If anyone in any western part of the world wants to look at historical works of art of universal truth, visits a museum. Museums collect and care for scientific, artistic, historical objects of importance and display them for public viewing through exhibitions that are either permanent or temporary. Unlike art galleries, museums are usually not run for the purpose of making a profit but to provide historical education to the public. No other place has the wealth and the importance of a museum and its arts that can draw the attention of millions of visitors every year.
The national museums for instance are design to remind temples with its monumental distinction. The stairs are elevated from the ground to give rise to the culture and the high ceilings and columns resemble an Ancient mythological sanctuary. This architecture is designed and studied to make an impact in our perception and change our behaviour as just in temples, churches, palaces and places of worship.
Museums exemplify the idea of state by following the roman architectural style to symbolize authority. The contents are not displayed randomly, the structure of how things are organized, layout of the rooms and works related to each region are super imposed, making the viewer independently of age, education or class to walk as if in a ritual. The works of art stand as adorned pieces just like in sacred ceremonial monuments, and are displayed chronological as teaching the evolution of its history. Art is displayed as a progress that comes from a gradual change; next evolution refines what previous generation has done. An individual piece of art in a museum for instance becomes an important piece in its historical relationship labelled by name and date. The different types of museums hold a vast collection of important selected objects of each field and have their different iconographic programme but the universal survey museums are the ones who present a wider variety of art history. These museums different from other kinds of institutions, are of peak importance and are meant to impress visitors and royalties that come from anywhere else in the world.
The royal art gallery and the public art gallery for instance were very different politically. The royal art gallery stand for the king’s possession while the public art gallery belonged to the citizens.
The first public museum was the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1793 during the French Revolution allowing access to the royal collections for people of any status. The Louvre museum is one of the most important in the world and holds the most prestigious works of art.
This has revolutionized the experience of viewing art in museums through history by its open doors to the public. Anybody from any class or background can visit a museum and take as much from its intellectual wealth. Museums became as sites for educating the masses in taste and refinement until our days. Today, museums are as the most important places for educating children and adults, after schools and libraries, and one of the most reliable sources of information, more valued than books, radio, newspapers and the Internet.
The Universal Survey Museum
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Today, museums are as the most important places for educating children and adults, after schools and libraries, and one of the most reliable sources of information, more valued than books, radio, newspapers and the Internet.
This is debatable to say the least. Are museums valued? Well, they are highly valued by a small proportion of the population, but……as a general statement? I doubt it.
Also, museums are non-transportable, difficult to use casually, and, as awe inspiring as they might be, pretty off-putting to many.
Colin jago,
Thanks for your opinion. Maybe our reaction to putting art on the museum pedestal is a diservice to our relationship to art. It is more important that everyone see that they can be a part of art. Museums in my experience do educate to this end. I remember bus loads of school children at the TelAviv museum. The ten year old children were sitting around the paintings they selected as ones they wanted to study. They wrote about them and practiced sketching them. In a small country like Israel there was definitely an impact made by their large museums. Most of the people I met are creative in their own homes and original art is important in their lives.
Angela,
I can see you’ve put quite a bit of thought and observation into this post. You make quite a few interesting points. I am not familiar with European museums except from photographs, but in the US, we haven’t been much using the Romanesque styles in museums since WWII, and even after 1920 or so, those were considered old fashioned. There are exceptions, of course, like in the Midwest where they are often late to follow trends.
But the use of architecture to attempt to create an effect on the person entering is still similar. “Awe” is the word that comes to mind.
A pity.
I do not believe art is best experienced on one’s psychic knees. A little or a lot of disrespect for authority is the sign of a free and vital populace.
I would like to see more museums that strive for a purely aesthetic environment with lots of human scaled elements to make the buildings seem less imposing and more friendly. From what I’ve seen, museums that strive for this are more successful in their draw.
An interesting example of this is the Japanese Pavilion in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Complex. It has proven to draw as many people as the whole rest of the complex at certain times. Relatively small, the displays are rotated every six weeks to three months, so it’s different stuff each time one visits.
Another example of is the new De Young museum in San Francisco. The old one was kind of low slung and hodge-podgy. It was always comfy and crowded. The new is more spacious. It has this exotic coppery bronze dimpled exterior that simulates pixels, and from a distance, you can see pictures. It has this wild, twisted tower sticking up, but it’s not imposing.
These non-intimidating styles are good trends.
Diane
It is more important that everyone see that they can be a part of art.
Agreed.
Museums in my experience do educate to this end.
Some do, some don’t. I would say that once you get to ‘great art’ in a ‘great museum’ with all that implies in terms of glass cases, guards, special lighting and so on, the level of difficulty in getting the message across goes up many times.
Rex,
I do not believe art is best experienced on one’s psychic knees.
What a great phrase.
Interesting essay Angela, thanks for sharing your point of view.
If anyone in any western part of the world wants to look at historical works of art of universal truth, visits a museum.
A few interesting words I picked up on in this first sentence. Western. Hm – something to think about.
