THE comprehensive re-hanging of the Tate Gallery, which was unveiled in late January, has been enthusiastically received by artists, critics, and the general public. Even art historians, braced to resist the pruning of the historic British display, have been disarmed. The Director, Nicholas Serota, has, it seems, waved his wand and transformed the exhausted, overcrowded and ill-kempt galleries into a spare, elegant and unified sequence which tells a single chronological story.

The restoration of coherence to the building is quite remarkable. All partitions and false ceilings have been removed, bringing back a sense of individual and cumulative sequential space. A magnificent enfilade along the west wing links Mondrian to Allan Ramsay through eight rooms in a single perspective. Perhaps most brilliant of all is the effortless incorporation of six rooms from the 1970s extension to display post-second-world-war painting, making one realise as if for the first time the quality of these spaces, designed by the too-often reviled Property Services Agency.

The intention is that the visitor should promenade the length of the building through the central spine of the Duveen sculpture galleries (a slightly Orsay-ish arrange- ment) before braving the historical sequence, which begins with the Elizabethans at back left and ends (for the mo- ment) with a new Kiefer at back right. The story on offer is an appropriately post-modernist narrative, full of odd uxtapositions (Spencer and Mondrian), purposeful gaps (Hockney, Bacon, Hodgkin) and dislocations (Picasso in five different rooms). Information panels point out that where now there is Ecole de Paris there could and will be Kokoschka, that Pollock will give way to Gorky and de Kooning. This rotatory approach- showing more by show- ing less- will feed the focused display of single artists or movements needed for the Tate Gallery, Liverpool. There is, for example, almost no German art on view at Millbank: these particular works, many acquired under Alan Bowness's Directorship, are now on show at Albert Dock.

It is difficult to fault the selection of works, in spite of missing favourites (few) or unfamiliar guests thrown into the limelight (numerous). Some rooms already appear authoritative- Hogarth, for example, and the 'European avant-garde' (although the one-up-one-down hanging of Matisse and Derain's portraits of each other is a rare hiccough). Others are not so happy, and perhaps the large room entitled 'The Grand Style', containing Gains- borough and only two paintings by Reynolds, is the least effective, the most troubled in concept. The double and even triple-hung room of British nineteenth-century painting - the Royal Academy and the Pre-Raphaelites- is hardly calculated to please aficionados of either camp, being both grand and throw-away. A smaller room of Social Realist sensations and the sod-and-clod school of Rural Naturalism is appropriately depressing (and un-redecorated). The large lynch-pin room, marrying the two collections with a mixed display of French and British Impressionism, was not yet open at the time of writing. One can only contem- plate its French content with misgivings. Sargent, Whistler, Steer, Gwen John are essential to the Tate. But, as has been suggested more than once in this Magazine, the works of Manet, Monet, Sisley and Pissarro, none of the highest calibre, should be at the National Gallery. It is to be hoped that the Directors of the two galleries will resolve this tiresome problem once and for all.

Unexpectedly, there is less recent art on show than before, though new sculpture rules two-thirds of the central hall, from Long in the Rotunda through Merz to a fine new Deacon (another superb vista now opened from the entrance hall to the far end; Fig. 1). The selected American and European works by Beuys, Kiefer, Judd, Kelly etc. in the final two rooms have at last thrown off the slightly apologetic air they sometimes assumed in previous presen- tations. Addiction to British post-war figuration is amply satisfied in Room 27 (with a newly acquired Freud in pride of place); concurrent abstraction (Hoyland, Turnbull, Caro) is sparingly and effectively seen in Room 26. Each visitor familiar with the collection will have his or her doubts or outright complaints; but the gain in freshness of perception through the general sequence of rooms and by particular juxtapositions is immense. Stanley Spencer may be over- canonised and over-spaced, but the small Paul Nash room is marvellous; Cecil Collins may not survive this exposure, but the fight between Bloomsbury and Vorticism is bracing.

The re-integration of British art with the rest, and of the twentieth century with the historic collections, has been achieved not only by abolishing the 1900 dividing line between the east and west halves of the building, but also by a deliberately uniform approach to decoration. The new wall-colours are mainly restricted to three - paleish terracotta (Dulux 4040Y70R), very pale green, and very pale blue-grey. The materials are unashamedly frugal: though private sponsorship from BP has been generous, it has not run to more than emulsion paint over wood-chip paper. Nor could the repeated colours be ideal in all cases: the terracotta works well on behalf of late Derain, but silences the early brilliance of Matthew Smith's seated nude; pale pistachio enhances neither Constable nor the Rothko Seagram series, although, when combined with the old green marble skirtings, it is surprisingly effective in the Jacobethan gallery (Fig.2); very pale blue is the perfect match for Picasso's Reclining woman, but a shade too ice- creamy for Stubbs. But colours and lighting can be adjusted and, as the novelty of the display wears off, relations of pic- ture and ground can be altered. At first view, the effect is of an impressive but curiously hybrid temporary exhibition. Repeated visits will doubtless remove such an impression.

It now seems to be demanded of museum directors that they stamp their personality on their galleries: the new look must accompany the corporate plan. Although the new appearance of the Tate is the result of pooled ideas and a collective curatorial effort, the director's hand and eye are recognisable at every turn. The Tate's new hang has a strongly ideological flavour. Its message seems to be that British art and the twentieth-century holdings are, if not inseparable, at least capable of unification. Presumably we shall not, under this bold but pragmatic Director, see a campaign for a separate Museum of Modern Art. In the end his transformation scene almost convinces, but the sleight of hand is apparent. The exhilarating quality of the rehung galleries should not obscure the real message of the new arrangements: the Tate is chronically short of space on the Millbank site, and must find funding to pursue its building programme. Visitors have a right to expect a permanent background panorama as well as a dazzling series of scene changes.