Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Visitors keen to see French heritage in a nutshell need not stray far from the Eiffel Tower. At the Museum of French Monuments, reopened in 2007 as part of the National City of Architecture and Heritage, one can experience the history of French architecture, sculpture, and wall painting in three dimensions. A ‘point of reference for all audiences, permitting them to understand the historic roots of the most contemporary aims in architectural creation and urban policies’, the museum’s own development is less visible. 2 Founded in 1879 as a cast collection for the training of architects and the education of the public, the displays always consisted of models and copies. In contrast to originals, these copies could be ordered on demand, allowing the curators to create an ideal museum, easily adaptable to changing understandings of heritage. Its history is therefore a microcosm for observing broader transformations in the heritage canon. For a long time, this canon was not limited to the art of the Hexagon. The institution was in fact founded as the Museum of Comparative Sculpture, juxtaposing French medieval to ancient and foreign works of art. It was only in the 1930s that it was rebranded as the Museum of French Monuments. Yet despite the new title, the display was not confined to works originating in metropolitan France, but rather explicitly included material that demonstrated the spread of French influence beyond national borders. A particular highlight was a new room on the art of the Crusades. Filled with casts from the Levant, at its centre stood a model of what T. E. Lawrence called ‘perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world’, the Crac des Chevaliers in Syria. 3 France had acquired the Crac in 1934 and restored it extensively. A publicity campaign through the Colonial Exhibition in 1931, at the Museum of French Monuments and the Museum of the Colonies at Vincennes, accompanied the restoration and acquisition. 4 For a domestic audience, the exhibitions tried to interweave national and colonial consciousness by creating a narrative in which the Crusades became the first chapter of France’s empire. 5 To international visitors they signalled France’s primacy in producing and preserving Crusader architecture, as the sites were not only symbols of colonial expansion for France, but also served as proxies for broader imperial claims by other rival powers that were likewise trying to get their hands on medieval remains across the Mediterranean.
Source: Past & Present
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtu024
Author: A. Swenson
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Leverhulme Trust
OpenAlex ID: W1998700202