For this week, please take some time to write some of your own thoughts about the two museums we have visited this semester. Think about which displays were particularly informative or interesting or just striking and say why. Please try to address issues such as the overall purpose of the museum, the degree to which a museum works or doesn't work with "source communities" (i.e. the communities who are connected to those who produced the objects that the museum displays.
You might also want to look at the websites for these two museums and talk a little about the strengths and weaknesses of each website, both from a design point of view and also from a content point of view.
Things to think about: How does the museum present itself? What kind of language does it use to describe objects and/or it's own activities? Who gets highlighted in the museum's self-representations: Staff? Donors? Source Communities? Visitors? How much time and space does the museum devote to talking about where objects come from or what they were used for or their cultural significance? Are there differences in terms of the way different kinds of materials are treated?
You don't have to answer all these questions, just use the blog post to address a few of them. Responses to posts should try to extend the conversation.
cheers
Chrs
Justina Bonfiglio
ReplyDeleteBlog 3
Although I didn’t go to the Peabody Museum field trip, Professor Fung discussed some of the differences between both museums. The MFA is a more traditional museum, whereas the Peabody museums have a different purpose and philosophy. The Peabody museum was originally part of Harvard and the goal of the museums is to teach and give information to its visitors. It was originally set up to teach Indian children. The Peabody museum reconnects to its history in a more reflexive way unlike the MFA. It’s not only visual but it creates a deeper outlook. The Peabody museum uses media to link objects to the living populations. This is a deliberate strategy. Peabody actively works with Native Peoples to design displays.
The differences between the two websites for each museum are vast. The color scheme differ greatly from each website. The MFA website seems to be fancier while the Peabody museum website seems a bit plainer. Both websites do their job, but it seems that the MFA website has more effort or time put into it. The MFA website is more “in your face” while the Peabody website is more subdued and modest. It’s almost like the MFA website is trying a bit too hard, but that’s not always a bad thing. The MFA is a vast and beautiful museum. Their website does it justice. A great deal of effort and money are put into each exhibit and that’s apparent when walking through the MFA.
Maya monuments are difficult to interpret without background knowledge. I felt that at the MFA there wasn’t enough background knowledge for each display. The descriptions were short and to the point. Without my background knowledge, I probably wouldn’t know exactly what I was looking at. Professor Fung mentioned that Maya monuments are like fan-fiction, you must know the originally series in order to appreciate it. This relates to Maya monuments. It’s important to have background knowledge of them and know true history.
Justina,
DeleteJust a little point of clarification: Harvard College was originally set up (1638) to educate young Indian men (it was only for men at that point) for the ministry alongside young English men. The Peabody was set up much later (1864).
Patricia
ReplyDeleteBlog 3
In October 2012, the UMASS Boston Honors 490 class visited two museums: the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) located in downtown Boston and the Harvard Peabody Museum located in Cambridge, MA. The Museum of Fine Arts contains a newly-designed wing called the Arts of the Americas wing. This wing contains an extensive collection of Maya ceramics located in the Arts of the Americas wing. The collection of Maya ceramics was donated by John Fulling, a private collector based in Florida with an enthusiastic bent for Mesoamerican Indian culture, with special interests for Maya and Aztec artifacts created prior to the Spanish invasion of the 17th century. During the 1960s, Mr. Fulling developed an especial affinity for Mayan art and pottery; so he conducted “Indiana Jones” style expeditions to Central America. His collection eventually evolved into the largest private collection of Mayan artifacts in North America and the Museum of Fine Arts has become the recipient of the fruits of his countless exploits into Mayan territories.
The museum’s Mayan artifacts especially depicts the Mayan culture during the height of the Mayan classical period dating from approximately 900 to 300 B.C. E.; when there was a recognized transformation from exclusive use of engraved stone hieroglyphics on stelae and monuments to the widespread use of ceramics. The Mayan artifact’s central theme about warrior chiefs and mythology hasn’t changed with this presentation media. This transformation resulting in the more prolific production of the Mayan art in pottery which has provided a more vivid picture of the cultural essence of the Mayan nobility based on the depicted subject’s exclusivity. The lower strata of Mayan civilization were not representative in this collection and it was limited to the higher echelon of the Mayan society. Through the union of hieroglyphic decipherment and the interpretation of the pictorial imagery, it allows us to discern the mundane habits and rituals practiced by the Mayan aristocracy. It was an astonishing accomplishment by Mr. Fulling to have collected a more completion collection of artifacts that clearly is tantamount to similar collections on displayed at other prodigious institutions and museums as the Metropolitan Museum of History and the Smithsonian.
