Author: Quatremère de Quincy (M., Antoine-Chrysostome)
Publisher: J Paul Getty Museum Publications
ISBN: 9781606060995
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Quatremére de Quincy, the most famous art critic at the end of the Enlightenment, published two sets of letters about the role of museums. He first implored them to return works of art to their original settings but later argued in favor of the museum as a place where artworks can be safely stored and made available for artists to study. Immensely contraversial and influential since they were written two centuries ago, Quatremére's texts sum up the most bewildering moment of the debate on museums: did the new institution inauguate the death of art, or bring it to its perfection? This volume offers the first English translation of the letters, as well as an extensive introduction that reveals their content, the reason for their intellectual success, and how they enlarge contemporary disputes about cultural property, national claims and universal beauty.
Letters to Miranda and Canova on the Abduction of Antiquities from Rome and Athens
Author: Quatremère de Quincy (M., Antoine-Chrysostome)
Publisher: J Paul Getty Museum Publications
ISBN: 9781606060995
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Quatremére de Quincy, the most famous art critic at the end of the Enlightenment, published two sets of letters about the role of museums. He first implored them to return works of art to their original settings but later argued in favor of the museum as a place where artworks can be safely stored and made available for artists to study. Immensely contraversial and influential since they were written two centuries ago, Quatremére's texts sum up the most bewildering moment of the debate on museums: did the new institution inauguate the death of art, or bring it to its perfection? This volume offers the first English translation of the letters, as well as an extensive introduction that reveals their content, the reason for their intellectual success, and how they enlarge contemporary disputes about cultural property, national claims and universal beauty.
Publisher: J Paul Getty Museum Publications
ISBN: 9781606060995
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Quatremére de Quincy, the most famous art critic at the end of the Enlightenment, published two sets of letters about the role of museums. He first implored them to return works of art to their original settings but later argued in favor of the museum as a place where artworks can be safely stored and made available for artists to study. Immensely contraversial and influential since they were written two centuries ago, Quatremére's texts sum up the most bewildering moment of the debate on museums: did the new institution inauguate the death of art, or bring it to its perfection? This volume offers the first English translation of the letters, as well as an extensive introduction that reveals their content, the reason for their intellectual success, and how they enlarge contemporary disputes about cultural property, national claims and universal beauty.
Quatremère de Quincy
Author: David Gilks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191062758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Antoine-Chrysosthôme Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) was the most distinguished writer on art and architecture at the end of the enlightenment. However, as David Gilks shows in Quatremère de Quincy: Art and Politics during the French Revolution, he was never simply an esoteric antiquarian and theoretician; he was also a zealous functionary and skilled publicist whose writings on the arts often served political purposes. Quatremère de Quincy: Art and Politics during the French Revolution demonstrates how Quatremère's early writings on art and antiquity formed the foundation for a politics grounded in faith, authority, and hierarchy that favoured gradual social and political evolution over destruction and experimentation. Gilks then traces how Quatremère set aside his antiquarian research and became a royalist politician and publicist during the revolutionary decade. Quatremère feared that the Revolution would destroy the cosmopolitan republic of letters that had flourished when states across Europe supported the papacy's rediscovery of the past, restoration of taste and, revival of learning. Yet Gilks reveals that Quatremère was also a resourceful and an opportunistic political actor who deployed his opponents' language for strategic reasons. Gilks therefore reinterprets Quatremère's interventions by situating them in their polemical contexts and treating them as contributions to debates and quarrels, by locating his sources and reconstructing his social and political networks. The resulting study revises our understanding of Quatremère's famous reflections on the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the Panthéon, art plunder, and museums, but it also discovers and sheds light on previously ignored writings. Although the study focuses on the period 1789-1799, it examines the second half of Quatremère's life to substantiate his commitment to crown and altar and show how he fought against the Revolution's legacy of godless materialism and calculation that was inimical to the arts. This is a thoroughly researched and richly detailed contextual study of the most eventful period in Quatremère's life, but it also offers an original and unfamiliar history of the French Revolution. Gilks integrates the study of political power with the history of ideas and art history, and provides a window into institutional and legal reforms and debates about cultural patronage and education.