Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/105

Rh necessity in an Italian Museum is to exclude the abundant light. In Germany, on the other hand, the prevalent winter weather is gray and foggy and the light in summer never becomes exceedingly brilliant. A color, therefore, in Italy will look much brighter than that same color in Germany. The position of the gallery and the light which enters will also tend to make the. same color look different in different rooms. Thus, for instance, in Berlin, in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, almost all the side-lit cabinets to the south are covered with the same green velvet, but the color seems quite varied in the different rooms even though they all have approximately the same exposure. In this country most of our museums are so situated that the light which they receive is about half-way in intensity between the light of Germany and the light of Italy. What is true of the German light is also true of light in France and in England, with the exception of London and Liverpool, where the dust and soot in the air further increase the grayness. In Sweden and Norway and other northern countries the light is much more nearly like ours in America, but even here it would be a doubtful experiment to copy directly any color used in a museum without first trying it in this country. Successful backgrounds are rare, as we have already said, nor can