We Went Also To The National Academy Of Fine Arts, A Government School
For The Gratuitous Instruction Of Artists, A Grecian Building, With A
Row Of All The Distinguished Painters In Front.
In the doorway, as we came in, was an antique, headless statue of
Minerva; literally it was Minerva's _gown_ standing up - a pillar
of drapery, nothing more, and drapery soiled, tattered, and battered;
but then it was an antique, and that is enough.
Now, when antique
things are ugly, I do not like them any better for being antique, and
I should rather have a modern statue than Minerva's old gown. We went
through all the galleries in this school, in one of which the prize
pieces of scholars are placed. Whoever gets one of these prizes is
sent to study in Rome at the expense of the government. We passed
through the hall where the judges sit to decide upon pictures, and
through various others that I cannot remember. I was particularly
interested in the apartment devoted to the casts from the statuary in
the Louvre and in other palaces. These casts are taken with
mathematical exactness, and subjected to the inspection of a
committee, who order any that are defective to be broken. Proof casts
of all the best works, ancient and modern, are thus furnished at a
small price, and so brought within the reach of the most moderate
means.
This morning M. and Madame Belloc took me with them to call on
Beranger, the poet.
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