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191062758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Antoine-Chrysosthôme Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) was the most distinguished writer on art and architecture at the end of the enlightenment. However, as David Gilks shows in Quatremère de Quincy: Art and Politics during the French Revolution, he was never simply an esoteric antiquarian and theoretician; he was also a zealous functionary and skilled publicist whose writings on the arts often served political purposes. Quatremère de Quincy: Art and Politics during the French Revolution demonstrates how Quatremère's early writings on art and antiquity formed the foundation for a politics grounded in faith, authority, and hierarchy that favoured gradual social and political evolution over destruction and experimentation. Gilks then traces how Quatremère set aside his antiquarian research and became a royalist politician and publicist during the revolutionary decade. Quatremère feared that the Revolution would destroy the cosmopolitan republic of letters that had flourished when states across Europe supported the papacy's rediscovery of the past, restoration of taste and, revival of learning. Yet Gilks reveals that Quatremère was also a resourceful and an opportunistic political actor who deployed his opponents' language for strategic reasons. Gilks therefore reinterprets Quatremère's interventions by situating them in their polemical contexts and treating them as contributions to debates and quarrels, by locating his sources and reconstructing his social and political networks. The resulting study revises our understanding of Quatremère's famous reflections on the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the Panthéon, art plunder, and museums, but it also discovers and sheds light on previously ignored writings. Although the study focuses on the period 1789-1799, it examines the second half of Quatremère's life to substantiate his commitment to crown and altar and show how he fought against the Revolution's legacy of godless materialism and calculation that was inimical to the arts. This is a thoroughly researched and richly detailed contextual study of the most eventful period in Quatremère's life, but it also offers an original and unfamiliar history of the French Revolution. Gilks integrates the study of political power with the history of ideas and art history, and provides a window into institutional and legal reforms and debates about cultural patronage and education.
Report on the Aeginetan Sculptures
Author: Johann Martin Wagner
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438464819
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Tells the story of Bavarias acquisition of ancient Greek sculptures that rivaled those acquired by England from the Parthenon. The controversial removal of the Parthenon sculptures from Greece to England in the first decade of the nineteenth century by Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, sparked an international competition for classical antiquities. This volume tells a lesser-known chapter of that story, concerning sculptures from the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina. Discovered in 1811 as the Parthenon project was nearing its completion, these ancient sculptures were acquired at auction by Johann Martin Wagner (17771858) on behalf of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria. The sculptures turned out to be significant in a number of ways, offering important evidence for a transitional period of Greek art between the archaic and classical eras, for the existence of an independent Aeginetan school that was the equal of Athenian art at the time, and for Greek sculptures having been elaborately painted and adorned. Originally published in 1817 and presented here for the first time in English, this book reproduces the report commissioned by the crown prince that was written by Wagner and edited by F. W. J. Schelling and contained richly detailed descriptions of the sculptures. In addition, Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. provides a comprehensive historical introduction featuring a constellation of intellectual figures, an afterword, notes, appendices, and more than forty images to tell the fascinating story of the sculptures and their legacy from excavation to the present day.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438464819
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Tells the story of Bavarias acquisition of ancient Greek sculptures that rivaled those acquired by England from the Parthenon. The controversial removal of the Parthenon sculptures from Greece to England in the first decade of the nineteenth century by Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, sparked an international competition for classical antiquities. This volume tells a lesser-known chapter of that story, concerning sculptures from the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina. Discovered in 1811 as the Parthenon project was nearing its completion, these ancient sculptures were acquired at auction by Johann Martin Wagner (17771858) on behalf of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria. The sculptures turned out to be significant in a number of ways, offering important evidence for a transitional period of Greek art between the archaic and classical eras, for the existence of an independent Aeginetan school that was the equal of Athenian art at the time, and for Greek sculptures having been elaborately painted and adorned. Originally published in 1817 and presented here for the first time in English, this book reproduces the report commissioned by the crown prince that was written by Wagner and edited by F. W. J. Schelling and contained richly detailed descriptions of the sculptures. In addition, Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. provides a comprehensive historical introduction featuring a constellation of intellectual figures, an afterword, notes, appendices, and more than forty images to tell the fascinating story of the sculptures and their legacy from excavation to the present day.
