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A Naturalist's View of Museums of Art
Author(s) -
Lucas Frederic Augustus
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.1963.tb01335.x
Subject(s) - naturalism , privilege (computing) , the arts , art history , reprint , visual arts , art , history , philosophy , law , epistemology , physics , astronomy , political science
Readers of curator will remember the amusing but trenchant article by the late Frederic A. Lucas entitled “Modern Principles of Museum Administration,” presented in Volume IV, Number 1, of this journal. It is our privilege to reprint here another contribution to museum philosophy by Dr. Lucas, which was originally delivered as an address at the opening of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on November 9, 1909. It was written in a serious vein but, like its predecessor in these pages, is a deeply perceptive, timeless statement. The thoughts of Dr. Lucas concerning museums of art are as pertinent today as they were more than half a century ago; they outline principles of museum practice and design as basically valid now as then. They point up the very human trait of adhering through time to patterns of behavior and endeavor not always in accordance with valid principles. (One wonders if the majority of art displays will ever be adequately labeled.) Above all, they express the views of a stimulating museum administrator who was a modern man in his day and who in retrospect is still a modern man.