Archaeological Views: To Titillate or to Teach?
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My wife and I recently visited an exhibition, or rather three exhibitions in one, in Beaune, the elegant wine capital of Burgundy in the heart of France. Entitled “The Treasures of European Cathedrals: Liège to Beaune,” it was put on at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Hôtel-Dieu and the Collégiale and contained a superlative collection of altar ware, reliquaries, paintings, tapestries, liturgical garments, jewelry and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia from Christian centers throughout Western Europe. The quality of materials, standards of workmanship and sheer ostentation of these trappings of religious observance in the Roman Catholic cathedrals and monasteries of Western Europe from the 7th to 19th centuries gave some idea not only of the wealth of the church, which the Reformation may have reacted against but seems not to have dented, but also of what has miraculously escaped wars, natural disasters and theft over the past 1,200 years.
Yet standing in awe in front of these magnificent works, in the obligatory gloom while searching for labels and trying to make historical sense of the items, we reflected on another equally compelling and evocative exhibition we had seen in London the year before on the “Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia,” which closed not long ago at the British Museum. It, too, was somewhat congested, awkwardly labeled and dimly lit, far from the startling clarity of Iranian sunlight. But it did display some outstanding objects from the Iran Bastan Museum in Teheran, the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum itself. It, like the exhibition in Beaune, was accompanied by a sumptuous catalog, a lasting souvenir of the occasion and a permanent source of reference in its own right. But these two volumes offered the purchaser a by-product which might not have been intended by the editors: It is actually possible to see the artifacts—especially the small ones—in fine detail, close-up and clearly, with an explanation alongside and no one jostling for space!
A feast for the eyes is no substitute for a feast for the mind. Exhibitions, which have become the lifeblood of museums and galleries for the attendance, support and publicity they engender, have fallen prey to all the commercial, conservation and financial pressures that weigh heavily today on directors and curatorial staff. In the process of securing rare and famous objects for display, taking care of them in the most modern and acceptable manner, and covering the large outlays needed to bring things together, literally and metaphorically, the academic content of these events has begun to lose out to the aesthetic. This was always the case with exhibitions of paintings, where the main message taken away by the visitor was the oneupmanship of being able to say you were there and saw the great masterpieces. It wasn’t always this way with antiquities, however, since these exhibitions served the primary purpose of illustrating a little known aspect of a long dead civilization or addressing a historical theme across time and geographical borders. Unfortunately these traditional sorts of shows are also succumbing to fashion and catering to artistic instead of archaeological sensibilities.
The world of the Achaemenid Persians was no more a “forgotten empire” (forgotten by whom?) than the furnishings and fittings of the cathedrals of medieval Europe were thought of by their custodians as “treasures.” The purpose of these contemporary displays, bathed in the statutory half-light, accompanied by labels either too low or too small, and thronged with visitors who are always standing in front of the exhibit you most want to see, becomes less to enlighten than to titillate and asks the question, why has so much effort gone into mounting them? The reason, of course, is public relations. The interests, or rather instruction, of the public is subordinated to the lowest common denominator, beauty, which is in the eye, not the mind, of the beholder. I do not begrudge the museums and their curators (or the public) finding these shows appealing and worthwhile, and indeed I admire their curators’ courage in confronting the multiple challenges that preparing an exhibition, especially one with antiquities borrowed from the Islamic Republic of Iran, must entail, but I wonder if they repay all the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into mounting them.
Removing an article that was once part of a culture’s everyday life from its natural surroundings, putting it into an antiseptic glass case and treating it as something to be ogled rather than used, tends to diminish the dimension that renders these objects intelligible in the social, industrial and religious context of the time they were made. Ciboria and monstrances were designed to hold the host; chalices, the consecrated wine; and reliquaries, the holy relics to be venerated. All had their place and role 076in the churches and religious calendars, but in a museum they become ornaments divorced from their preordained setting and demystified. Cylinder seals were part of the administrative and superstitious practices of the Persian empire between 550 and 300 B.C. and as such were worn, employed and stored as precious instruments of identity and belief. Treated as miniature works of great art, without accompanying representations of the way they were carried or easily visible impressions on bullae or tablets, not to mention magnification, they lose some of their potential to inform and inspire.
That said, it is impossible to come away from exhibitions like those in Beaune and the British Museum without the imprint of unfamiliar and exotic new images on one’s mind, a receptiveness to seeing them again and a lingering interest in the style, function and history of the material displayed. I am sure that the organizers could not have asked for more, but is that enough? Perhaps all that’s really required is the exhibition catalogue—with or without the exhibition.
My wife and I recently visited an exhibition, or rather three exhibitions in one, in Beaune, the elegant wine capital of Burgundy in the heart of France. Entitled “The Treasures of European Cathedrals: Liège to Beaune,” it was put on at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Hôtel-Dieu and the Collégiale and contained a superlative collection of altar ware, reliquaries, paintings, tapestries, liturgical garments, jewelry and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia from Christian centers throughout Western Europe. The quality of materials, standards of workmanship and sheer ostentation of these trappings of religious observance in the Roman Catholic cathedrals and monasteries of […]
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