REINVENTING THE MUSEUM The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift Second Edition EDITED BY GAIL ANDERSON ALTAMIRA PRESS ALTAMIRA PRESS A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham • New York Toronto . Plymouth, UK The Gloom of the Museum 1 JOHN COTTON DANA Prologue ODAY, MUSEUMS OF ART ARE BUILT to keep objects of art, and objects of art are bought to be kept in museums. As the objects seem to do their work if they are safely kept, and as museums seem to serve their purpose if they safely keep the objects, the whole thing is as useful in the splendid isolation of a distant park as in the center of the life of the community which possesses it. Tomorrow, objects of art will be bought to give pleasure, to make manners seem more important, to promote skill, to exalt handwork, and to increase the zest of life by adding to it new interests; and these objects being bought for use will be put where the most people can most handily use them: in a museum planned for making the best use of all it contains, and placed where a majority of its community can quickly and easily visit it. Part I: How the Arts Have Been Induced to Flourish The story of an art epoch in the life history of a people seems to resolve itself into something like this: Character and circumstances lead the people into conquest. It may sound better, though it means the same, to say that character and circumstances bring out a few men of genius who lead and rule the people and take them on to conquest. The conquest means wealth, and this is true whether the conquest be of other peoples by leadership and force of arms, or of the land's natural resources and of methods of producing and using power. John Cotton Dana (1856-1929), a prolific writer and librarian, was the founding director of The Newark Mu- seum in Newark, New Jersey, and widely recognized as one of the pioneer museum thinkers of the last century. "The Gloom of the Museum” written by Dana in 1917 was part of The New Museum Series, a series of small booklets that addressed issues pertinent to museums. It is reprinted here by permission of The Newark Museum Association/The American Association of Museums. 17 18 CHAPTER 1 THE GLOOM OF THE MUSEUM 19 OC- Always a few gain most of the wealth and hold most of the power. The con quest being somewhat well assured, these few have leisure. They search for: cupations and things and indulgences which may give them pleasure. Whatever else these occupations, objects, and indulgences may be, they must be such as the common people cannot have; for the rich and ruling class must always keep itself distinct from the lower classes in its pleasures and pastimes, just as it always did in its leadership in war and government. These distinctive recreations and diversions and admired objects of the powerful and rich have always been of about the same character. War is first choice; if not war of the higher kind in which is involved the existence of the tribe, family, city, dukedom, principality, kingdom, or nation over which the rich and powerful in question rule, then a war of petty conquest, mean in itself, but permitting some braggadocio, keeping up the clan spirit and exalting the ruling class. Lacking a vigorous and dangerous war on battlefields to engage all their activities, the rulers have often turned to hunting-to hunting in a form which nature, or special laws, or the rules of the game make somewhat dangerous; for if it does not at least seem dangerous, those who engage in it will not appear brave to the lower classes. The form of hunting chosen is usually one which is quite inaccessible to the poor and weak. Big game near home, and better still at a good distance; falconry, the right to use falcons being easily restricted to the few fox hunting on horseback; dangerous athletic sports; and latterly automobiling, bal- looning, and flying-these have all had or shall have their vogue. Another obvious method of distinguishing their life from that of the common people has been the possession of distinctive residences beyond all need in size, number, cost, and adornment. It is through these residences that the rich and powerful have chiefly been led to become patrons of the arts. The wish to make full use of the religious habits of the ruled has often led the rich to build and adorn churches; and always, of course, the need of expensive and peculiar dress has been an occasion for calling in the aid of artisans of certain kinds. The study of litera- ture, language, history, and the fine arts has also often been a recreating of the rich, though usually these studies have been pursued by proxy. As unusual native abil. ity has almost always been one of the essentials to success in acquiring wealth and power, it is not strange that an occasional member of the class of the ruling rich has shown marked ability in letters and the arts, or at least in appreciation of them. But pursuit of art and letters has usually ended with little more than such a patronage of them as would bring in return ample adulation, a reputation for learning, and glorification in history. Comparative security, then, after a series of profitable wars, finds the rich and powerful compelled to engage in expensive sports, to build large and expensive residences, and to decorate them and to adorn elaborately their own persons that there may be no lack of distinctions between themselves and the common people. The demand for architects, painters, sculptors, gold and silversmiths, ironworkers, and artisans of all kinds thus at once arises, and a demand also for teachers, poets, orators, and historians to make a pretense of love of learning. It is worth noting here that in former days these workers produced without the intervention of machinery; that the rich have usually been ready to adopt the older methods in art productions if for any reason they were inaccessible to the poor; and that today admiration for the handmade is largely born of a desire to have some- thing which, being unique in its kind, will impart a little of the old leisure-class exclusiveness to its owner. The patronage of the arts, with the consequent development thereof, has varied in extent in the rise to wealth and leisure of the leaders among different peoples, as circumstances dictated, but its origin seems always to have been about the same. Whenever this patronage has appeared—whenever, that is, the demand for objects of art has arisen—the supply has been forthcoming. Fashion among the rich has sometimes prevented the results of this patronage of art from showing themselves very plainly in the country of the rich. In our day, for example, the fashion is to import from abroad and to say that good artwork cannot be produced at home; so we have a Barbizon painting factory in Paris, mak- ers of antiques in Italy, and a digging up