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Worthy Monuments : Art Museums and the Politics of Culture in Nineteenth-Century France / Daniel J. Sherman.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©1989Edition: Reprint 2014Description: 1 online resource (337 p.) : illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674433335
  • 9780674433342
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 708.4
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- PART I. THE MUSEUM AND THE STATE -- CHAPTER I. The State and the Uses of Patronage: The Envoi System -- CHAPTER 2. Inspectors, Inspections, and Norms -- PART II. THE MUSEUM AND THE CITY -- CHAPTER 3. Museums in Formation, 1791-1850 -- CHAPTER 4. Museums in Transition, 1850–1870 -- CHAPTER 5. Museums in Construction, 1860-1890 -- CHAPTER 6. The Museum and the Institution of Culture, 1870-1914 -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Notes -- Index
Summary: Attracting controversy as readily as they do crowds, art museums--the Grand Louvre project and the new Orsay in Paris, or the proposed Whitney and Guggenheim additions in New York, for example--occupy a curious but central position in world culture. Choosing the art museums of provincial France in the previous century as a paradigm, Daniel Sherman reaches toward an understanding of the museum's place in modern society by exploring its past. He uses an array of previously unstudied archival sources as evidence that the museum's emergence as an institution involved not only the intricacies of national policy but also the political dynamics and social fabric of the nineteenth-century city. The author ascertains that while the French state played an important role in the creation of provincial museums during the Revolutionary era, for much of the next century it was content simply to send works of art to the provinces. When in the 1880s the new Republican regime began to devote more attention to the real purposes and functions of provincial museums, officials were surprised to learn that the initiative had already passed into the hands of local elites who had nurtured their own museums from their inception. Sherman devotes particular attention to the museums of Bordeaux, Dijon, Marseilles, and Rouen. From their origins as repositories for objects confiscated during the Revolution, they began to attract the attention of local governments, which started to add objects purchased at regional art exhibitions. In the period 1860-1890, monumental buildings were constructed, and these museums became identified with the cities' bourgeois leaders. This central connection with local elites has continued to our own day, and leads into the author's stimulating reflections on the art museum's past, present, and future. This original and highly readable account should attract those with an interest in cultural institutions and art history in general as well as those who study the history and sociology of modern France.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674433342

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- PART I. THE MUSEUM AND THE STATE -- CHAPTER I. The State and the Uses of Patronage: The Envoi System -- CHAPTER 2. Inspectors, Inspections, and Norms -- PART II. THE MUSEUM AND THE CITY -- CHAPTER 3. Museums in Formation, 1791-1850 -- CHAPTER 4. Museums in Transition, 1850–1870 -- CHAPTER 5. Museums in Construction, 1860-1890 -- CHAPTER 6. The Museum and the Institution of Culture, 1870-1914 -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Notes -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Attracting controversy as readily as they do crowds, art museums--the Grand Louvre project and the new Orsay in Paris, or the proposed Whitney and Guggenheim additions in New York, for example--occupy a curious but central position in world culture. Choosing the art museums of provincial France in the previous century as a paradigm, Daniel Sherman reaches toward an understanding of the museum's place in modern society by exploring its past. He uses an array of previously unstudied archival sources as evidence that the museum's emergence as an institution involved not only the intricacies of national policy but also the political dynamics and social fabric of the nineteenth-century city. The author ascertains that while the French state played an important role in the creation of provincial museums during the Revolutionary era, for much of the next century it was content simply to send works of art to the provinces. When in the 1880s the new Republican regime began to devote more attention to the real purposes and functions of provincial museums, officials were surprised to learn that the initiative had already passed into the hands of local elites who had nurtured their own museums from their inception. Sherman devotes particular attention to the museums of Bordeaux, Dijon, Marseilles, and Rouen. From their origins as repositories for objects confiscated during the Revolution, they began to attract the attention of local governments, which started to add objects purchased at regional art exhibitions. In the period 1860-1890, monumental buildings were constructed, and these museums became identified with the cities' bourgeois leaders. This central connection with local elites has continued to our own day, and leads into the author's stimulating reflections on the art museum's past, present, and future. This original and highly readable account should attract those with an interest in cultural institutions and art history in general as well as those who study the history and sociology of modern France.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)