Cultures of Collecting Pros and Cons The phenomen Essays

Cultures of Collecting: Pros and Cons The phenomenon of collecting is a universal feature of societies across the world. Current research recognises that museums organised over the last 150 years represent all sorts of possibilities for exploring other times, places and ways of life,' HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn1 [1] yet as Gosden and Knowles state, there has been little in-depth' research into the meaning and status of collections HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn2 [2] . This essay seeks to define the major approaches to studying the phenomenon of collecting, and how these approaches have been informed by a historical understanding of collections that has developed over time. Particular focus will be given to a Euro-centric understanding of collecting and how collecting has been used to represent autonomy and preser ve cultures which are under threat. Susan Pearce, from the University of Leicester, suggests that in modern post-Renaissance western society, museums are the political and cultural institutions entrusted with holding the material evidence, real things, which constitute much modern knowledge.' HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn3 [3] Pearce's paper examines how and why museums are perceived to embody set knowledge and values, while recognising that study of museums and collections has three distinctive approaches. Firstly, each museum object and specimen can be seen as individual, secondly, there exists the professional care approach that seeks to better understand the mechanisms and motivations behind the collections themselves, and thirdly there are interpretive approaches which examine the nature of collections. Scholarship recognises that the inclination to collect can be most clearly identified to hav e originated in the eighteenth century (eg: Benedict, 2001 HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn4 [4] ). Benedict identifies her study as an examination of the representation of curiosity, of curiosities, and of curious people HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn5 [5] , again - like Pearce - suggesting that the cultures of collecting are to be considered in direct relation to all three distinctions. Curiosity - that Benedict argues lies at the heart of collecting - was manifested in a variety of forms in the eighteenth century. In his review of Benedict's book Dennis Todd writes that these manifestations can be seen in novels, satiric poetry and drama, journalism, trial transcripts, prints, and reports of scientific experiments; as well as in museums, exhibitions, and cabinets of curiosities; and in works by Shadwell, Swift, Pope, Defoe, Walpol e, Beckford, Samuel Johnson, Radcliffe, Godwin, and Mary Shelley HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn6 [6] . Collecting in early societies has been identified as being closely associated with exhibiting - as a process through which to display a collector's knowledge and education. For example, Wolfram Koeppe, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, states that pre-Renaissance societies had a taste for collecting the strange and the curious, and that this inclination had long been part of human evolution. HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn7 [7] Suetonius (died 122 A.D.) records that Augustus, the Roman Emperor had his houses embellished, not only with statues and pictures but also with objects which were curious by reason of their age and rarity, like the huge remains of monstrous beasts which had been discovered on the Island of Capri, c alled giants' bones or heroes' weapons. HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn8 [8] The desire to showcase collections as symbols of power, knowledge and authority has meant that some collections have tended to possess less artistic merit and are more assertive and thus oppressive in their content and organisation. For example, African museum contents have proven to be a strong area for museum researchers to focus on. The Scramble for Art in Central Africa is a study of a group of collectors, such as Torday, Frobenius and Schweinfurth, who worked in the Belgian Congo at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and were interested in how objects such as carved figures or metal items reflected local social forms. As Gosden and Knowles explain, this is a process by which Africa was invented for the West, arriving back in the northern hemisphere stripped of context and presented in private collections an d museums so as to create particular impressions of African tribalism and designs.' HYPERLINK https://www.ukessays.com/essays/arts/cultures-collecting-pros-cons-7311.php \l _ftn9 [9] By removing objects from their original context and moving them to suit the commercial and social