of gone-by utensils and furniture in all European and Asiatic countries. These old things cost more in the first place, the tariff makes them more expensive still, and their ownership gives considerable of the ruling-class distinction. Were it to become the fashion to patronize American designers and craftsmen in all lines and to give artists and architects a free hand in- stead of insisting on conformity to the ancient ways as interpreted by the ignorant rich, we would have a larger art demand in America; the supply would raise prices and wages; art study would be encouraged; more men of genius, skill, and training would come here from abroad; and we would begin our own renaissance. Those who know Mr. Veblen's delightful book, The Theory of the Leisure Class , will see that I have borrowed from him in my statement about the character of the diversions and the conspicuous waste of the rich. But our renaissance does not come. We have an aristocracy based on wealth, with accompanying power. This aristocracy feels the same need that aristocracies mark them as superior to the poor and weak. They find that the easi- est way to acquire such objects is not to cause them to be produced by artists and artisans of their own country-America-but, as already noted, to purchase them in older countries. What had already given distinction to their owners in France, Italy, England, and Germany is seen at once to be peculiarly well fitted to give a like distinction here. Hence the products of our own people are definitely held in no esteem as honorific possessions. Art in America does not flourish. I have used the foregoing remarks, taken from a paper published in the Inde- pendent seven years ago, as a preface to the essay which follows on the gloom of the museum in the hope that they will make still more self-evident the statements may in the latter concerning the origin of American museums of art. The kinds of objects-ancient, costly, and imported that the rich feel they must buy to give themselves a desired distinction are inevitably the kinds that they, as patrons and 20 CHAPTER 1 THE GLOOM OF THE MUSEUM 21 directors of museums, cause those museums to acquire. Veritably, most of our great museums look with open scorn on the products of American artists and artisans. The peculiar sanctity of oil paint on canvas has been graciously extended in some small degree to New World products, and our great museums occasionally buy, more often receive as gifts, and still more often receive as loans for exhibi- tion the works of American painters. But most of our richer museums of art, that in Chicago being a notable exception, follow the dictates of the rich. They very evidently do not think it is the proper function of a museum of art to promote, foster, or patronize American talent. The new museum, for the development of which this series is designed, will hold that its first duty is to discover talent and encourage its development here at home. The rich and powerful collect foreign things and insist that foreign things only shall be enshrined in the museum they patronize. The poor follow the rich in this thinking. The attempt to modify this state of affairs is not one that is full of hope. But the growing habit of cities to maintain their own museums will surely tend to democratize them; and if, in the beginnings of the museums that are now com- ing into existence, the suggestions for making them immediately and definitely useful to their founders and patrons--the public—which we find today so widely approved among museum workers are quite generally adopted, the day will soon come when many public museums will look upon the promotion of American art as one of their most important functions. In Europe, these older museums have objects of great importance to students of art, of history in general, of the history of art, of social development, and of the his- tory of invention and discovery. Large groups of these objects were first collected many years ago by wealthy and powerful individuals: princes, kings, emperors, and members of the nobility. These collectors were usually entirely selfish in their acquisition, rarely looking beyond their own personal pleasure or the aggrandize- ment of their immediate families . They collected that they might possess , not that they might use, or that others might use, the things collected for the pleasure and advancement of the world at large. As the idea of general welfare crept into and modified the government of any given country, the ruling powers of that country in many cases confiscated or purchased these collected treasures, added other purchases and gifts to them, made them so-called public collections, and deposited them for safekeeping in national and municipal buildings. These buildings were for the most part erected for other purposes than the reception and proper display of works of art and archaeology. This fact usually made it possible to install collections in them only under such conditions of space and light as prevented either logical or artistic arrangement and made both casual observation and careful study of most of the objects a burden instead of pleasure. As the collections were of very great value-consisting usually of originals which no money could replace, which should therefore be guarded with the ut- most care—the first thought in regard to them was their preservation; their utiliza- tion being a secondary and rather remote affair. Part II: The Gloom of the Museum, with Suggestions for Removing It Prefatory Note The art of museum construction, acquisition, and management is in its infancy. No one can say with authority how that art will be developed in the next few years. But on this much at least the public may congratulate itself: that museum authori- ties now feel that their respective establishments should be, above all things, attrac- tive in a sane and homely way to the public which owns them. Art museums of necessity have the faults of their ancestry, and these faults are so obvious that even a layman like myself may see them, and the plain statement of such of them as a layman dares to say he sees may help to move the intelligent part of the public to set to work to correct them. Throughout this discussion I have art museums almost solely in mind. Why Museum Buildings Are Temples and Palaces The character of the buildings which, as time went on, were here and there erected to house these collections of priceless originals, was determined by several factors. As most of the collections had found their first homes in the palaces of rulers or members of the nobility, it was quite naturally concluded that their new homes should also be in the style of the local palace or royal residences. As the things col- lected were objects of art, it seemed obvious that they should be housed in artistic buildings, and as for several centuries it has been difficult for architects or those having power over art collections to conceive of an artistic building save in terms of Greek or Renaissance architecture, nearly all special museum buildings imitated In Europe, therefore, we find museums to be either old buildings of the royal type or later constructions copying the palace or the Greek temple; contain- ing priceless originals in all lines of art, craftsmanship, and archaeology, arranged as the characters of the several buildings compel; guarded with extreme care; dutifully visited by serious-minded tourists; and used sparingly by a small number of special either the Greek temple or the Italian palace. palace How Museums Came to Be So Gloomily Beautiful One need visit only a few of the older museums of art and archaeology in Europe to understand why most American museums of the same subjects are so ineffective. students. 