National Art Library

The Victoria & Albert Museum was founded on the basis of a simple principle: to make art available to the public. Sir Henry Cole wanted to educate the working class and inspire artists. The financial success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 allowed for the funding of the V&A, as well as the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.

According to our tour guide, the Museum's National Art Library averages about 100 visitors a day. It originated as the library of the School of Design in 1837, predating the Museum.

Art books create a special shelving problem. The National Art Library deals with it by shunning a classification system altogether. They shelve based on size. This makes browsing impossible, but it does save space.

The Library houses more than just art books. Some items are so valuable that they are locked away. John Forster, an early biographer of Dickens, donated his collection of over 18,000 books for use by the nation. The photograph to the left is of a copy of the biography held at the Dickens House. Forster was such good friends with Dickens that the latter bequeathed the former a corrected proof of Bleak House. The copy the Library owns is heavily corrected, much like the work of J.G. Ballard on display at the British Library.

William Blake is my favorite poet. Seeing his art was a highlight for me. In one of my library classes last year, a student and professor both came to a very passionate agreement about the horror of looking at reproduced art in books and online archives. His paintings are something to behold, yet Blake's visual sense is so strong that they can be pretty well absorbed in any fashion. What I want to see in person are the plates. I should have thought of that at the British Museum! Nevertheless, I was quite pleased to look at the 2 Blake works. He painted in tempera instead of oil because he thought it was more ethical to not be able to do corrections. Take that Dickens!

Image "Eve Tempted by the Serpent" taken from here on the V&A website.