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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2016
This essay considers how far the original sacred context of a painting or other artefact should be acknowledged in modern galleries and museums. It is argued that such institutions should be concerned with rather more than the fostering of aesthetic experience. An educational role is also important, and this entails that, although nothing should be done to encourage religion, contextualizing painting and artefact will also open up the possibility for concomitant religious experience. Although various formal distinctions are noted, the argument is conducted by means of a large number of specific examples.
1 E.g. Alpers, S. ‘The Museum as a Way of Seeing’, in Karp, I. and Lavine, S. (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1991), 27 Google Scholar.
2 From Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, quoted in Bazin, G., The Museum Age (New York: Universe Books, 1967), 160 Google Scholar.
3 Duncan, C., Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., 1–47, 102–32.
5 For illustration, www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/titian-noli-me-tangere.
6 Drury, J., Painting the Word: Christian Pictures and their Meanings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)Google Scholar, esp. 117–20.
7 For illustration, www.flickr.com/photos/fordtotti/424898142.
8 Clark, K., ‘The Ideal Museum’, Art News 52 (1954), 29 Google Scholar.
9 Murdoch, I., Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992), 81 Google Scholar.
10 The Seagram murals originally intended for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York were reunited for an exhibition at the Tate (26th September 2008– 1st February 2009). Dedicated in 1971, the Houston Chapel is open to all faiths; its mission statement talks of a wish ‘to inspire people to action through art and contemplation’.
11 The quality of the textured surface could be taken to signify the richness of divine creation, the call to transcendence as no more than a vague call to otherness.
12 The very notion of aesthetic experience has been challenged by, among others, G. Dickie and Nelson Goodman. For philosophers surveying the current state of play, see Shusterman, R. and Tomlin, A. (ed), Aesthetic Experience (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar. For a recent representative selection on religious experience, see Martin, C. and McCutcheon, R. T. (eds), Religious Experience: A Reader (Durham: Acumen, 2012)Google Scholar.
14 Rosenberg, P. and Damian, V., Nicolas Poussin: Masterpieces 1594–1665 (London: Cassell, 1995), 78 Google Scholar. Poussin approved (letter of 24th May, 1648); for Poussin's interest in Stoicism, see Blunt, A., Nicolas Poussin (London: Phaidon, 1967)Google Scholar.
15 For detailed discussion, see Green, T., Nicolas Poussin paints the Seven Sacraments twice (Watchet: Paravail, 2000), 301–310 Google Scholar.
17 The child has pricked his finger on a thorn, thus alluding to the crown of thorns that he will wear on the cross.
18 Shearman, J., Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; For Pontormo, 90–3, fig. 67; For Titian, 99–101, Plate VIII.
19 Constable was a committed High Anglican. One of his paintings of Salisbury Cathedral was even intended to celebrate divine deliverance of the Church of England from the threats implied in the Reform Bill (hence the presence of a rainbow after a storm).
20 For Constable, www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/C/2960. The point about Cèzanne is better perceived by considering the group as a whole.
22 Since it was not long after the war, similar reasons could have been at play as with the London Titian discussed earlier, for despite being a crucifixion it carried an optimistic message. My childhood ‘memory’ of its location may not be quite accurate, as others recall encounters at the end of a long corridor, with that alternative form of distance, though, still providing a sense of mystery.
24 The acquisition was controversial because Ofili was a Tate Trustee at the time. The layout as a whole was designed by the architect, David Adjaye.
25 Chris Ofili, (Illuminations, DVD, 2002).
26 Booklet accompanying The Age of Chivalry (Royal Academy of Arts, 1987).
27 Alexander, J. and Binski, P. (eds), Age of Chivalry (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987)Google Scholar, 225, no. 87.
28 Stemming from the 8th century, it is also known as the Monymusk Reliquary and the Brecbennoch.
29 The comparison is drawn in Pearce, S. M., Museums, Objects and Collections (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), 197–198 Google Scholar.
30 For a detailed account of the controversy, O'Neill, M., ‘Repatriation and its Discontents’, in Robson, E., Treadwell, L. and Gosden, C. (eds), Who Owns Objects? The Ethics and Politics of Collecting Cultural Artefacts (Oxford: Oxbrow Books, 2005), 105–128 Google Scholar. A critique is provided of two experts who objected to the decision, Christian Feest and Julian Spalding.
31 Gaskell, I., ‘Sacred to Profane and Back Again’, in McClellan, A. (ed), Art and its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 149–162 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Under Gods: Stories from the Soho Road, 19th January – 28th July, 2013.
33 For further details, see www.mwr.org.tw.
34 Currently a Peter Howson crucifixion hangs in the first room. Previously the Christian painting on display was still a crucifixion but a much more optimistic one by Craigie Aitchison in which the suffering was much less explicit. At least while it was Aitchison on view, for the Muslim the resultant conflict and tension would not have been quite so acute.
35 The point is developed by both Pearce in Museums, Objects and Collections (op. cit.) and by Bennett, Tony in The Birth of the Museum (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar.
36 Director of the National Gallery in London (1987–2002) and from 2002 Director of the British Museum.