Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum (Rice University Campbell Lectures) - Softcover

Cuno, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022610091X ISBN 13: 9780226100913

Verlag: UNIV OF CHICAGO PR, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

The concept of an encyclopedic museum was born of the Enlightenment, a manifestation of society’s growing belief that the spread of knowledge and the promotion of intellectual inquiry were crucial to human development and the future of a rational society. But in recent years, museums have been under attack, with critics arguing that they are little more than relics and promoters of imperialism. Could it be that the encyclopedic museum has outlived its usefulness?

With Museums Matter, James Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, replies with a resounding “No!” He takes us on a brief tour of the modern museum, from the creation of the British Museum—the archetypal encyclopedic collection—to the present, when major museums host millions of visitors annually and play a major role in the cultural lives of their cities. Along the way, Cuno acknowledges the legitimate questions about the role of museums in nation-building and imperialism, but he argues strenuously that even a truly national museum like the Louvre can’t help but open visitors’ eyes and minds to the wide diversity of world cultures and the stunning art that is our common heritage. Engaging with thinkers such as Edward Said and Martha Nussbaum, and drawing on examples from the politics of India to the destruction of the Bramiyan Buddhas to the history of trade and travel, Cuno makes a case for the encyclopedic museum as a truly cosmopolitan institution, promoting tolerance, understanding, and a shared sense of history—values that are essential in our ever more globalized age.

Powerful, passionate, and to the point, Museums Matter is the product of a lifetime of working in and thinking about museums; no museumgoer should miss it.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Cuno is president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. He served as president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2004 until 2011, the Courtauld Institute of Art from 2002 until 2004, and the Harvard University Art Museums from 1991 to 2002. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Museums Matter

In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum

By JAMES CUNO

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Copyright © 2011 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-10091-3

Contents

List of Illustrations......................................................
ix
Acknowledgments............................................................
xi
INTRODUCTION...............................................................
1
ONE The Enlightenment Museum...............................................
11
TWO The Discursive Museum..................................................
33
THREE The Cosmopolitan Museum..............................................
57
FOUR The Imperial Museum...................................................
89
EPILOGUE...................................................................
115
Notes......................................................................
123
Index......................................................................
141

CHAPTER 1

The Enlightenment Museum

A comprehensive critique of what existsmarks the entrance to rationalist modernity.

ZEEV STERNHELL

The encyclopedic museum is a modern institution, born of the intellectualferment of early modern Europe. Its founders were figuresof the Enlightenment, confident in the promise of reasonedinquiry and deeply skeptical of received and unverifiable truths.The histories of the earliest such museums vary. The Louvre (1793)was a former royal collection, nationalized in revolution and enhancedthrough political conquest, economic influence, colonialoccupation, and scientific expedition. The Hermitage (1852) was formore than fifty years an imperial museum, then a state museumthrough revolution and confiscation, whose collections grew muchlike those of the Louvre. The original Berlin museums were not onemuseum, but many, one museum next to the other on the MuseumIsland in the center of the city, each established by the state withthe patronage first of the monarch, then the emperor, and each specializingin a different geographical region, world culture, or historicalperiod (the first, the Altes Museum, opened in 1830, and thelast, the Pergamon Museum, a century later).

The British Museum was established by an act of Parliament onJune 7, 1753. It comprised collections not of royal or imperial foundationbut assembled by individuals, chief among them the Londonphysician Sir Hans Sloane. Over the course of his long professionallife, during which he succeeded Isaac Newton as president ofthe Royal Society, Sloane built a collection of specimens of all kindsand dedicated his later years to cataloging them; of the forty-six catalogshe either wrote or had produced, thirty-one survive. His wasan internationally famous collection, visited by the Swedish botanistCarolus Linnaeus in 1736, the year after the latter published hisinfl uential Systema Naturae. Twelve years later, Linnaeus's assistantPer Kalm left a detailed inventory of Sloane's collection: "a polishedagate which displayed in a most naturalistic manner an eclipse ofthe sun," "a device made of elephant bone with which the womenof the East Indies scratch their backs," "the shoes of a grown up Chinesewoman which were no bigger than those of a child of 2 or 3years in Sweden," "the saw of a sawfish," "the headdress of a WestIndian King made out of red feathers," "the stuff ed skin of a rattlesnake,"336 volumes of dried and bound plants in royal folio, withas many plants mounted on each page as there was room for, "5300volumes of manuscripts on medicine and natural history, bound infine bindings," "the skeleton of an armadillo," "a porcupine fromHudson Bay," "an Egyptian mummy," "a striped donkey from theCape of Good Hope," "West Indian boats made of bark," "all sortsof Roman and other antiquities," in an outbuilding, "the head of awhale;" and much, much more.

On his death in 1753, Sloane's will directed his trustees to offerthe collection to the nation to be made available to "all persons desirousof seeing and viewing the same, under such statutes, directions,rules, and orders, as shall be made, from time to time, by thesaid trustees ... that the same may be rendered as useful as possible,as well towards satisfying the desire of the curious, as for theimprovement, knowledge and information of all persons." On June7, King George II gave his assent to the British Museum Act, acceptingSloane's collection and establishing the British Museum. Theterms of Sloane's will as adopted in the Museum Act were simple:the "Museum or Collection may be preserved and maintained,not only for the Inspection and Entertainment of the learned andthe curious, but for the general Use and Benefit of the Public"; it"shall remain and be preserved therein for public Use to all Posterity";and the "Repository shall be vested in the said Trustees bythis Act appointed, and their Successors for ever, upon this Trustnevertheless, that a free Access to the said general Repository, andto the Collections therein contained, shall be given to all studiousand curious persons." The museum's guiding principle, consistentwith Sloane's own belief, was that "all Arts and Sciences have aConnexion with each other, and Discoveries in Natural Philosophyand other Branches of speculative Knowledge, for the Advancementand Improvement whereof said Museum or Collection wasintended, do and may in many instances give Help and success tothe most useful Experiments and Inventions."

Two things are important about the founding of the BritishMuseum. First, while Sloane preferred that his collection residein London, he had instructed his trustees to offer it in turn to theroyal academies of science in St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, and Madridif George II did not accept the terms for its public presentation:that it be kept together for study and be free and open to all"studious and curious persons." And second, although it was anational museum—it belonged to the nation, not the king (Parliamentborrowed the concept of a trust from civil law and appointedtrustees to administer the collections)—it was not a nationalist museum.It did not present a national narrative extolling the glory ofBritain or of Britishness. The Louvre, by contrast, was establishedexplicitly for just such purposes. In a letter of October 1792, theFrench minister of the interior, Jean-Marie Roland, wrote to thepainter Jacques-Louis David, to whom the founding of the museumhad been entrusted: "This museum must demonstrate the nation'sgreat riches.... France must extend its glory through the ages andto all peoples: the national museum will embrace knowledge in allits manifold beauty and will be the admiration of the universe. Byembodying these grand ideas, worthy of a free people ... [it] willbe among the most powerful illustrations of the French Republic."

The British Museum meant rather to tell a narrative about theworld. From the beginning, its collections were representative ofthe world's diverse cultures and natural phenomena, gathered,cataloged, and presented with encyclopedic ambition. (Its currentdirector, Neil MacGregor, notes that one of the great surprises formany first-time visitors to the museum is how few British thingsare in its collection.)

The museum's founding principles and the range and characterof its collections were in keeping with the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: UNIV OF CHICAGO PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 022610091X
• ISBN 13: 9780226100913
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 148
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: The University of Chicago Press; https://press.uchicago.edu/index.html; ; 5801 S. Ellis Avenue; Chicago; IL; 60637; USA
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