사우스 켄싱턴 박물관의 아시아 컬렉션(1851년~1899년) 연구 (South Kensington Museum and Asian Collection from 1851 to 1899)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 서양미술사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 서양미술사학회 논문집 / 29호 / 9 ~ 32페이지
· 저자명 : 강은주

초록

본 연구는 영국 빅토리아 시대에 설립된 당대 세계 최대 규모의 장식 미술관인 사우스 켄싱턴 박물관의 아시아 컬렉션에 관한 연구로, 사우스 켄싱턴 박물관의 1851년에서 1899년 사이 아시아 컬렉션의 조성 과정 및 운용 방식에 대한 고찰을 통해 19세기 대영제국의 근대 박물관에 내제된 제국주의 이데올로기적 속성을 밝히고 있다.

영어초록

As a study on the Asian Collection in the South Kensington Museum, the world’s largest art museum founded during the Victorian Age, this paper aims to reveal that the British museum in the 19th century played the cultural role of promoting national political and economic privileges. This will be demonstrated through an investigation of how the Asian Collection had been acquired and operated during the period from 1851 through 1899.

In this dissertation, how the Asian Collection had been organized is examined by reviewing the British historical background during the mid 19th century and how the Asian Collection was acquired is analyzed based on antique works of art from India, China, and Japan as well. Those Asian art pieces were considered to represent the country itself. However, the collection policy was differently applied, depending on each country’s relationship with the Britain. In the case of the British colony of India, for example, its art pieces were displayed to emphasize the British reign over India. In the case of China and Japan, on the contrary, the art collection was a way of showing off the British Empire’s military and diplomatic superiority over that of other strong European powers in regards to Far East Asia.

Under this British political and economic circumstances, the British Empire’s concealed national strategy can be examined by investigating how the Asian Collection had been organized and displayed. The British Empire exploited the Asian Collection which was classified as “ethnographic” in earlier so-called cabinets of curiosities as a way of rationalizing their imperialism over uncivilized Asian regions by revealing a heterogeneity of Asian civilization and even stressing some Asian countries’ inferiority. The Asian Collection had been used as a specimen of new design which was needed during British Industrialization as well. In addition, it is confirmed that the traditional naturalism-based Asian art pattern had ignited an enormous change in design and impacted the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Aesthetic Movement. The Asian Collection-based museum activities had an influence on the British Empire’s politics. Actually, the reason why Asian works of art were brought to the Britain was to expand the British Empire’s military and political influence on its current or future colonies by establishing “imperial archive”. The fact that the Britain had tried to show off its great influence on Asian countries to neighboring strong powers through a symbolic architectural sculpture or famous Asian art pieces vindicates that the Asian Collection had a symbolic significance in idealizing Great Britain and defeating other large powers.

As shown above, the priceless Asian works of art exist as physical evidence that stresses racial difference and cultural heterogeneity within the western cultural boundary during the age of imperialism. Therefore, the fact that they had been used to increase the economic benefits of great western powers and satisfy imperial ideology proves that the South Kensington Museum had been deeply involved in politics rather than playing a role of cultural formation.

참고자료

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