No. I think the Deputy will recognise that before even one guide is appointed it would be necessary to see if he was required. Deputies who have not visited the Gallery, and whose interest in art is confined to debates on this subject, may laugh, but the point is that the public has not supported the Gallery. Any demands made by the board for additional facilities to enable the Gallery to be made more attractive, and to bring people there, will certainly receive the consideration of the Government. Whether the Director was paid £2,000, £1,000 or £500, I fail to see how the question of his salary affects the matter. It depends entirely on the personality of the Director. The salary was not raised; the salary of, say, £1,000 for a whole-time Director was not fixed during Dr. Bodkin's term of office. Deputies on the opposite benches went into the question in exactly the same way as we have gone into it. They did not create a whole-time post at that salary. They gave the post to Dr. Bodkin, who had another position at £1,000, and he got £200 extra for carrying out the duties of Director. Now we are told that the salary should be £1,000. At the time Dr. Bodkin was appointed, if the gentlemen opposite have the interest in art that they profess, why did they not take the obvious step? I know that they were deeply interested in Dr. Bodkin and that they thought highly of him, and I am rather surprised now when they say what a great loss he was to the country when he left, that they did not take steps to rectify the situation. The position we were faced with was that Dr. Bodkin found a position abroad and decided to leave the country. I suppose he thought his opportunities for advancement would be better there. We were not able to keep Dr. Bodkin.
We went into the question very closely, and we were not prepared, in the case of his successor, to give a greatly increased salary which up to the present was not demanded. The fact is that while the position is undoubtedly one of great importance, on account of the great value of these pictures, it is not perhaps as hard on the holder as the directorship of the National Library or the National Museum. I am not going to institute comparisons between these posts. I simply want to say that there is a difference, and that it has always been recognised that the directorship of the National Library for example is a whole-time post. There seems to have been a belief up to the present that the directorship of the National Gallery was a part-time post. The duties were successfully carried out, up to the time Dr. Bodkin left the position, by part-time directors. It is now claimed that a whole-time Director at a greatly increased salary should be appointed. I do not say that the present holder should not have got a higher salary. The higher salary would not improve matters if we did not succeed in getting a good man with very wide continental experience and with high qualifications. If we had not succeeded in getting such a man at the salary offered, Deputies on the opposite benches might have been able to say with some justice that the salary was not sufficiently attractive. But we have got Dr. Furlong, who, I believe, will carry out the duties satisfactorily. He had a good deal of experience abroad and he will do what he can to make the Gallery as attractive as possible to the public. I told him he would have the support of the Government in any scheme that may be put forward to improve the Gallery. Any such scheme will receive earnest consideration.
Seeing that a salary of £500 has been attached to the position at all times, it would be extraordinary if we should depart from it, without seeing how the appointment of the new Director is going to work out, and whether the board, as suggested, are going to put forward any schemes for the general improvement of the Gallery. Undoubtedly the amount of money given for the Gallery is inadequate. There is £1,000 a year for the purchase of pictures. That has been the position since the Free State came into being. It has not been the policy to buy modern pictures but to try to get Italian masters, and so on. The work of getting modern pictures of the French school has been left largely to the smaller gallery in Parnell Square. These are matters that the board can go into. While I can meet the board and make suggestions, as Deputy Cosgrave suggested, I cannot take, I fear, any other measures in these matters. I told the members of the board that if they had any schemes to improve the position generally these will have sympathetic consideration.
As regards a teaching post, the Education Office believes very strongly that the teaching of art proper cannot be associated with the position of Director of the Gallery. They believe that lecturing, perhaps, might be, but they are very doubtful if public lectures, if they are a series of art lectures by the Director of the Gallery, will do very much to awaken greater interest in art and in the institution. I suggested to the board's representatives when I met them that perhaps some arrangement might be made whereby the Director would be associated with one of the universities as a lecturer in art. Nothing has come of that suggestion. It was made, and if any such arrangement could be made it would be better, I think, than having a whole-time Director, whose sole duty would be in the Gallery, and in connection with the Gallery. It would be much better, I think, if the Director had a teaching position in association with the universities. With regard to the pictures in the cellars, the present Director of the Gallery informs me that at the Titian Exhibition in Venice recently, which was held in a splendid palace, there was only one picture in each room. The modern tendency is to have only a small number of pictures in each room; not to have many pictures hanging together, so that each picture can be viewed individually without intrusion. That is the tendency in the English and other galleries—to reduce the number of pictures on exhibition— and perhaps to change them from time to time, by giving an exhibition now of French pictures, and again an exhibition of some other school.
