1. The changing significance of the work of art in the museum
2. The museum, temple to the arts and sciences
7. The memory of the classical ideal
2. The museum, temple of the arts and sciences
Mythology gave the name of Museum to the sacred home of the Muses of the arts and sciences: Erato, Euterpe, Calliope, Clio, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Polymnia and Urania, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. The virtual Museum also has its own muse. The new born is called Dactylia, she is the "digital Muse," with an infinity of fingers... We mortals cannot begin to count her fingers and the art of all times incessantly honor her in pictures, sculptures, jewels and icons. All those digits pray, caress, embrace and play a game without end. It is the game of Dactylia, the divine beauty that illuminates the virtual museum.
Figure 1 -
Museum was also the name of the first "university" in the West: the Museum of Alexandria, founded by Ptolomy I Soter and by a Greek philosopher, Demetrius Phalerius (345-293 A.C.), a student of Theophrastus the great disciple of Aristoteles at the Lyceum in Athens.(5) The library of the museum, the celebrated Serapeium, was one of the wonders of classical antiquity. The museum was visited by geniuses such as Euclid, Eratosthenes and Archimedes. We should never forget that beauty and truth are essentially united not only in metaphysics but culturally. Malraux guides the discussion on museums to the root itself of the artistic act as one of human creation and revelation of its supreme mission.
To the "pleasure of looking," the succession of schools and their apparent contradictions contributed awareness of a passionate search to recreate the Universe vis-à-vis Creation. After all, the museum is one of the places that give the highest idea of man.
And the highest idea of mankind derives from man being in the image and likeness of his Creator. In man's intimate nature we find the spirit. We can now harvest its fruits because we know its origin.