If it were put up at Christie's to-day it would fetch nothing. “The old painters painted in monochrome, and glazed the picture afterwards. I doubt if a glazed picture can be cleaned without harming the picture, the harm done being sometimes more and sometimes less. GALLERY OR CLEANING FACTORY? “In the case of the Claude I can hardly imagine more harm being done. ‘‘The Gainsborough group has been much injured. Titian’s ‘Venus and Adonis,’ not a great picture, has also been injured, in a lesser degree. “I am aware,” Mr Moore continued, “that I shall make myself - extremely unpopular by criticisms. But the matter is important. It is being widely discussed in London. No one has had thp courage to say anything. So the cleaning goes on. There is a cleaning factory at tho National Gallery. 1 am concerned with facts, not with suggestions, and i merely say; ‘Stop the cleaning.’” Mr Moore proceeded to attack the wallpaper in the Gallery. “It is the most dreadful I have ever seen,” he said. “Instead of a dark, uniform paper, it is a violent paper with spots. You go to see the pictures, and see the wallpaper instead. The Rem'brandts, for instance, might as well not exist, for you cannot see them! all you see is black spots. ‘‘Any woman, for all women have some knowledge of decoration, mtist realise how hideous itjs.” Mr Moore pointed to a picture of Monet which hangs on the grey-papered wall of his drawing-room. ASK A POLICEMAN. “Imagine that on a black speckled background!” he exclaimed. “Would you bo able to see it-? “Unity is tho first essential. I do not think it necessary that the wallpaper in every gallery should be alike. But it should be a dark, uniform paper. Christie’s use green. That is not bad. Eor the Reubens pictures I like old rose. Unity, however, is the first thing that matters.” Sir Charles J. Holmes, the director of the National Gallery, is a friend of Mr Moore. “Sir Charles consults no one but himself,” said Mr Moore. “He might consult a policeman. That would bo better than nothing. _ I don’t suggest, mind you, that he should do so. But he might consult artists, people who know. He might ask the opinion of the Royal Academy. _ “If something isn’t done soon every picture in the National Gallery which is cleaned will bo mined, and in the end there will bo no National Gallery.”