VELARIA
In many matters the museum man would do well to copy methods of installation used by the dealer. The psychology of the art loving and art buying public is studied by him to a profound degree. And yet one abomination has been invented which the dealer persists in using that should never find a place in a museum. This is the velarium. Whether in its form of stained-glass canopy, or as a thick velvet ceiling or as simply a thin cheese-cloth umbrella with flounces on the sides it has no place in a gallery. The mechanism that holds it up is always visible and clumsy, it catches quantities of dust, it dwarfs the size of a room, it gives one a very uncomfortable sensation of heavy pressure on the head, and it is impossible to clean. There is no doubt that the excessive glare on the floor of a gallery is disagreeable, but this may be remedied in various ways, by curtains above the ceiling lights, by fin-like diffusing glasses, and by means of the louvre-like revolving shutters above the ceiling glass such as have been used in Cleveland. The velarium does not in any way increase the amount of light on the picture, it simply darkens the spot in which the spectator stands. On this subject
