1. The changing
significance of the work of art in the
museum
It is convenient to begin with Malraux's master
description of the significance of a work of art and the
function of the museum, which we can apply to all kinds
of museums, whether real, imaginary or virtual.
The role of museums in our relationship with works
of art is so great that we have difficulty in thinking of
museums as non-existent in those place where modern
European civilization is, or was, unknown. This
relationship has existed for us for scarcely two
centuries. The nineteenth century lived off it and we
continue to live off it, but we forget that museums have
imposed on the viewer an absolutely new relationship with
respect to the work of art. (11 - 12)
Malraux is writing of the twentieth century museum
but, as we shall see, we are certain that his ideas will
continue to be valid in the twenty-first century. He
refers to the transformation of the purpose or classical
model of a work of art. In fact, museums in the western
world,
have contributed to freeing works of art from their
expected performance, to change even portraits into
pictures. Caesar's bust or the equestrian statue of
Charles V are still Caesar and Charles V, yet the Duke of
Olivares is only a Velazquez. What do we care about the
identity of the man with the helmet, the man with the
glove? They are Rembrandt and Titian. The portrait,
especially, has ceased to be someone's portrait.
(12)
We could add that even the self-portrait of the
painter has ceased to refer to his person. Let us take
the case of the recent retrospective at the London
National Gallery (2) where some thirty self-portraits of
Rembrandt
and numerous sketches and engravings were exhibited. They
certainly show the passage of time in his long life, we
are moved by their implacable realism or fantastic genius
but, above all, those masterpieces imply a spiritual
universe rather than their flesh and blood creator.
Malraux's central idea is that we are witnessing a
"change of function" for the original artwork when we
admire it in a museum. The fact that the artwork has been
moved to an environment especially designed to show it
off would of itself merit a more detailed analysis but we
would be trespassing into the field of museum expertise,
a fascinating field but one which takes us away from our
subject. It is enough to observe that when faced with the
"man in a golden helmet" the visitor bends down to read
the name of the painter. He is interested in the
attribution of the artwork. An unforgettable show took
place in 1996 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York on the subject of the many attributions given to
Rembrandts at different times in the history of
art.(3)
Almost six million people from all parts of the world
visit the Louvre
yearly: are they coming to see The Gioconda or a Leonardo
da Vinci? Both the portrait of a beauty of Renaissance
Florence and the genius of the artist will remain
eternally linked for the present-day viewer, who is
probably a greater admirer of the painting than of the
lady's beauty. But this was not always so. In a
contemporary description, an amateur visiting
Fontainebleau relates: "There was also an oil painting of
a certain lady from Lombardy (sic) a very beautiful
woman, but to me not as beautiful as Madame Gualanda."
(4) This admirer compared Lisa Gherardini dei Giocondo,
wife of Franceso dei Giocondo, with Isabella Gualanda, a
friend of Giuliano di Medici. His comment did not refer
so much to Leonardo's painting but to the features of two
very beautiful women. In this our amateur coincided with
Leonardo's own commentary: "Can't you see that in human
beauty it is the beauty of the face that amazes
passers-by and not the richness of the adornments?"
Moreover, in the catalogue of 1614 prepared by
Sébastien Zamet, superintendent of the royal
palace, item 78 is listed as "une joconde"(sic) with no
mention of the painter! The subject of the painting at
the time was more important than its creator. But the
modern museum has produced a radical change in the
history art. As Malraux justly says,
Until the XIX century, all works of art were the
image of something that existed -or did not exist-
before, prior to being works of art. Only to the eyes of
the painter was the painting a painting; many times it
was also poetry. And the museum suppressed from almost
all portraits (even if only of a dream) almost all its
models, at the same time that it forced works of art away
from their function. (12)
In a certain sense, the visitor to a museum enters an
atelier empty of its models, there is no one posing, not
a flower or a wine cup on the artist's table. There is
only the painting as such and that is why it acquires new
significance. When the painter's oeuvre enters the museum
it is exhibited to the public in the context of a museum
of "paintings" rather than of "pictures." The museum
being open as well to a wider public not necessarily of
experts or amateurs, has changed its function. In effect,
the galleries of the great European collectors of the
past - emperors, kings, popes, nobles, bankers, cardinals
- were centers for a daily contact with beauty, for
conversation, places for "sensual and intellectual
delight." Francis I had copies of his exceptional
collection of more than fifty masterpieces on exhibition
in the royal baths at Fontainebleau for the enjoyment of
his courtiers and guests. These treasures centuries later
became the heritage of the Louvre Museum. What's
more,
The museum never knew a palladium, a saint, or
Christ, or object of veneration, of similarity, of
imagination, of decoration, of possession; only images of
things, different from the things themselves, deriving
from this difference its reason for being. (12)
This is Malraux's central thesis. The museum has
created an essential difference: the transmutation of an
esthetic value. In a sense it is a transfiguration which
leads to a confrontation of metamorphoses.
Before the existence of the museum,
The work of art had its associations: the gothic
statue to the cathedral, the classic picture to
contemporary decoration, but not to other works
spiritually different. It was isolated from the rest for
better appreciation. (12)
The museum is a collection of pieces the unity of
which is always in question. Only through an intellectual
effort can we come close to art as different from each
other as an African mask and a Renaissance painting. But
both artworks are housed under the same roof in the great
museums. We may well ask ourselves what is their common
denominator, what is the fundamental fraternal relation
between them that makes them members of the same family.
It is an eternal question. Each age gives a different but
always imperfect and incomplete answer.
Museums continue to be built, some collect more crowds
and receive more visitors than entire cities. The
ensemble of museums, large and small, important and not
so important, exceeds all description. Their variety is
incommensurable but all museums have in common one fact:
the art they keep acquires a new life "because it is
shared." Even where only one unique and isolated jewel is
kept, as is the case of The Burial of Count Orgaz which
although alone in the chapel of the Conception in the
church of Santo Tomé in Toledo also participates,
like a voice singing solo, in the fantastic concert
offered by El Greco's city.