National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010
Author: Peter Aronsson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317569156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Europe’s national museums have since their creation been at the centre of on-going nation making processes. National museums negotiate conflicts and contradictions and entrain the community sufficiently to obtain the support of scientists and art connoisseurs, citizens and taxpayers, policy makers, domestic and foreign visitors alike. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 assess the national museum as a manifestation of cultural and political desires, rather than that a straightforward representation of the historical facts of a nation. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 examines the degree to which national museums have created models and representations of nations, their past, present and future, and proceeds to assess the consequences of such attempts. Revealing how different types of nations and states – former empires, monarchies, republics, pre-modern, modern or post-imperial entities – deploy and prioritise different types of museums (based on art, archaeology, culture and ethnography) in their making, this book constitutes the first comprehensive and comparative perspective on national museums in Europe and their intricate relationship to the making of nations and states.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317569156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Europe’s national museums have since their creation been at the centre of on-going nation making processes. National museums negotiate conflicts and contradictions and entrain the community sufficiently to obtain the support of scientists and art connoisseurs, citizens and taxpayers, policy makers, domestic and foreign visitors alike. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 assess the national museum as a manifestation of cultural and political desires, rather than that a straightforward representation of the historical facts of a nation. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 examines the degree to which national museums have created models and representations of nations, their past, present and future, and proceeds to assess the consequences of such attempts. Revealing how different types of nations and states – former empires, monarchies, republics, pre-modern, modern or post-imperial entities – deploy and prioritise different types of museums (based on art, archaeology, culture and ethnography) in their making, this book constitutes the first comprehensive and comparative perspective on national museums in Europe and their intricate relationship to the making of nations and states.
This is Not Just a Painting
Author: Bernard Lahire
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509528717
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 546
Book Description
In 2008, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon acquired a painting called The Flight into Egypt which was attributed to the French artist Nicolas Poussin. Thought to have been painted in 1657, the painting had gone missing for more than three centuries. Several versions were rediscovered in the 1980s and one was passed from hand to hand, from a family who had no idea of its value to gallery owners and eventually to the museum. A painting that had been sold as a decorative object in 1986 for around 12,000 euros was acquired two decades later by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon for 17 million euros. What does this remarkable story tell us about the nature of art and the way that it is valued? How is it that what seemed to be just an ordinary canvas could be transformed into a masterpiece, that a decorative object could become a national treasure? This is a story permeated by social magic the social alchemy that transforms lead into gold, the ordinary into the extraordinary, the profane into the sacred. Focusing on this extraordinary case, Bernard Lahire lays bare the beliefs and social processes that underpin the creation of a masterpiece. Like a detective piecing together the clues in an unsolved mystery he carefully reconstructs the steps that led from the same material object being treated as a copy of insignificant value to being endowed with the status of a highly-prized painting commanding a record-breaking price. He thereby shows that a painting is never just a painting, and is always more than a piece of stretched canvass to which brush strokes of paint have been applied: this object, and the value we attach to it, is also the product of a complex array of social processes – with its distinctive institutions and experts – that lies behind it. And through the history of this painting, Lahire uncovers some of the fundamental structures of our social world. For the social magic that can transform a painting from a simple copy into a masterpiece is similar to the social magic that is present throughout our societies, in economics and politics as much as art and religion, a magic that results from the spell cast by power on those who tacitly recognize its authority. By following the trail of a single work of art, Lahire interrogates the foundations on which our perceptions of value and our belief in institutions rest and exposes the forms of domination which lie hidden behind our admiration of works of art.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509528717
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 546
Book Description
In 2008, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon acquired a painting called The Flight into Egypt which was attributed to the French artist Nicolas Poussin. Thought to have been painted in 1657, the painting had gone missing for more than three centuries. Several versions were rediscovered in the 1980s and one was passed from hand to hand, from a family who had no idea of its value to gallery owners and eventually to the museum. A painting that had been sold as a decorative object in 1986 for around 12,000 euros was acquired two decades later by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon for 17 million euros. What does this remarkable story tell us about the nature of art and the way that it is valued? How is it that what seemed to be just an ordinary canvas could be transformed into a masterpiece, that a decorative object could become a national treasure? This is a story permeated by social magic the social alchemy that transforms lead into gold, the ordinary into the extraordinary, the profane into the sacred. Focusing on this extraordinary case, Bernard Lahire lays bare the beliefs and social processes that underpin the creation of a masterpiece. Like a detective piecing together the clues in an unsolved mystery he carefully reconstructs the steps that led from the same material object being treated as a copy of insignificant value to being endowed with the status of a highly-prized painting commanding a record-breaking price. He thereby shows that a painting is never just a painting, and is always more than a piece of stretched canvass to which brush strokes of paint have been applied: this object, and the value we attach to it, is also the product of a complex array of social processes – with its distinctive institutions and experts – that lies behind it. And through the history of this painting, Lahire uncovers some of the fundamental structures of our social world. For the social magic that can transform a painting from a simple copy into a masterpiece is similar to the social magic that is present throughout our societies, in economics and politics as much as art and religion, a magic that results from the spell cast by power on those who tacitly recognize its authority. By following the trail of a single work of art, Lahire interrogates the foundations on which our perceptions of value and our belief in institutions rest and exposes the forms of domination which lie hidden behind our admiration of works of art.
Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity
Author: Johannes Siapkas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136254013
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity investigates the study and display of ancient sculpture from archaeological, art historical, and museum studies perspectives. Ancient sculptures not only give us knowledge about ancient Greek and Roman pasts, but they also mediate ideals that inform modern perceptions of antiquity. This book analyzes how an art historical tradition establishes and preserves an idealized view of antiquity in classical archaeology and in museum exhibitions. The authors investigate how these ideals are kept alive today—an approach that often is neglected in studies on ancient reception.This book offers an international scope and illustrates how academic conceptual foundations influence museum exhibitions.This timely volume discusses contemporary museum exhibitions of ancient sculpture and clarifies how old discourses continue to affect museum exhibitions and conceptualizations of ancient sculptures. The authors analyze close to 100 museums around the world, and demonstrate the ways in which ancient sculptures are mediated across Europe and the West.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136254013
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity investigates the study and display of ancient sculpture from archaeological, art historical, and museum studies perspectives. Ancient sculptures not only give us knowledge about ancient Greek and Roman pasts, but they also mediate ideals that inform modern perceptions of antiquity. This book analyzes how an art historical tradition establishes and preserves an idealized view of antiquity in classical archaeology and in museum exhibitions. The authors investigate how these ideals are kept alive today—an approach that often is neglected in studies on ancient reception.This book offers an international scope and illustrates how academic conceptual foundations influence museum exhibitions.This timely volume discusses contemporary museum exhibitions of ancient sculpture and clarifies how old discourses continue to affect museum exhibitions and conceptualizations of ancient sculptures. The authors analyze close to 100 museums around the world, and demonstrate the ways in which ancient sculptures are mediated across Europe and the West.
Confronting Colonial Objects
Author: Carsten Stahn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019269412X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 593
Book Description
The treatment of cultural colonial objects is one of the most debated questions of our time. Calls for a new international cultural order go back to decolonization. However, for decades, the issue has been treated as a matter of comity or been reduced to a Shakespearean dilemma: to return or not to return. Confronting Colonial Objects seeks to go beyond these classic dichotomies and argues that contemporary practices are at a tipping point. The book shows that cultural takings were material to the colonial project throughout different periods and went far beyond looting. It presents micro histories and object biographies to trace recurring justifications and contestations of takings and returns while outlining the complicity of anthropology, racial science, and professional networks that enabled colonial collecting. The book demonstrates the dual role of law and cultural heritage regulation in facilitating colonial injustices and mobilizing resistance thereto. Drawing on the interplay between justice, ethics, and human rights, Stahn develops principles of relational cultural justice. He challenges the argument that takings were acceptable according to the standards of the time and outlines how future engagement requires a re-invention of knowledge systems and relations towards objects, including new forms of consent, provenance research, and partnership, and a re-thinking of the role of museums themselves. Following the life story and transformation of cultural objects, this book provides a fresh perspective on international law and colonial history that appeals to audiences across a variety of disciplines. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019269412X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 593
Book Description
The treatment of cultural colonial objects is one of the most debated questions of our time. Calls for a new international cultural order go back to decolonization. However, for decades, the issue has been treated as a matter of comity or been reduced to a Shakespearean dilemma: to return or not to return. Confronting Colonial Objects seeks to go beyond these classic dichotomies and argues that contemporary practices are at a tipping point. The book shows that cultural takings were material to the colonial project throughout different periods and went far beyond looting. It presents micro histories and object biographies to trace recurring justifications and contestations of takings and returns while outlining the complicity of anthropology, racial science, and professional networks that enabled colonial collecting. The book demonstrates the dual role of law and cultural heritage regulation in facilitating colonial injustices and mobilizing resistance thereto. Drawing on the interplay between justice, ethics, and human rights, Stahn develops principles of relational cultural justice. He challenges the argument that takings were acceptable according to the standards of the time and outlines how future engagement requires a re-invention of knowledge systems and relations towards objects, including new forms of consent, provenance research, and partnership, and a re-thinking of the role of museums themselves. Following the life story and transformation of cultural objects, this book provides a fresh perspective on international law and colonial history that appeals to audiences across a variety of disciplines. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum
Author: Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317132041
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Since the late nineteenth century, museums have been cited as tools of imperialism and colonialism, as strongholds of patriarchalism, masculinism, homophobia and xenophobia, and accused both of elitism and commercialism. But, could the museum absorb and benefit from its critique, turning into a critical museum, into the site of resistance rather than ritual? This book looks at the ways in which the museum could use its collections, its cultural authority, its auratic space and resources to give voice to the underprivileged, and to take an active part in contemporary and at times controversial issues. Drawing together both major museum professionals and academics, it examines the theoretical concept of the critical museum, and uses case studies of engaged art institutions from different parts of the world. It reaches beyond the usual focus on western Europe, America, and ’the World’, including voices from, as well as about, eastern European museums, which have rarely been discussed in museum studies books so far.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317132041
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Since the late nineteenth century, museums have been cited as tools of imperialism and colonialism, as strongholds of patriarchalism, masculinism, homophobia and xenophobia, and accused both of elitism and commercialism. But, could the museum absorb and benefit from its critique, turning into a critical museum, into the site of resistance rather than ritual? This book looks at the ways in which the museum could use its collections, its cultural authority, its auratic space and resources to give voice to the underprivileged, and to take an active part in contemporary and at times controversial issues. Drawing together both major museum professionals and academics, it examines the theoretical concept of the critical museum, and uses case studies of engaged art institutions from different parts of the world. It reaches beyond the usual focus on western Europe, America, and ’the World’, including voices from, as well as about, eastern European museums, which have rarely been discussed in museum studies books so far.
Old Books, New Technologies
Author: David McKitterick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107035937
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
As we rely increasingly on digital resources, what is our responsibility to preserve 'old books' for the future? How was the question of preservation approached historically? David McKitterick's lively and wide-ranging study explores how 'old books' have been represented and interpreted from the eighteenth century to the present day.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107035937
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
As we rely increasingly on digital resources, what is our responsibility to preserve 'old books' for the future? How was the question of preservation approached historically? David McKitterick's lively and wide-ranging study explores how 'old books' have been represented and interpreted from the eighteenth century to the present day.
Contested Holdings
Author: Felicity Bodenstein
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800734247
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Going beyond strictly legal and property-oriented aspects of the restitution debate, restitution is considered as part of a larger set of processes of return that affect museums and collections, as well as notions of heritage and object status. Covering a range of case studies and a global geography, the authors aim to historicize and bring depth to contemporary debates in relation to both the return of material culture and human remains. Defined as contested holdings, differing museum collections ranging from fine arts to physical anthropology provide connections between the treatment and conceptualization of collections that generally occupy separate realms in the museum world.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800734247
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Going beyond strictly legal and property-oriented aspects of the restitution debate, restitution is considered as part of a larger set of processes of return that affect museums and collections, as well as notions of heritage and object status. Covering a range of case studies and a global geography, the authors aim to historicize and bring depth to contemporary debates in relation to both the return of material culture and human remains. Defined as contested holdings, differing museum collections ranging from fine arts to physical anthropology provide connections between the treatment and conceptualization of collections that generally occupy separate realms in the museum world.