DOI Heft:
Heft 17
DOI Artikel:Rundschau
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42040#0891
RUNDSCHAU
Sammlungen
DAS ASIATISCHE MUSEUM
IN BERLIN
Unter diesem Titel veröffentlicht soeben der
Direktor der ostasiatischen Kunstsammlung in
Berlin, Dr. Otto Kümmel, in der von ihm
herausgegebenen „Ostasiatischen Zeitschrift“
(Neue Folge II, Heft 1) die nachfolgenden Aus-
führungen, die — zumal nach dem an dieser
Stelle geführten Kampf gegen die Bo des ehe Mu-
seumspolitik — nicht ohne pikanten Beigeschmack
sind. Unsere Leser werden sich dabei erinnern,
daß die hier zitierten Ausführungen des Herrn
Pope von „the famous Direktor-General of Fine
Arts in Germany“ selbst inspiriert worden waren.
Herr Kümmel schreibt wörtlich:
Vol. VII Nr. 3 der Zeitschrift des Ameri-
kanischen Museumsverbandes „Museum'
Work“ bringt einen Aufsatz von Arthur
Upham Pope über „the Problem of
the Asiatic Mu seum in Berlin“, der
auch von der Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst
(N. F. LVIII, H. 2) abgedruckt worden ist.
Wir müssen uns auf einen Auszug be-
schränken.
Ten years ago, Dr. Bode, the famous
Director-General of Fine Arts in Germany,
perfected plans for one of the most signi-
ficant and important museum develop-
ments in recent years. Thanks partly to
the unavoidable delays caused by the war,
but even more to unfortunate conditions
that could have been avoided, this impor-
tant scheme has not yet been carried to
completion, and the whole world of art has
been the loser thereby. ...Berlin has long
possessed an enviable wealth of Asiatic art:
yet it is so wastefully dispersed that the
average visitor knows little of it, while the
Scholar bent on serious workis harassed and
dismayed by the profitless difficulties of this
disorganization. ...It is unnecessarily con-
fusing and fatiguing, if one be tracing the
history of Indian motives as they were
variously developed, to have to ferret out
first the superb Indian work that is all but
lost in a maze of irrelevant anthropological
artifacts in the Ethnologische Museum and
then to pass in turn over to the Ost-asia-
tische Museum for the Chinese versions,
then to the Schloss or the Kaiser Friederich
for Islamic and Coptic examples, andfinally
into the recesses of the old Kunstgewerbe
to see what the Persian and Turkish textile
designer did with these patterns. It was
to rescue the rieh störe of Asiatic art in
Berlin from such a destructive bedlam and
to make it available to scholars and the
general public, that Dr. Bode planned and
worked for a great Asiatic Museum, which
was to be the culmination of his infinite
Services to the whole world of scholarship.
Although the Museum was admirably de-
signed by Professor Bruno Paul, giving
promise of being one of the most attrac-
tive and efficient museum buildings any-
where; although Dr. Bode, with magnifi-
cent generosity, offered a large sum for its
completion — a sum which he had realized
from the sale of his private library; and
although the Museum building was actually
started and carried a long way towards
completion, nevertheless the work was stop-
ped and resumption forbidden by the new
minister of education, Professor C. H.
Becker. Dr. Becker’s Opposition was based
on the extraordinary ground that the cul-
ture of Asia in no sense constituted a unity
and that accordingly a purely Asiatic Mu-
seum would tend to establish a wrong In-
terpretation of the facts of history. ...To
prevent the construction of an Asiatic
museum on the grounds advanced by
Dr. Becker would be an act of sheer pe-
dantry that would destroy real values for
the sake of imaginary ones.
The Situation is not local; it is not merely
a debate between learned German Kunst-
historikers, but it is a matter of proper con-
cern for the whole world of art. American
scholars and museumists may quite pro-
perly protest against the wasting of an op-
portunity that could have set a valuable
world Standard in a relatively new but very
important field for the museums of the
West.... Every Asiatic collection in the
world would feel the Stimulus and we
would be compelled in this country to re-
vise, expand and better systematize the
Asiatic art which we now have.
The creation of an imposing and super-
bly organized Museum of Asiatic Art in
Germany would have had a favorable in-
fluence upon all our deficiencies; and the
public recognition of Asiatic art as a whole
would have probably ultimately supplied
the funds and the cruelly needed space
which now interfere with the full and pro-
per development of such departments.
