A few dusty old considerations...

An alternative method for sociology

"I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral." 

John Burroughs

 

The Tradescants might have found it surprising, to say the least, if they had been told that their collection would become part of one of the museums of Oxford, visited by more than a million people very year. The collection of John Tradescant the Elder, expanded by his son, John the Younger, was donated to the University of Oxford by Ashmole and has become the core of the museum’s collection. The Tradescants had already made their collection available to the public in London in the “Ark”, so that the artefacts might tell their tales. It is interesting, really, how we regularly associate history to museums but how seldom we associate museums to history, when in fact that is one of their most fascinating stories.
The Tradescants’ “chamber of curiosities” was not a “one off”, these collections were numerous and common all across 16^th century Europe, pioneered by the love of the Ancient in Renaissance Italy. The “chamber of curiosities” derives  from the central European term Wunderkammer, which is frequently seen along with Kunstkammer (the chamber of art). The explorations of the time revealed wondrous and unfamiliar objects to the Europeans, who avidly collected them somewhat with the same eagerness as children with toys. An initial examination of the collections might cause a hissy fit in a curator of the 21^st century, the objects appear collected at random, showing off no more than the quantity, quality and exoticism of the items. More recent studied have revealed the possibility that collections like those of  Rudolf II and Ferdinand I were “expressions of symbolic mastery of the greater world”, in the words of Thomas DaAcost Kaufmann. In short, the objects were arranged in such ways as to form mini-universes, each object standing as symbol of the place it came from. Rudolf II is the most famous example of this. In the Spanish Room of his castle in Prague he commissioned an allegorical ceiling painting in which he is depicted ruling over his dominion, in a God-like relation to his Kunstkammer, his own miniature Creation.

That reality was far removed from the rationale behind the Louvre in 1793, arguably. The date should reveal something about the mentality behind the creation of the museum. The French Revolution was a statement in itself and it there was something it did achieve it was to crush all symbols of past monarchic authority, including the artistic wealth of France. The only alternative to annihilation was to strip these symbols of their voices, of all symbolic communication and reduce them to items of artistic merit. Hence, the Louvre. However, in the competitive world of the 19^th century, the nurture of nationalistic pride turned museums into a prime centre to promote “Britishness” or “Frenchness” and the cultural supremacy of the nation. This new symbolic value of museums has endured in some forms into the very recent past, as possibly Boardman’s words concerning the Parthenon marbles might amusingly suggest: “They have been more influential on art and attitudes to ancient Greece in the last century and a half than they had been in the preceding two and a half millennia, and the country which has done so much to preserve and understand the Greek heritage is an appropriate setting in which they can continue to exercise their benign influence”

Museums in the 21^st century exist within a very different reality to their past. As time progresses they have to adapt to different social needs and demands. It might be fair to say that some galleries and museums have struggled to adapt to the rapid changes in society, shown by the decreasing numbers of visitors every year. Some even go so far so to ask why we need museums at all. The question itself is legitimate and should be asked, though the silent assumption that the answer is that we don’t is concerning. The most successful institutions have found new and creative ways of engaging the public and the Tradescants should be proud to know that the Ashmolean Museum today is very much active in redefining its role and adapting to the needs of its community (and the number of visitors every day is proof of its success). The latest scheme, which primarily aims to engage the younger population of the country is to be launched on the 25^th January. LiveFridays is a series of events taking place on the last Friday of every month in collaboration with student societies and faculties from the University of Oxford. The first of these events, “An Evening with the Gods” will offer visitors the chance to step back in time, into the exciting and turbulent world of Ancient Myths. Visitors will be able to live the harrowing experience of walking through the Underworld, or they will be able to walk the land of the living, guided by the professional and very amusing actors of Temple Theatre. The most fortunate will even walk up to Olympus itself and enjoy sweet ambrosia there. Among the many activities is a treasure hunt with a comic specially designed by the Athenian artists Alexandros Markoulakis. This should be a great start to an incredible new series, the following month promising a thrills of “Musical Technologies”. It might seem surprising but through museums and their history, one can glean a lot about a society, its taste, its psychology and its demands.