And universal truth. Who’s truth? Who decided/decides what goes into these museums? What percent of the art and artifacts in the collection (and on display) are made by women? Is it really a universal truth?
Rex (and others that are interested in the architecture of museum building) – what is your opinion of the new Denver Art Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind? I’ve now been 3 times since it opened last month and still have issues with it but the building is certainly drawing crowds. I wrote about the museum on my blog when they first opened.
I do not believe art is best experienced on one’s psychic knees.
After seeing L.A. Story years ago, I realized that art is probably best experienced on roller skates. Though I haven’t tried it yet…
Lisa,
I KNEW I should have just kept on going with the image tutorials and not get sidetracked by looking at the links on your blog about the museum! Cubistro’s site is broken, the link to the museum shots are 404. And the Flash installation required to run the DAM site is broken in Firefox too. Argh!
So all I’ve seen are exterior shots, and these from funky. artistic rather than informative angles. And I read your review. Titanium, huh? Expensive stuff.
I like Libeskind’s WTC design. I was glad his group won the contest. Definitely the most humanistic selection, so I’m predisposed in his favor. But from what I’ve been able to see, the Hamilton does not look the least friendly or inviting; it looks like the Rocky Mountains, cold, dangerous, and imposing.
Inside though, are there oasis of warmth? Are the spaces broken down to human sized chunks?
I don’t have problems with the cubistro site. Try this url for the inside shots: http://www.cubistro.com/libeskind30.html
I don’t think I’d call the inside of that museum warm. The spaces are broken into human sized chunks although with really funky angles. They had to build extra walls to hang the art on because you can’t really hang it at a 60 degree angle – although they project some of the videos on those weird angles and some of the installation pieces use the funky walls.
They have a Damien Hirst piece underneath a stairway – I suppose that tells us what they think of the piece – but it seems like an after thought. Course hanging Warhol’s Campbell soup cans on 2 sides of a pillar is bizarre also.
The light inside feels cold to me. And the “canyon”, the stairway up the middle, that I swear takes up half the space in that huge building is very impressive but it also feels cold.
The whole experience is a bit too futuristic for my tastes. I keep thinking I’ll run into the jetsons around the next corner.
Although I disagree with you that the Rocky Mountains are cold dangerous and imposing! I think of them as quite warm and inviting. I look at them every day – maybe the coldness has just worn off.
Lisa,
That link worked. And the broken link on Cubistro is the Denver Art Museum at the top. Scrolling down reveals all the pictures. Doh.
This looks like classic monolithic architecture, carefully designed to make people feel small and lost. I can see that hanging pictures there would be a nightmare for the curators. What were they thinking? This place is a cozy as an iceberg. Real top down post industrial architecture.
The Rockies are a pretty scary place when one’s on the side of one of those pretty rock faces when the wind starts to howl and the lightning comes. Personal experience there from an aborted ambition to bag every ten thousand plus foot peak in Continental US. I got to fourteen of them when I discovered that the best mountains are not necessarily the highest.
Hmmm…
I got to fourteen of them when I discovered that the best mountains are not necessarily the highest.
The best mountains are the ones with interesting valleys. All the view. None of the pain.
Colin Jago,
I agree that museums are best that do not place the viewer on their knees but opens itself to engage us. I have from time to time a dream that I visit a museum with a sculpture behind a glass cubical. When I have an urge to touch the sculpture the glass is suddenly gone. I not only could touch the sculpture but I could interact with it. To my delight it feels like warm soft clay. I am delighted and happy watching all the other visitors enjoying the feel of the clay and the senstion of its changing forms.
Interestingly I am not currently doing sculpture. I express myself best with paint – paint that I move around like clay slip.
Museums are a food for my creativity. Museums also show my work from time to time. While they give my work validation, they also set me apart from other deserving people – some who think they want to be valadated artists and people who are in every way artists and won’t admit it because they don’t want that status.
Wow, your writing has really brought about some clarification of my own vision. Thank you
Catching up with earlier posts.
I experienced some of this back in ’71 as a newly minted educator at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I had just emerged from the phenomenological and statement-driven atmosphere of grad school and found the marble halls, in their stony silence, a little disquieting. The spaces were big and imposing and the sense of money and priviledge was pervasive. The front entrance was raised and reached by marble stairs. The alternative, however, was to enter through what was now the main entrance, grade level with vehicle drop-off. The feeling of the place was totally different. The foyer was grand enough that one could enter comfortably on his or her psychic knees, but the sense of welcome made this optional.
But back to the marbled halls. Most if not all public spaces were designed with a certain grandeur When the first wing was conceived. Furthermore, there was a requirement for a lot of clearspace to accomodate large objects.
As odd as it might sound, there was a sense of public service among the founders of the museum. Many of Cleveland’s elite were really people from ordinary backgrounds who had done extraordinary things. They were aware of their roots and saw the museum as a means of improving society. One way to begin the educational process among folks largely ignorant and recently arrived was to impress upon them the importance of what they saw. The next step was for them to be inspired to go forth and, to seek their own achievements for themselves and for the sake of the city.