Just a quick note of clarification: The collector who donated many of the Classic Maya objects in the MFAs new display is Landon T. Clay. He bought some of the objects in question from John Fulling, who has also donated material to the MFA in his own right.
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ReplyDeletePatrica part 2
ReplyDeleteThe Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University is located at the Harvard
University campus in Cambridge, MA. The Peabody Museum is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology and houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere. The Peabody Museum houses more than 1.2 million individual objects. It contains artifacts from the Mayan sites of Copan, Honduras; Piedras Negras and Uaxactun, Guatemala. Some of the objects included in the collections include steles of several Mayan rulers, steles with Mayan hieroglyphic writing, and scale-model representations of Mayan temples and cities. In addition, the Peabody also contains samples of Mayan sculpture dated before 1492, when Christopher Columbus first sailed to the Americas. The museum’s collection of Mayan artifacts spans the entire gamut of Mayan history from approximately 1530 B.C.E. to 900 A.D. It contains both a generous supply of engraved stoned hieroglyphic reliefs spanning several Mayan noble bloodlines. It was more eventually after reviewing this collection that the central theme of the Mayan culture was one of a warrior race that was engaged in constant warfare with depiction of battles, captives, human sacrifices and bloodletting rituals. It was evident that the Mayan nobility had the direct linage to their religion and mythology by the depiction of many of the nobility bloodletting ceremonies to appease their gods and the prosperity of their culture.
Overall, I felt that the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology had more complete collection of Mayan artifacts and provided a better insight into the Mayan culture. In contrast, the collection at the MFA appeared to me to exemplify the collector’s wealth and fame in obtaining these objects. The collection at the Peabody Museum was arranged in order to depict the history and life of the Mayan nobility, even though we were given a very limited view on the life of the ordinary Mayan people. In addition, one could come to the conclusion after looking at all of the stelae and sculptures that the Mayans were a very ritualistic people and had a very sophisticated form of writing and architecture. One could not come to that conclusion while viewing the Mayan pottery collection at the MFA.
Although I didn’t attend the MFA visit to see the Mayan exhibit, I have been there numerous times and was able to note many differences during the trip to the Peabody Museum. The MFA, especially after its recent reconstruction, is a very large and endowed museum that attracts people from all over the world to see art of all kinds. The Peabody Museum serves a different purpose as a means of conveying archeological and anthropological findings and research specifically. Because of their differences in size and scope, the Peabody Museum also interacts much more frequently with the community, facilitating research and education through it exhibits and workshops. Because the Peabody Museum studies and exhibits interactions between people and culture, this kind of inclusion is essential for its purpose. The MFA also serves as an educational tool however it is much more broadly a showcase of different types of art for the masses.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of each website, the MFA has a much more elaborate website, showcasing the creation of the website as a representation of the museum’s dedication to artistry. Pictures of exhibits and objects are clear, well-described, and visually interesting. While the Peabody Museum also showcases a well made website, it is noticeably less elaborate and detailed. The main points of the museum including its history and the way it includes media aspects to enhance its exhibits are described. Both websites gives us a clear indication of the atmosphere and purpose of the museum. Since the MFA is a larger museum with a wider scope of exhibitions, the website includes many more pictures of art and objects with detailed descriptions of the source, year, etc. than does the Peabody Museum. The Peabody Museum utilizes its website mainly to connect with the surrounding community in interactive, educational, and inclusionary ways.
