Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1892 — A DAZZLING SCHEME. [ARTICLE]

A DAZZLING SCHEME.

A PROJECT FOR A GREAT NATIONAL GALLERY. The National Capital to be its Home —Buildings That would Cost s4o,* 000,000. The project of establishing a great National Gallery of History and Art in Washington Is again being discussed in the press. The scheme, as outlined by Mr. Franklin Smith, its originator, is highly attractive. Mr. Smith says: “Mr. James Renwick, the venerable arohiteot associated with me professionally, followed me to Egypt some time ago, and is now on tho Nile in study and oorrespondenoe with me in reference to the proposed national gallery. On my return northward it is my intention to ask to be heard before Congress for land for the gallery, and afterward in the principal cities to enlist public interest and co-operation in its promotion, showing plans and paintings illustrative of the enterprise. “My plan initiative for tho promotion of the entire scheme is to secure forthwith in Washington a full reconstruction of an Egyptian palace, within a surrounding gallery and colonnade of Egyptian design, having an entrance (propylaeum) through pylons. These are to be oonstruoted noflow, with a glass roof, whioh would make tho cheapest and yet the most appropriate possible museum structure for mummies and other unsightly objeots ordinarily to repellant in Egyptian collections, leaving the palace, in its gorgeousness of Egyptian decoration, to show tho home, not the sepulchre, with its accessories of that race.” This Egyptian palace which it is proposed to reconstruct in Washington is only a small part of the vast gullery whioh Mr. Smith has designed. The whole plan embraces such a bewildering array of temples, galleries, arches, palaces, pyramids, laket, domes and towers that the spectator is lost in the contemplation of the drawings and is likely to conolude at once that there is not spare money enough in the whole country to construot such a mass of masonry. The foundation stone of this proposed gallery is the fact that America is the only great country whioh has done nothing as a nation in a oknowledgment of the olaims of art. England has her National Gallery, British Museum and Kensington Museum; France her great national galleries; all the other European nations their vast collections of paintings and statuary, but we have nothing to thank the Government for in the enoouragement of art. The belief is that the United States is for enough advanced in wealth and oulture to appreciate a National Gallery and pay for it. It is proposed that the National Gallery in Washington shall surpusß in extent and in architectural grandeur all similar constructions, but that it shall at the same time be thoroughly utilitarian as an eduoational institution. The prospectus of this magnificent scheme is truly dazzling. On a height in the background is the Parthenon, one-half larger than tho original at Athens, surrounded by ranges of temples of the same order of arohiteoture, with a colossal statue of Columbus upon a terrace in front. This will give some idea of tho magnitude of the plon—an enlarged Parthenon, surrounded by ranges of temples. But this is only a beginning. Stretching away to the right and left are vast colonnades for promenades. Descending from the esplanade of the Pantheon, Successive terraces support galleries and oourts proportioned totne extent and importance of historio periods and races, for orderly delineation of life and art through the age* —Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian, Persians, Roman, Byzantine, Renaissance, Arabio, Gothio, Moorish, Spanish and East Indian. In a park outside the walls of the historical group are many examples of tho modern dwellings of mankind, and in the courts are reproduced structures typical of tho highest development in the respective styles, suoh as the Bnzantine of St. Sophia, the Gothio of the Campo Santo, tho traoery of the Alhambra, and the pierced screen-work of the Taj. In the enclosures of the galleries are oonorete casts of antiquarian remains, such ss the early Christian crosses of lona and other places in England and Ireland, full-sized specimens of fountains, cloisters, and Spanish portals, reproductions of the various nationalities serving as museums of their life, manners, ana industries. Houses of the anoients are reproduced, but instead of a small provincial dwelling like the House of Panes there is the elaborate house of Glauous, (Glauous was a gentleman who lived in high style in Rome some years ago,) a palace that makes our best New-York houses look oommonplace. A medieval oastle has its banqueting hall ornamented with the arms, furniture and metal work of its age. There are rooms from Cairo and Damasous, of full size, showing all the elaboration of Oriental handiwork and tho gorgeousness of the harem. There is a Greek theatre in the Grecian court, and a reproduction of tho Court of Lions, in the Alhambra, in the Arabio court, and of the great Taj Meh&l in the Mogul court, and a huge Gothio hall in the Gothic court, all of full size, and all following the originals in their fittings and furnishings. In all the buildings illustrating any age or oountry the works of art and domestio utensils of that country or that period are gathered, that they may be better understood through proper juxtaposition. This is a very brief mention of some of the more important buildings. It would be hopeless to try to give in a newspaper artiole a description of the whole as shown in the designs. The dimensions, perhaps, will give a better idea of the plan, which requires 220 acres of land, on whioh are 20,000 feet range of pioture galleries and 40,000 feet range of oorridors for statuary, casts and models. The-area under roof is 35 acres; open courts, 40 acres; area around temples for American prehistoric reproductions, 35 aores and the park, 110 acres. The galleries are of one story,with basements, the basements to be used for the making of oasts, for modelers, offices and storerooms. Here is enough, as it seems at first sight, to empty the Treasury of the United States. An enlarged reproduction of the Parthenon, surrounded by temples; Egyptian paiaoea; Roman baths; sections of the Cataoombs; part of great mosque of Cordova: a castle from the banks of the Rhine; the Sphynx and the Pyramids, in miniature; the Town Hall of Antwerp; a salon from Fontainebleau; a court from the palace of the Infanta in Saragoesa, Spain; an old Norman gateway; Japanese and Chinese dwellings; an Egyptian mosque, and hundreds more, and all these buildings to be filled with works of art. But when the plan is explained, although a great sum of money is required, it is not suoh a sum as is beyond the bounds of reason.

“If you look at the plan oloeely," Mr Smith explains, “you will see that every one of those proposed buildings is only one story high. The effect of great masses of architecture is produced by piliug tier upon tier on the sides and summit of a hill. The ascent is gradual by terraces, each a little higher than the last, till the crowning point is reached—the Parthenon on the hilltop. Then the material. To reproduce all these build* ings in brick, out stone, or marble would involve an expenditure of $40,000,000 at the least. But in my plan they aro made of ooncrete, the most available, the cheapest, and most durable of all build* ing materials.