We need to gather the richest examples
and to provide the amplest and most per-
fect setting and arrangement for works of
art of this other civilization from which
we have still so much to learn. This is one
of the most urgent undertakings for the
modern museum. It is by such means that
859
Sammlungen
DAS ASIATISCHE MUSEUM
IN BERLIN
Unter diesem Titel veröffentlicht soeben der
Direktor der ostasiatischen Kunstsammlung in
Berlin, Dr. Otto Kümmel, in der von ihm
herausgegebenen „Ostasiatischen Zeitschrift“
(Neue Folge II, Heft 1) die nachfolgenden Aus-
führungen, die — zumal nach dem an dieser
Stelle geführten Kampf gegen die Bo des ehe Mu-
seumspolitik — nicht ohne pikanten Beigeschmack
sind. Unsere Leser werden sich dabei erinnern,
daß die hier zitierten Ausführungen des Herrn
Pope von „the famous Direktor-General of Fine
Arts in Germany“ selbst inspiriert worden waren.
Herr Kümmel schreibt wörtlich:
Vol. VII Nr. 3 der Zeitschrift des Ameri-
kanischen Museumsverbandes „Museum'
Work“ bringt einen Aufsatz von Arthur
Upham Pope über „the Problem of
the Asiatic Mu seum in Berlin“, der
auch von der Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst
(N. F. LVIII, H. 2) abgedruckt worden ist.
Wir müssen uns auf einen Auszug be-
schränken.
Ten years ago, Dr. Bode, the famous
Director-General of Fine Arts in Germany,
perfected plans for one of the most signi-
ficant and important museum develop-
ments in recent years. Thanks partly to
the unavoidable delays caused by the war,
but even more to unfortunate conditions
that could have been avoided, this impor-
tant scheme has not yet been carried to
completion, and the whole world of art has
been the loser thereby. ...Berlin has long
possessed an enviable wealth of Asiatic art:
yet it is so wastefully dispersed that the
average visitor knows little of it, while the
Scholar bent on serious workis harassed and
dismayed by the profitless difficulties of this
disorganization. ...It is unnecessarily con-
fusing and fatiguing, if one be tracing the
history of Indian motives as they were
variously developed, to have to ferret out
first the superb Indian work that is all but
lost in a maze of irrelevant anthropological
artifacts in the Ethnologische Museum and
then to pass in turn over to the Ost-asia-
tische Museum for the Chinese versions,
then to the Schloss or the Kaiser Friederich
for Islamic and Coptic examples, andfinally
into the recesses of the old Kunstgewerbe
to see what the Persian and Turkish textile
designer did with these patterns. It was
to rescue the rieh störe of Asiatic art in
Berlin from such a destructive bedlam and
to make it available to scholars and the
general public, that Dr. Bode planned and
worked for a great Asiatic Museum, which
was to be the culmination of his infinite
Services to the whole world of scholarship.
Although the Museum was admirably de-
signed by Professor Bruno Paul, giving
promise of being one of the most attrac-
tive and efficient museum buildings any-
where; although Dr. Bode, with magnifi-
cent generosity, offered a large sum for its
completion — a sum which he had realized
from the sale of his private library; and
although the Museum building was actually
started and carried a long way towards
completion, nevertheless the work was stop-
ped and resumption forbidden by the new
minister of education, Professor C. H.
Becker. Dr. Becker’s Opposition was based
on the extraordinary ground that the cul-
ture of Asia in no sense constituted a unity
and that accordingly a purely Asiatic Mu-
seum would tend to establish a wrong In-
terpretation of the facts of history. ...To
prevent the construction of an Asiatic
museum on the grounds advanced by
Dr. Becker would be an act of sheer pe-
dantry that would destroy real values for
the sake of imaginary ones.
The Situation is not local; it is not merely
a debate between learned German Kunst-
historikers, but it is a matter of proper con-
cern for the whole world of art. American
scholars and museumists may quite pro-
perly protest against the wasting of an op-
portunity that could have set a valuable
world Standard in a relatively new but very
important field for the museums of the
West.... Every Asiatic collection in the
world would feel the Stimulus and we
would be compelled in this country to re-
vise, expand and better systematize the
Asiatic art which we now have.
The creation of an imposing and super-
bly organized Museum of Asiatic Art in
Germany would have had a favorable in-
fluence upon all our deficiencies; and the
public recognition of Asiatic art as a whole
would have probably ultimately supplied
the funds and the cruelly needed space
which now interfere with the full and pro-
per development of such departments.
We need to gather the richest examples
and to provide the amplest and most per-
fect setting and arrangement for works of
art of this other civilization from which
we have still so much to learn. This is one
of the most urgent undertakings for the
modern museum. It is by such means that
859