How one cultural vision has lessons for the whole world
According to its director, Neil MacGregor, the monstrous iron gates of the British Museum have only twice in its history had to be closed to the public. The first time was in 1848, for fear of angry Chartist radicals. And the second was earlier this year, as thousands queued for the museum's Terracotta Army exhibition.
But boast he might as last week the British Museum was named the nation's top visitor attraction - thrashing Tate Modern, Alton Towers, and even Madame Tussauds. Instead of Nemesis roller coasters and Will Smith waxworks, tourists and Brits alike clearly preferred the Great Court, Egyptian galleries, and blockbuster exhibitions on show at Great Russell Street. And all the signs are that this month's Emperor Hadrian exhibition will draw even greater numbers.
Inevitably, the brickbats have already been hurled: the museum has become too populist, commercial, dumbed-down. But that is the very opposite of the truth. In fact, what MacGregor has achieved is a redefinition of the museum for our modern age. The British Museum has become a template for what MacGregor calls 'the civic outcome': the museum as a place of respect, mutuality, and enlightenment in our increasingly antagonistic multi-racial, multi-ethnic society. And it is a model which other museums around Britain need desperately to follow.
Of course, the British Museum is not alone in its popularity. Even as audiences for classical music, theatre and art films have declined across the West, the last 20 years has witnessed a global resurgence in museum visits. According to museums scholar Andrew McClellan, attendance at art museums has grown from 22 million visitors in 1962 to more than 100 million in 2000. And the evidence is everywhere, from the queues at the Uffizi, Louvre and Pushkin to the opening weekend of the refurbished Kelvingrove when all Glasgow seemed to be at the banks of the Kelvin.
To the religiously minded, the popularity of the museum is a miserable indictment of our post-Christian age. Instead of attending church, we wretched secularists seek some kind of spiritual fulfilment amid the art and artefacts of whitewashed galleries. The museum becomes the temple of our times with an almost Catholic veneration displayed towards the relics of the past. Can anything else explain the tens of millions of pounds spent on 'saving' Raphaels and Wedgwoods for the nation?..
Read entire article at Observer (UK)
But boast he might as last week the British Museum was named the nation's top visitor attraction - thrashing Tate Modern, Alton Towers, and even Madame Tussauds. Instead of Nemesis roller coasters and Will Smith waxworks, tourists and Brits alike clearly preferred the Great Court, Egyptian galleries, and blockbuster exhibitions on show at Great Russell Street. And all the signs are that this month's Emperor Hadrian exhibition will draw even greater numbers.
Inevitably, the brickbats have already been hurled: the museum has become too populist, commercial, dumbed-down. But that is the very opposite of the truth. In fact, what MacGregor has achieved is a redefinition of the museum for our modern age. The British Museum has become a template for what MacGregor calls 'the civic outcome': the museum as a place of respect, mutuality, and enlightenment in our increasingly antagonistic multi-racial, multi-ethnic society. And it is a model which other museums around Britain need desperately to follow.
Of course, the British Museum is not alone in its popularity. Even as audiences for classical music, theatre and art films have declined across the West, the last 20 years has witnessed a global resurgence in museum visits. According to museums scholar Andrew McClellan, attendance at art museums has grown from 22 million visitors in 1962 to more than 100 million in 2000. And the evidence is everywhere, from the queues at the Uffizi, Louvre and Pushkin to the opening weekend of the refurbished Kelvingrove when all Glasgow seemed to be at the banks of the Kelvin.
To the religiously minded, the popularity of the museum is a miserable indictment of our post-Christian age. Instead of attending church, we wretched secularists seek some kind of spiritual fulfilment amid the art and artefacts of whitewashed galleries. The museum becomes the temple of our times with an almost Catholic veneration displayed towards the relics of the past. Can anything else explain the tens of millions of pounds spent on 'saving' Raphaels and Wedgwoods for the nation?..