The Place of the Spoken Word in the Museum

Author(s): Beaumont Newhall

Source: Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum, Vol. 27, No. 143 (Nov., 1931), pp. 9-10
Published by: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3794404
Accessed: 05-02-2019 18:42 UTC

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 THE PLACE OF THE SPOKEN WORD
IN THE MUSEUM

In an art museum the spoken word can often help the visi
enjoy and appreciate more fully the collections. For a
the artist intends his work to be seen, and its message to
by the eye alone, time and thought change so rapidly th
too often the beholder finds himself out of tune, and w
knowledge of the key. Ideas of form or of content com
accepted centuries ago are now unfamiliar, if not totally mis
stood. The artist assumed certain knowledge on the part
spectator; can we receive his complete message witho
knowledge ourselves? Every art has certain conventions b
the artist represents with brush or with chisel his vision of
Most of us today, accustomed to the convention of the came
apt to apply this to the work of previous ages, when nat
often seen quite differently. The Sienese considered flat p
of primary interest; the Gothic tapestry weavers showed de
space by overlapping their figures. These "difficult" form
become more living to us when the prevalent manner of
representation is understood, and when the underlying p
with their line, rhythm and colour are revealed.
There is, too, the subject matter, which it has latel
fashionable to degrade into the artist's mere excuse for c
pattern. Does a statue of a saint mean as much to us a
man of the Middle Ages, who recognized immediately th
acter that was symbolized? Similarly in the decorative ar
the use of the object which is the subject matter, and which
to be understood before full realization is possible. The w
artist looked at his subject and the means he used to represe
view should be brought to life. The work of art unites be
form with meaningful subject matter or useful purpose. The
can help the visitor to grasp this relationship.
The artist's work quite naturally reflects also his own life,
knowledge of this will enrich the understanding of his w

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he grows older his ideas change, either from personal develop-
ment or some external influence. Botticelli painted The Legend of
the Magdalene soon after he came under the sway of the dynamic
religious reformer Savonarola, and the poignant intensity of these
four paintings, which differ in their spirituality so much from the
pagan aspect of the Renaissance, is largely to be traced to this
influence.
The gallery talks should be as various as the groups which come
to the Museum. The more formal talks, held in the Lecture Hall
and illustrated by lantern slides, are necessarily of a different char-
acter, since they are planned in advance. Some of these acquaint
the audience with some one phase of art, largely illustrated by
objects in the museum collections, supplemented whenever neces-
sary by other examples. Others follow the fascinating development
of art, relating objects in the Museum with others perhaps more
famous, so that both the Museum and the literature of art will
take on fuller meaning for the hearer. Our great Romanesque
facade has its connections with the West Portal of Chartres Cathe-
dral; the Van Eyck St. Francis receiving the Stigmata may be brought
into relation with his portraits; the Crucifixion by El Greco with
such of his works as The Burial of Count Organ.
The aim, therefore, of the spoken word in the museum is to
give a fuller enjoyment of the collections by helping the visitor
to see more nearly as the artist expected him to see, and by helping
him to relate the art with the other aspects of its age-the twelfth
century cloister with the monastic life of the Middle Ages; the
portraits of Thomas Eakins with the tendencies of the nineteenth
century.
BEAUMONT NEWHALL

10

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