The Other through the history of museum

by Sofia Karouni 
Archaeologist
Postgraduate student in Museum Studies
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Good evening,

   This presentation attempts to emerge the importance of collecting objects from other civilizations. First of all, let’s see the two basic definitions: collection and Other.

A collection is defined as a group of objects gathered for one purpose – known to its owner – and share a common identity (Pearce, 1995, 27). 

   The anthropological Other is one based purely on difference (Sarukkai, 1997, 1406). Therefore, in this presentation the difference can be seen in the cultural background of Europe. As Pandian says (1985, 6): “The construction of the Other was with characteristics which are alien to the western tradition”. So, the West saw the other civilizations as something strange, unknown and different from herself. The next step that Europe had to do was to gather material from other cultures and then to try to explain it. The most obsessive image of the Other in Europe was the East (Said, 1996, 12). As Donald Said notes, the East was almost a European conception and a place of romanticism, exotic creatures, unforgettable memories and sites (Said, 1996, 11).    

The Other appears for the first time in the history of museum in Renaissance (14th – 17th century). This period is characterized by the belief in man and the use of the material world as a vehicle to obtain objective knowledge. Cabinets of curiosities contained collections which demonstrate knowledge. Great collectors of the time were princes, noblemen, the Medici, the Pope and the clergy. In these kind of collections, rarity, curiosity and exotic played important role in gathering of the material world (Μπούνια, 2006, 149). The rarer an item, the more attractive it appeared1. For example, the collection of the Medici contained books, gemstones, medals, byzantine artwork, paints, sculptures, curiosities and rare examples of the natural world. 

   

Characteristic example of cabinet of curiosities was the Musei Wormiani Historia. Olaus Worm had a notable collection of rare and curiosity items which ranged from native artifacts collected from the New World, to taxidermed animals, to fossils.

   

Another important collection was the Tradescant’s collection. In 1638, Georg Christoph Stirn recorded the items, which were: exotic plants, birds from India, animals from Africa, a mermaid’s hand, a mummy’s hand, pictures of Aghia Sophia in Constantinople, Turkish shoes, pipes from the East and West Indies, girdle like those that were wearing the Turks in Jerusalem. 

   

The Enlightenment was the time for the establishment of the national public museums. Examples of such European museums are: the Louvre, the British Museum, the Neues Museum, the Hermitage and others. Collections are now used as material for the study of physical phenomena and they are not treated as curiosities.

   

The Other appears in national European museums, such as the British Museum, the Louvre and the Neues Museum. The items that are exhibited in these museums are from the East and America and they came under museum’s occupation through colonialism. The relationship of the West and the East was characterized by relations of power and domination (Said, 1996, 16). Monuments were destroyed and parts of them were transferred to Europe, excavations begun and the findings were sent to European museums. What led them to these actions? The belief of superiority of Self (Europe). Europeans saw themselves as superior and Orientals as inferiors. This is identified in the presentation of these cultures in national European museums. 

For example, when Egyptian antiquities were presented to the public in the British Museum, there were two ways of interpretation. The first was as curiosities and the second one was as aesthetic objects. Europeans thought that these were not artworks such as the Greek ones or the roman. 

   

In 20th and 21st century, the interpretation of the Other in European museums has changed and it doesn’t reminds the practices of the 18th and 19th century. Exhibits that representing the East are used as tools for the better understanding of these civilizations and the sense of the superiority of Europeans has been eliminated.      

  

       BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Hooper-Greenhill, E., 2006. Το μουσείο και οι πρόδρομοί του, Πολιτιστικό Ίδρυμα Ομίλου Πειραιώς, Αθήνα.  
• Lord, B., 2005. “Representing Enlightenment Space”. In: MacLeod, S., (ed.), Reshaping museum space. Architecture, design, exhibitions, Routledge, London. 
• Moser, S., 2006. Wondrous Curiosities. Ancient Egypt at the British Museum, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 
• Μπούνια, Α. 2006, “Μουσεία και αντικείμενα: "κατασκευάζοντας" τον κόσμο”. Στο: Παπαγεωργίου, Δ., Μπουμπάρης, Ν., Μυριβήλη, Ε., Πολιτιστική Αναπαράσταση, Κριτική, Αθήνα, σελ. 141-164.
• Οικονόμου, Μ., 2003. Μουσείο: Αποθήκη ή ζωντανός οργανισμός; Μουσειολογικοί προβληματισμοί και ζητήματα, Κριτική, Αθήνα.
• Pandian, J., 1985. Anthropology and the western tradition: toward an authentic anthropology, Waveland Press. 
• Pearce, S., M., 1995. On collecting: An investigation into collecting in the European tradition, Routledge, London, New York. 
• Said, E., D., 1996. Οριενταλισμός, Νεφέλη, Αθήνα. 
• Sarukkai, S., 1997. “The `Other' in Anthropology and Philosophy”, Economic and Political Weekly XXXII (24), June 1997.
• Swann, M., 2001. Curiosities and Texts: The culture of collecting in Early modern England, University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania.  
• http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kuns/hd_kuns.htm

© 2013, Sofia Karouni

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