Page:The Academy Of the Fine Arts and Its Future, Edward Hornor Coates, 24 January 1890.djvu/12

 conscience in art, and that earnest sincerity and genuine purpose are the proper conditions, as well as the justification for its pursuit. For after all, as has been well said, "it is by the aid of sincerity and conscience that the artist is enabled to see more clearly than other men the eternal limits of his own art—to see with Sophocles that nothing, not even art itself, is of any worth to man, invested as he is by the whole army of evil, unless it is in the deepest and highest sense good."

Speaking next of the exhibitions, it has been the custom to hold these annually in the Spring of each year. In several instances, however, the time has been changed to the Fall, in order to coöperate with the dates of exhibitions by institutions in other parts of the country, all of which are now eager competitors for the out-turn from American easels.

The first exhibition by the newly organized Academy was made in the rotunda of the building, completed in 1806, but the first regular exhibition took place in 1811, Judge Hopkinson delivering the opening oration. Even in that early day there seems to have been a fair display of native work, and we notice contributions by Rembrandt Peale, Bass Otis, Wright and Krimmel. The contribution of the last named is still on the walls of the Academy, and is full of interest and history.

In 1830, Frances Trollope, in her notes, writes of the nineteenth annual exhibition that four hundred and thirty-one objects were exhibited, including thirty engravings, and a much larger number of water color drawings. She also adds that over one of the rooms was inscribed "Antique Sculpture Gallery," but that a screen placed immediately within the door effectually prevented any objects being seen from without; and we may remark in 12