영국 국립미술관과 케네드 클라크 (The National Gallery in London and Kenneth Clark)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 서양미술사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 서양미술사학회 논문집 / 29호 / 191 ~ 222페이지
· 저자명 : 전동호

초록

근래 미술관이나 박물관의 역할과 기능에 대한 논의가 점증하면서 이들의 역사에 대한 관심과 연구도 부쩍 늘고 있다. 본 논문은 영국의 대표적인 미술관인 국립미술관(National Gallery)의 역사를 조명해보려는 시도의 일환으로, 그 중 특히 20세기 전반 10여년에 걸쳐 국립미술관장을 역임한 미술사학자 케네드 클라크의 활동을 중심으로 미술관 운영이 개인이나 집단의 이해관계로부터 과연 자유로울 수 있는가의 질문을 던진다.

영어초록

This essay is an attempt to explore the cultural politics of running the National Gallery in London with particular reference to Kenneth Clark, arguably its most famous director in the early 20th century. Clark was born in 1903 as the only child of the Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, a wealthy Scottish industrialist. Educated at Winchester College and the University of Oxford, Clark was introduced in 1925 to the renowned art historian Bernard Berenson and studied with him in Italy for two years. In 1929 Clark acted as a joint organizer of a legendary exhibition at the Royal Academy in London of Italian paintings most of which had never been seen before out of Italy. In 1931 his career took a decisive turn when he was appointed as keeper of the department of fine art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Barely three years later, he was appointed Director of the National Gallery in London, perhaps the youngest director of a national gallery ever. As the Director of the National Gallery Clark made a significant contribution. His purchases included such masterpieces as Rubens's Watering Place, Constable's Hadleigh Castle, Rembrandt's Saskia as Flora, and Poussin's Golden Calf. He also established a scientific department and a carefully supervised programme of picture cleaning. On the administrative front, however, he lost touch with the members of academic staff. Major crisis took place in 1937 when he acquired, against the united advice of his academic staff, four small panel paintings attributed by Clark himself to Giorgione. The subsequent controversy became a public scandal, causing a lingering doubts on his integrity, among his fellow art historians. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Clark took bold initiatives for the evacuation of the entire collection of the National Gallery from London to a slate mine in north Wales. During the war, he organized with Dame Myra Hess the very popular and morale-raising National Gallery Concerts which continued in spite of the blitz. With the end of the war, Clark turned in his resignation to concentrate, according to him, on writing, but one may wonder he sensed a ominous dark clouds gathering for his career in public with the landslide victory for the Labour in the 1945 general election.

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