The Art Museum in the 19th Century. J. J. Winckelmann's Influence on the Establishing of the Classical Paradigm of the Art Museum

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Museum Studies language: English abstract: The essay discusses the German philologist archaeologist and historian J.J. Winckelmann's theoretical influence on the conception of the Classical museum model as defined and established by the Louvre within the nineteenth-century in Paris. From its initiation the Louvre would furnish an example for the Metropolitan and for scores of galleries around the world to replicate. This would include the Egyptian Museum in Cairo the National Archaeological Museum of Athens and the Ancient Iran Museum in Tehran. Winckelmann's historicism would encourage the implementation of new ideas and practices related to the meaning and connoisseurship of art and aesthetics in Western Europe within nineteenth-century gallery systems as they began to develop new practices for displaying art in which the singling out of specific cultures within an historic hierarchical context would become prominent. The essay discusses how Winckelmann's ideas would inspire a curatorial system and condition of representation of art for the Louvre as the Classical museum paradigm established in the nineteenth-century.