Education: Yale's Shrine to the Age of Reason

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One floor below, in a gallery that will be used for special exhibits, Yale has produced an inaugural show on "English Landscape from 1630 to 1850." Its 228 drawings, watercolors, prints and books—not just a few flashy masterpieces—illuminate the depth of the center's collection and evoke the 18th century's fascination with Italian landscapes and sublime ruins. Both are illustrated in a striking Turner watercolor, done in 1817, depicting Vesuvius in Eruption, and a hazy, harshly bright watercolor of Venice's Grand Canal.

The center's second floor, also reserved for changing exhibits, has mounted a show on "The Pursuit of Happiness: A View of Life in Georgian England." It succeeds in conjuring up the courtly, mannered world of Jane Austen. Ladies devote their days to needlepoint and instructive reading. Families picnic in the formal gardens of their estates. People of fashion parade down the Mall in London. Young men of leisure visit the Continent and even form a "Society of Dilettanti" for ex-travelers.

The exhibits underline how much the center differs from an ordinary museum. "We hope that this building will be a catalyst for study of the 18th century," says Director Edmund Pillsbury, whose aviator glasses and double-breasted, pin-stripe suit have the air of being de rigeuer for museum curators. He sees the center's role as "an academic support, much like a library."

How did the Mellon collection come to Yale? Mellon had originally exhibited some of his treasures in 1963 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, near his home in Upperville, Va. Yale officials saw an opportunity. Andrew Ritchie, then director of Yale's Art Gallery, approached Mellon with the argument that Yale already had a notable collection of British manuscripts and that art should logically accompany it. President Brewster joined in to echo Ritchie's plea. There was an even more powerful appeal. While at Yale, Mellon had studied under the late Chauncey Brewster Tinker, a great Johnson and Boswell scholar, keeper of Yale's rare books and an expert on 18th century letters. Indeed, it was Tinker who had originally inspired Mellon to become a collector. Mellon was persuaded.

Literally Priceless. Tinker's legacy also lingers on at the nearby Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, an ultramodern marble-and-granite cube that rises incongruously from the heart of old Yale. Its 400,000 volumes, which include a superb 18th century collection, have led such eminent experts as the late R.W. Chapman of Oxford to proclaim that "in the English 18th century, Yale is first and the rest are nowhere." The heart of the collection, 1,820 volumes of the 2,600 books that served as Yale's library in 1742, are enclosed behind glass walls in the center of the library's main floor; they are marvelously illuminated by day with amber light that filters from outside through the translucent marble walls. "The collection was so good for 1742 that a catalogue of it was published in London that year," Director Louis Martz says proudly.