DOI Heft:
The International Studio (December, 1907)
DOI Artikel:Coburn, Frederick W.: The new art museum at Boston
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0411
New Boston Museum
The new art museum at bos-
ton
BY FREDERICK W. COBURN
The new building of the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts is beyond peradventure the
most important museum project at present under
way anywhere. The published plans have shown
that a novel type of museum is in process of creation.
The collections of one of the oldest of American
museums of fine art will shortly be sheltered in a
scientifically planned structure embodying con-
ceptions that have not heretofore been embodied
on a considerable scale. The largest undertaking
of its kind it is not, in the physical sense; though
its ultimate dimensions will be impressive. Primarily
it exemplifies, with some compromises, the broadest
and most advanced ideas of the science of muse-
ology.
Attractiveness is now proclaimed as a proper
mission of the art museum. The course of develop-
ment of public libraries in the direction of popu-
larity is to be followed by the museum. Time was
when a librarian of the Harvard library remarked
with satisfaction on a Saturday afternoon that
every book was on the shelves except one which the
president of the college had borrowed and which
he purposed calling in forthwith. Such librarian-
ship would to-day be held unprogressive. Books
are for all to use who can use them. Similarly the
art museum now courts a wide constituency.
Three classes of people ordinarily visit an art
museum: students in pursuit of special investiga-
tions; the intellectually curious, seeking general
information; persons desirous of the inspiration
that comes from seeing noble works of art so dis-
played as to show their quality. While every
worthy museum of art aims to accommodate all
these classes, museums have heretofore, practically
without exception, considered mainly the first two
classes. A characteristic of the scheme of the new
Boston Museum of Fine Arts is that, without
neglect of the others, the third class has received
first consideration.
Their comfort and convenience demand that
many things which have heretofore been done no
longer shall be done. Archeological correctness
may coincide with esthetic anarchy. What is his-
torical sequence among friends of the beautiful if it
introduces jarring and obtrusive elements ? Where
the enjoyment in a gallery of, say, Italian paintings,
some admirable, others of doubtful artistic even if
of undoubted historical value, all banked one over
another with never an intervening strip of restful
wall space? A few well-selected Greek coins in-
terest, but who has not experienced ‘‘museum
fatigue” in presence of a seemingly endless
array of cases stuffed with the coinage of antiquity ?
How appreciate Velasquez in a badly lighted, ill-
ventilated, chairless room, where the heavy-heeled
crowd clatters on resounding pavements ?
Attempting to answer such questions, and many
more, there has grown up a science of “museology.”
Periodicals are devoted to it. Museum associations
LVII
The new art museum at bos-
ton
BY FREDERICK W. COBURN
The new building of the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts is beyond peradventure the
most important museum project at present under
way anywhere. The published plans have shown
that a novel type of museum is in process of creation.
The collections of one of the oldest of American
museums of fine art will shortly be sheltered in a
scientifically planned structure embodying con-
ceptions that have not heretofore been embodied
on a considerable scale. The largest undertaking
of its kind it is not, in the physical sense; though
its ultimate dimensions will be impressive. Primarily
it exemplifies, with some compromises, the broadest
and most advanced ideas of the science of muse-
ology.
Attractiveness is now proclaimed as a proper
mission of the art museum. The course of develop-
ment of public libraries in the direction of popu-
larity is to be followed by the museum. Time was
when a librarian of the Harvard library remarked
with satisfaction on a Saturday afternoon that
every book was on the shelves except one which the
president of the college had borrowed and which
he purposed calling in forthwith. Such librarian-
ship would to-day be held unprogressive. Books
are for all to use who can use them. Similarly the
art museum now courts a wide constituency.
Three classes of people ordinarily visit an art
museum: students in pursuit of special investiga-
tions; the intellectually curious, seeking general
information; persons desirous of the inspiration
that comes from seeing noble works of art so dis-
played as to show their quality. While every
worthy museum of art aims to accommodate all
these classes, museums have heretofore, practically
without exception, considered mainly the first two
classes. A characteristic of the scheme of the new
Boston Museum of Fine Arts is that, without
neglect of the others, the third class has received
first consideration.
Their comfort and convenience demand that
many things which have heretofore been done no
longer shall be done. Archeological correctness
may coincide with esthetic anarchy. What is his-
torical sequence among friends of the beautiful if it
introduces jarring and obtrusive elements ? Where
the enjoyment in a gallery of, say, Italian paintings,
some admirable, others of doubtful artistic even if
of undoubted historical value, all banked one over
another with never an intervening strip of restful
wall space? A few well-selected Greek coins in-
terest, but who has not experienced ‘‘museum
fatigue” in presence of a seemingly endless
array of cases stuffed with the coinage of antiquity ?
How appreciate Velasquez in a badly lighted, ill-
ventilated, chairless room, where the heavy-heeled
crowd clatters on resounding pavements ?
Attempting to answer such questions, and many
more, there has grown up a science of “museology.”
Periodicals are devoted to it. Museum associations
LVII