22 CHAPTER 1 New America Copies the Old Europe, of Course when the subject of museums began a few decades ago to be taken up seriously in America. It was inevitable that the first wish of all our museum enthusiasts should THE GLOOM OF THE MUSEUM 23 kind which the citizen points out with pride to visiting friends which appears in the advertising pamphlets of the local boards of trade; which is the recipient of themselves the maximum of fatigue with the minimum of pleasure, which will offer through the opening of loan collections a few opportunities each winter for society to display itself and demonstrate its keen aesthetic interests. strangers and a few resident women and children occasionally use to produce in be to produce imitations of the European institutions. Those institutions were, in most cases, long established and greatly admired, and they furnished the only il lustrations of the museum idea. Moreover, collections more or less well suited to form the beginnings of art museums had been made here, after the European manner, by a few of the rich; some of these had fallen by gift or will to public use, accompanied not infrequently by the requirement that they be permanently housed in art buildings which were inevitably fashioned after the European type. The promoters of art museums in America had no choice in the matter. The approved examples of Europe, the precedents already established in America in accordance with those examples, the unanimous votes of architects and trustees on what it is that makes a building a fit home for works of art, and the voice of so much of the general public as had ever seen or heard of European museums-all these factors united to complete the erection here of the kind of museum building which now oppresses us. Why Museums Are Way Off in the Woods The prevalence of the European idea of a museum determined not only the charac- ter of our museum buildings but also their location. As they must be works of art , and as temples and palaces need open space about them to display their excellences, and as space in the centers of towns is quite expensive, donors, architects, trustees, and city fathers all agreed that the art museum building should be set apart from the city proper, preferably in a park with open space about it. Distance from the center of population and the difficulty most citizens would encounter did they attempt to see the museum's contents were given no weight in comparison with the obvious advantages of display of the building's outer charms. Rarity and High Price Make Things More Beautiful The European examples which were so disastrous in their effect on the character and location of our museum buildings had an unfortunate influence also on the character and arrangement of their contents. In the order of events in Europe, as already noted, one country after another and one city after another came into the possession of treasures of art and archae- ology-priceless originals—which it was the duty of the authorities to preserve with the utmost care. Our own art museum enthusiasts, imitating their predeces- sors, sought also to form collections of unique and costly objects. A delusion like that which everywhere possesses the art novice as to the relative value of real oil paintings, however atrocious, and colored lithographic reproductions of paintings, however excellent, possessed those who made private art collections and those who selected and purchased objects for our museums. Art museum objects were not chosen for their beauty or for the help they might give in developing good taste in the community, but for their rarity, their likeness to objects found in European museums, and for their cost. The older collections on the continent are naturally largely historical and ar- chaeological. This seemed sufficient reason for making our collections of the same kind. The wish to form collections which should illustrate the development of this or that special form of art also influenced greatly the character of our early museums. But the wish to make them, like their European models, include a large number of things peculiar, unique, not copies, not obtainable by others, and costly, was probably the chief factor in making our museums mausoleums of curios. The objects acquired being rare and costly, it was inevitable that they should be very carefully safeguarded, placed where they could be seen only (and that not very adequately), and never handled and examined closely. The Museum of Religious Gloom A city may with perfect propriety set itself to the task of making a collection of rare and ancient original products of man's craftsmanship, spending, for example, $10,000 for a piece of tapestry, $100,000 for a painting, $30,000 for a marble statue, $20,000 for a piece of porcelain, and so on; it may add to these by gift and may place them all in a one-story, poorly lighted, marble, fireproof building set in a park remote from the city's center. But it ought to do this with a full comprehension of the fact that, while it is in so doing establishing a “Museum of Art" in the sense in which that phrase is most often used today, it is not forming an institution which will either entertain or instruct the community to an extent at all commensurate with its cost. In such an establishment the city will have an "art museum" of the American Museums Today That this rough outline of recent museum history in America is fairly correct is am- ply demonstrated by present-day American museums themselves. They are usually housed in buildings fashioned to look like Greek temples or Renaissance palaces, which are very poorly adapted to the proper installation of collections and very rarely well planned for growth. These buildings are set apart from the city whose citizens they are built to serve, often in remote parks. The objects in them are very
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