Books
University museums are often all-encompassing, but does this book measure up, asks David Gaimster
The writing of museum histories is coming back into fashion as a category of museological research, especially as some of our oldest institutions are beginning to celebrate their Georgian origins.
Drawing on largely unpublished archives, Lucilla Burn, the assistant director (collections) of the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, has written an illustrated survey of the origins and development of the institution as it celebrates 200 years since its foundation in 1816.
Such histories are attracting attention as they reflect trends in the evolution of museums and galleries as cultural and educational assets, and as visitor attractions. The history of one of the first university museums promises even more since it potentially exposes conflicts and tensions in the museum’s purpose.
University museums are hybrid institutions – both academic and public. But how they reconcile these often bipolar attributes has proved a source of anxiety to founding administrators and current directors alike.
Burn takes a measured chronological approach, charting the origins of the founding bequest of the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam through contemporary voices, including the museum’s 13 directors. Populated liberally with contemporary comments and anecdotes, the structure allows for an examination of key phases in the Fitzwilliam’s evolution, from its Enlightenment foundation, the creation of its iconic Roman Capitoline architecture, the professionalisation of its staff and public services in the later 20th century, to the role of the university museum today.
One leitmotif throughout is the self-conscious comparison with the Ashmolean Museumin Oxford, which traces its origins to the late-17th century. Another theme is the tension between multiple collections of art and archaeology and their aesthetic presentation, which resulted in the removal of the classical casts and archaeological assemblages to a new Museum of Classical and General Archaeology in 1884.
A key question for university museums is the motivation behind their foundation. Surely the 1814 Dulwich Picture Gallery was not the only inspiration? The contextual net needed to be cast more widely. Belonging to the same generation of Enlightenment period university museums, the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow was established through a gift in 1783 by Dr William Hunter, a medical researcher and obstetrician whose encyclopedic collections ofhuman and natural history were given for the “improvement of knowledge ... most conducive to the improvement of the students of the university”.
Similarly, Viscount Fitzwilliam’s will records his books, manuscripts, paintings, sculpture, prints, medals and bronzes being “for the purpose of promoting the increase of learning and other great objects of that noble foundation ...”.
The Fitzwilliam Museum was established by an aristocrat, the Hunterian by a medical professional. Perhaps Burn could have explored the social and intellectual climate of the Fitzwilliam’s bequest in more depth. It is also instructive to follow how a university capitalises on such a vision and invests in the infrastructure needed to exploit collections for academic purposes.
Crucially though, for all the opulence of its architecture, the Fitzwilliam was never designed with teaching space and it seems that active engagement in the university curriculum was ignored, if not resisted, until the end of the 20th century.
By contrast, Burn notes how Fitzwilliam staff today contribute to formal university teaching and that “colleagues from all faculties and departments are encouraged to see and exploit themuseum’s collections as a teaching resource”.
It would have been helpful to learn more about how this activity aligned with pedagogical developments in the wider university museum arena. The work of the University Engagement Programme at the Ashmolean, and the creation of a collections teaching centre at the Hunterian, suggests that formal teaching using collections is expanding rapidly.
The Fitzwilliam has emerged as one of the most successful public museums outside London, but one gets the impression that its position as a core business in a university remains as contested as ever. One has to ask who the book is aimed at. It succeeds as aninformative institutional history mirroring museological trends over 200 years, but as a statement of the relevance of themuseum in the modern university, it is only tantalising.
David Gaimster is the director of the Hunterian in Glasgow, and is on the Museums Association’s Glasgow 2016 conference panel
Drawing on largely unpublished archives, Lucilla Burn, the assistant director (collections) of the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, has written an illustrated survey of the origins and development of the institution as it celebrates 200 years since its foundation in 1816.
Such histories are attracting attention as they reflect trends in the evolution of museums and galleries as cultural and educational assets, and as visitor attractions. The history of one of the first university museums promises even more since it potentially exposes conflicts and tensions in the museum’s purpose.
University museums are hybrid institutions – both academic and public. But how they reconcile these often bipolar attributes has proved a source of anxiety to founding administrators and current directors alike.
Burn takes a measured chronological approach, charting the origins of the founding bequest of the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam through contemporary voices, including the museum’s 13 directors. Populated liberally with contemporary comments and anecdotes, the structure allows for an examination of key phases in the Fitzwilliam’s evolution, from its Enlightenment foundation, the creation of its iconic Roman Capitoline architecture, the professionalisation of its staff and public services in the later 20th century, to the role of the university museum today.
One leitmotif throughout is the self-conscious comparison with the Ashmolean Museumin Oxford, which traces its origins to the late-17th century. Another theme is the tension between multiple collections of art and archaeology and their aesthetic presentation, which resulted in the removal of the classical casts and archaeological assemblages to a new Museum of Classical and General Archaeology in 1884.
A key question for university museums is the motivation behind their foundation. Surely the 1814 Dulwich Picture Gallery was not the only inspiration? The contextual net needed to be cast more widely. Belonging to the same generation of Enlightenment period university museums, the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow was established through a gift in 1783 by Dr William Hunter, a medical researcher and obstetrician whose encyclopedic collections ofhuman and natural history were given for the “improvement of knowledge ... most conducive to the improvement of the students of the university”.
Similarly, Viscount Fitzwilliam’s will records his books, manuscripts, paintings, sculpture, prints, medals and bronzes being “for the purpose of promoting the increase of learning and other great objects of that noble foundation ...”.
The Fitzwilliam Museum was established by an aristocrat, the Hunterian by a medical professional. Perhaps Burn could have explored the social and intellectual climate of the Fitzwilliam’s bequest in more depth. It is also instructive to follow how a university capitalises on such a vision and invests in the infrastructure needed to exploit collections for academic purposes.
Crucially though, for all the opulence of its architecture, the Fitzwilliam was never designed with teaching space and it seems that active engagement in the university curriculum was ignored, if not resisted, until the end of the 20th century.
By contrast, Burn notes how Fitzwilliam staff today contribute to formal university teaching and that “colleagues from all faculties and departments are encouraged to see and exploit themuseum’s collections as a teaching resource”.
It would have been helpful to learn more about how this activity aligned with pedagogical developments in the wider university museum arena. The work of the University Engagement Programme at the Ashmolean, and the creation of a collections teaching centre at the Hunterian, suggests that formal teaching using collections is expanding rapidly.
The Fitzwilliam has emerged as one of the most successful public museums outside London, but one gets the impression that its position as a core business in a university remains as contested as ever. One has to ask who the book is aimed at. It succeeds as aninformative institutional history mirroring museological trends over 200 years, but as a statement of the relevance of themuseum in the modern university, it is only tantalising.
David Gaimster is the director of the Hunterian in Glasgow, and is on the Museums Association’s Glasgow 2016 conference panel