I found the displays at the Peabody Museum much more striking than the displays at the Museum of Fine Arts. The displays at the MFA were beautiful, but that was pretty much it. Had the displays at the MFA been accompanied by descriptions about what the items might have been used for, the context in which it would have been used, and other valuable information, they would have been much more useful. I was very intrigued by the look of the burial urns at the beginning of the Mayan exhibit at the MFA, but was disappointed that I was unable to attain any information about the artifacts by looking at the display case. Contrastly, the Peabody Museum put forth much effort to describe the artifacts and the stories behind them. I very much enjoyed looking at the Native American exhibit at the Peabody Museum especially. I was fascinated with the huge headpiece and all the things they had that would have served a purpose during its lifetime other than just being beautiful, and was interested in learning those things. The MFA seems to focus mainly on the aesthetics of a piece and highlight the donor who gave the piece, whereas the Peabody seems to focus on the telling of a story of a source community and informing its visitors.
ReplyDeleteJustina Bonfiglio
ReplyDeleteI didn't attend the trip to the Peabody museum, but I'm intrigued to gear that you enjoyed that visit more. I wish I got to see the displays at the Peabody and see the differences between both museums in person. I have no doubt that the Peabody museum put more effort into describing the artifacts. I'm not surprised the Native American exhibit was enjoyable and full of information. Also, I'm not surprised that Peabody focuses more on a piece or artifact while the MFA focuses on the donor who gave the piece or artifact. This greatly illustrates the differences between the two museums and the motives behind them.
Shannon O’Neill
ReplyDeleteThe exhibits we saw at the MFA and at the Harvard Peabody Museum differed in a greater way than I could have imagined prior to visiting both museums. In fact, I am happy that I waited to complete this post until after our second visit to the MFA because the second visit gave me an even greater appreciation of the difference between the two. The second visit to the MFA in particular opened my eyes to how much space and attention is given to the donor of a piece rather than to a collection or to a piece itself. Additionally, the three visits have left me surprised by how working with a source community can greatly improve an exhibit. It improves the exhibit both aesthetically, as the collection of pieces are placed in ways that make more sense rather than being strewn about the room in glass cases, and it also improves the exhibit by making it feel more authentic and by giving the impression that people actually respect these pieces and care that they are portrayed in the correct/appropriate way.
I was somewhat discouraged by our last visit to the MFA. The Polynesian pieces we saw were all grouped together and there was little done to show the distinction between different islands or to show that Polynesia is not one place with one culture but rather a group of different islands that each have their own idiosyncrasies. The objects at the MFA were treated as ethnographic art at best; I feel the pieces were only there because of the donors, not for any cultural interest, never mind for their aesthetic appeal. Furthermore, I feel as though the donors of these objects do not even necessarily care about their cultural value. While that is a fairly strong statement and I cannot prove it to be true, the last visit to the MFA left me thinking about something Professor Fung mentioned: many of the people who donate pieces to the museum are very wealthy and the way to show their wealth to others is by seeing who can have the most amount of pieces in the museum/in an exhibit. This is discouraging because even the donors of the pieces may not care about the value of their piece but they are more concerned with their own social status.
While I love the MFA for its elaborate displays and specialty exhibits, in regards to the exhibits we visited for this class, I much preferred the exhibits at the Peabody Museum. The Peabody Museum did not treat the pieces/collections as a burden the way the MFA seems to do. The MFA throws “ethnographic” pieces into rooms and cases with tiny cards on the bottom that not many people read. The MFA puts those pieces there because of the donors, not because they appreciate the cultural value or want to work with a community of people to tell its history correctly. To me, it seems as though the Peabody Museum takes much more pride in what they have, even though they may have fewer items and have a much smaller budget than the MFA. This pride and the connection the Peabody Museum has with the communities who have pieces on display can be seen throughout each exhibit. There are words on the walls, not on tiny plaques, and visitors cannot help but learn something from the pieces (because they are almost forced into reading the description and history of the piece).
Most of the exhibits at the MFA I find fascinating, but when it comes to the displays on Mayan culture and Polynesian culture, the MFA leaves me feeling disappointed. I understand the nature of the MFA is to cater to donors rather than to reach out to source communities, but I think the MFA could learn a valuable lesson from smaller museums like the Harvard Peabody Museum. For some exhibits, like the Mayan and the Polynesian exhibits, it is not enough to have an object to look at. Visitors would get much more from the exhibit if the museum reached out to source communities to display the items appropriately, respectfully, and in a way that would eventually please and be beneficial to donors, visitors, and the source communities.