8. The imaginary
anthology
The coming of the new copying technologies, first
photography, then analogic and later digital
reproduction, have opened an unsuspected horizon in the
history of art. The dream of every scholar is to have a
complete catalogue of the work of an artist. It is
certainly an ambition impossible to satisfy in the
majority of cases, not only because a considerable number
of works have been lost throughout history but because
the artist's own creative process implies mutilation,
taking off, forgetting, destruction, drafting,
corrections, sketches, projects and finally, dreams that
no one will ever know. However, the capacity of modern
computers, their prodigious memory banks, the exchange of
art reproductions over the digital network, the fidelity
of the images, everything contributes to bring us closer
to the ideal of a complete anthology.
The real anthology begins. The masterpiece is no
longer the more complete and more "perfect" work, but the
extreme of style, of the specificity or casting off of
the artist vis-à-vis himself. It is the most
significant work of an inventor of a style. (17)
In reality an anthology is much more than a catalogue,
it is an instrument for understanding, a way of accessing
the vocation of each artist. When the virtual museum
places at our disposal a great collection of works by the
same artist, it is possible to see the glimmer of what
Malraux called "style." But this is not the place to
enter a terrain that would lead us to a debate on
esthetics. It suffices to accept an irreversible fact.
Data banks today facilitate a fabulous confrontation of
styles, a cross reference of variables and updated
statistics of such richness that nothing will be the same
again. The information available in institutions such as
the Smithsonian
Institute Research Information Service, the Getty
Information Institute and the International
Council of Museums is overwhelming. A new museum era
has begun for all mankind. Malraux predicted it with
incredible foresight, such was his genius.
Just as in reading a drama without watching its
performance, or listening to a record without attending
the concert, there is beyond the museum a vast domain of
artistic knowledge, more than man has ever known.
(44)
It is nothing less than the "heritage of all of
history," not merely local history however eminent.
Malraux poses this at once on reminding us of what was
traditional for nineteenth century museums. What could a
visitor of that century really know when he visited a
great museum? The majority of human masterpieces were
absolutely beyond his scope. Today, instead, thanks to
digital reproduction a considerable number of
masterpieces can be seen, at least potentially, by all of
us. The artistic heritage of the human genius, in all its
facets is now "ours" more than ever before. It is
accessible. If we add art tourism, exchanges of students
and experts, the work done in preservation and
restoration, we must be pleased to see that there is a
growing awareness of mankind's real artistic heritage.
UNESCO is leading
this movement that gives us hope in the face of so many
unrecoverable losses, most the result of violence,
ignorance or contempt.