Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain
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A01=Christopher Whitehead
Architectural Association
architectural developments
Architecture
Art
art historiography
Author_Christopher Whitehead
Barry Rooms
Burlington House
Category=WTHM
Collecting
Education
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Exhibitions
extension
Francis Fowke
Galleries
gallery
Gustav Friedrich Waagen
house
House of Commons
House of Lords
interiors
James Pennethorne
kensington
Leo Von Klenze
Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition
Mappin Art Gallery
marlborough
Marlborough House
Museological Principles
Museological Theory
museology professionalism
museum architecture Britain
museum studies
Museums
national
National Gallery
National Gallery Building
National Gallery Extension
nineteenth century Britain
nineteenth century British museum development
Octagon Hall
Pope Paul III
professionalism
public art museum
public education reform
Quantity Surveyor
redgrave
RIBA Library Photograph Collection
richard
Royal Academy
Sebastiano Del Piombo
south
South Kensington
South Kensington Museum
The Great Exhibition
Thomas Uwins
Victorian art institutions
Wilkins Building
Product details
- ISBN 9780754632368
- Weight: 710g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 28 Apr 2005
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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During the mid-nineteenth century a debate arose over the form and functions of the public art museum in Britain. Various occurrences caused new debates in Parliament and in the press about the purposes of the public museum which checked the relative complacency with which London's national collections had hitherto been run. This book examines these debates and their influence on the development of professionalism within the museum, trends in collecting and tendencies in museum architecture and decoration. In so doing it accounts for the general development of the London museums between 1850 and 1880, with particular reference to the National Gallery. This involves analysis of art display and its relations with art historiography, alongside institutional and architectural developments at the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum and the National Gallery. It is argued that the underpinning factor in all of these developments was a reformulation of the public museum's mission, which was in turn related to the electoral reform movement. In a potential situation of mass enfranchisement, the 'masses' should be well educated; the museum was openly identified as a useful institution in this sense. This consideration also influenced approaches to collecting and arranging artworks and to configuring their architectural setting within the museum, allowing for displays to be instructive in specific ways. Dissatisfaction with the British Museum and National Gallery buildings and their locations led to proposals to move the national collections, possibly merging and redefining them. Again the socio-political usefulness of the museum was key in determining where the national collections should be housed and in what form of building. This rich debate is analysed with full references to the various forums in and out of Parliament. Part one covers these issues in a thematic structure, examining all of the national collections, their interrelationships and their gradual development of discrete (yet sometimes arbitrary) museological territories. Part two focuses on the individual case of the National Gallery, observing how museological debate was brought to bear on the development of a specific institution. Every architectural development and redisplay is closely analysed in order to gauge the extent to which the products of debate were carried through into practice, and to comprehend the reasons why no museological grand project emerged in London.
Dr Christopher Whitehead is a Lecturer in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies at the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, University of Newcastle, UK.
