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The National Academy of Design promotes art and architecture in America through exhibition, education, and research.
Founded in 1825, the National Academy is the leading honorary society for visual artists and architects in the United States. We advocate for the arts as a tool for education, celebrate the role of artists and architects in public life, and serve as a catalyst for cultural conversations that propel society forward.
Sam had apparently first visited the Academy of Design on May 28th, 1867 and wrote about his visit to the Alta California July 28, 1867: [See Twain Quotes for full letter]
"EDITORS ALTA: I am thankful that the good God creates us all ignorant. I am glad that when we change His plans in this regard, we have to do it at our own risk. It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art, and ignorant also of surgery. Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes, and surgeons and anatomists see no beautiful women in all their lives, but only a ghastly stack of bones with Latin names to them, and a network of nerves and muscles and tissues inflamed by disease. The very point in a picture that fascinates me with its beauty, is to the cultured artist a monstrous crime against the laws of coloring; and the very flush that charms me in a lovely face, is, to the critical surgeon, nothing but a sign hung out to advertise a decaying lung. Accursed be all such knowledge. I want none of it."
"The art critics have been so diligently abusing everything in and about the Academy of Design, for weeks past, that I was satisfied that a visit there could produce nothing but unhappiness. I wandered into the place by accident to-day, how ever, and staid there three hours. I could have staid a week. I was not cultivated enough to see the dreadful faults that were so glaring to others' eyes. There were some three hundred pictures on exhibition, and, to me, about thirty or forty were very beautiful. I liked all the sea views, and the mountain views, and the quiet woodland scenes, with shadow-tinted lakes in the fore ground, and I just revelled in the storms."
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Sam visited the museum again, June 23, 1869, he wrote a letter to Livy about this visit: [see Mark Twain Project]
"I spent two hours in the Academy of Design, this afternoon, & I would have enjoyed it a rarely if I had had company. If you had been staying at a hotel you would have been with me., & then I would have been comfortable. If we have an opportunity, we must drop in there to-morrow . There is a portrait there which reminds me ever so strongly of some one we both know, & I wondered & wondered how it came there. I also wondered whether the resemblance was real, or only a creation of my own imagination. So I thought I would like to turn you loose in the Academy & see if you could find the picture without a hint from me."
June 24, 1869 Thursday – Sam and Livy probably spent the day together, shopping and visiting the Academy of Design. Sam had apparently visited the Academy the day before, by himself.
DBD (April 6, 1891) mentions a final return of Mark Twain to the museum for the 66th exhibition but only as a "half length" by Charles Noel Flagg.