Founded in the final years of the Enlightenment, the Louvre―with the greatest collection of Old Master paintings and antique sculpture assembled under one roof―became the model for all state art museums subsequently established. Andrew McClellan chronicles the formation of this great museum from its origins in the French royal picture collections to its apotheosis during the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. More than a narrative history, McClellan's account explores the ideological underpinnings, pedagogic aims, and aesthetic criteria of the Louvre. Drawing on new archival materials, McClellan also illuminates the art world of eighteenth-century Paris.

Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Arts & Photography

McClellan, Andrew

History & Criticism

University of California Press

Art museums have emerged in recent decades as the most vibrant and popular of all cultural institutions. Though art museums have never been more popular, their direction and values are now being contested as never before—both in the media and in the art world itself. This engaging thematic history of the art museum from its inception in the eighteenth century to the present offers an essential framework for understanding contemporary debates as they have evolved in Europe and the United States. From the visionary museums of Boullée in the eighteenth century to the new Guggenheim in Bilbao and beyond, it explores key aspects of museum theory and practice: ideals and mission; architecture; collecting, classification, and display; the public; commercialism; and restitution and repatriation. The only single volume to give a comprehensive account of the issues critical to museums, the book also highlights the challenges they will face in the future.

The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao

Art museums have emerged in recent decades as the most vibrant and popular of all cultural institutions. Though art museums have never been more popular, their direction and values are now being contested as never before―both in the media and in the art world itself. This engaging thematic history of the art museum from its inception in the eighteenth century to the present offers an essential framework for understanding contemporary debates as they have evolved in Europe and the United States. From the visionary museums of Boullée in the eighteenth century to the new Guggenheim in Bilbao and beyond, it explores key aspects of museum theory and practice: ideals and mission; architecture; collecting, classification, and display; the public; commercialism; and restitution and repatriation. The only single volume to give a comprehensive account of the issues critical to museums, the book also highlights the challenges they will face in the future.

Containing the greatest collection of Old Master paintings and antique sculptures ever assembled under one roof, the Louvre, founded in the final years of the Enlightenment, became the model for all state art museums subsequently established. This book chronicles the formation of this great museum, from its origins in the French royal picture collections to its apotheosis during the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. More than a narrative history, Andrew McClellan's account explores the ideological underpinnings, pedagogic aims, and aesthetic criteria of the Louvre, as well as its contemporary, the Museum of French Monuments, which in complementary ways laid the foundation for the modern museum age. Here, the central and abiding questions of museum practice-arrangement of art works, lightning, restoration and conservation, public education and service to the state - were first defined and given visual expression. Drawing on much new and archival material, this book also casts new light on the art world of eighteenth- century Paris and its most colourful characters, from Roger de Piles and La Font de Saint-Yonne, to Jacques-Louis David and Alexandre Lenoir.

Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics and Invention of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth Century Paris

Cambridge University Press

From 1921 until 1948, Paul J. Sachs (1878–1965) offered a yearlong program in art museum training, “Museum Work and Museum Problems,” through Harvard University’s Fine Arts Department. Known simply as the Museum Course, the program was responsible for shaping a professional field—museum curatorship and management—that, in turn, defined the organizational structure and values of an institution through which the American public came to know art. Conceived at a time of great museum expansion and public interest in the United States, the Museum Course debated curatorial priorities and put theory into practice through the placement of graduates in museums big and small across the land. In this book, authors Sally Anne Duncan and Andrew McClellan examine the role that Sachs and his program played in shaping the character of art museums in the United States in the formative decades of the twentieth century. The Art of Curating is essential reading for museum studies scholars, curators, and historians.

The Art of Curating: Paul J. Sachs and the Museum Course at Harvard

Duncan, Sally Anne

Reference

Getty Research Institute

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Books by McClellan, Andrew

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McClellan, Andrew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris

The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao

The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao

Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics and Invention of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth Century Paris

The Art of Curating: Paul J. Sachs and the Museum Course at Harvard