The

Scottish Historical Review

VOL. X., No. 39

APRIL 1913

now

The Royal Scottish Academy

T is now more than a year since the R.S.A. took possession of its new quarters on the Mound in Edinburgh, an event which marked an epoch in its history, and seems to invite some review of its origin and progress, some estimate of its present work, and perhaps a glance towards its future.

The student who desires to follow the story in detail will find few books to depend on, and those few rather dull reading. The Constitution and Laws of the Academy have been several times republished, and it prints a general annual report. Sir George Harvey's Notes1 and Sheriff Monro's volume 2 deal with the controversies which preceded its birth and clouded its early youth. But these books, while they record the facts and arguments, have unhappily caught scarcely a spark of the enthusiasm and humour without which the germination of such an institution in the cold soil of Scotland would scarcely have been possible.

The R.S.A. is young as academies go. The year 1648 saw the foundation of the French Académie des Beaux Arts, 1671 that of the Académie d'Architecture, and 1677 that of the French School which still occupies the Villa Medici at Rome, all during the reign of Louis XIV. The Royal Academy of Arts in London dates from 1768. On December 7th of that year the project for its formation was submitted to George III. Three days later he added his signature with the words, 'I approve of this plan, let it be put into execution.'

1 Notes of the Early History of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1873. 2 Scottish Art and National Encouragement, Edinburgh, 1846.