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Heritage and tourism in ‘the global village’
Pwblicutions Digest
special technical problems and related considerations. The appendices cover ‘Methods of distinguishing handmade and machine-made paper’, ‘Standard tests for the measurement of paper strength’ and ‘Specifications of paper for permanent records’, and a substantial Bibliography is provided. Unfortunately, the clarity of the text is not always helped by the grammatical oddities and mi&spellings/t~pographical errors which have escaned the nroof-reading and the erratic quality of the reproducz tions and book production, but these problems do not impair the value of the work significantly. 1
I
1994.1.11.4 The Art of the Conservator, edited by Andrew Oddy. 275 X 216mm, 196pp., illustrated in colour and in black and white. London, British Museum Press, 1992,E19.95 (ISBN 0 7141 2056 1). British Museum Press, 46 Bloomsbury Street, London WClB SQQ, UK, and The Smithsonian Institution Press, 470 L’Enfant Plaza, Suite 7100, Washington, DC 20560, USA. Well-written case studies often provide the most effective means of illustrating techniques and ways of thinking, and for the non-specialist those of conservation are particularly difficult to grasp. Andrew Oddy brings together 11 such case studies, written in a lively style by those specialists responsible, and in selecting them the criteria have been ‘outstanding artefacts of international importance conserved using a wide range of materials and numerous scientific techniques of investigation, including microscopy, metallography, radiography and chemical analysis’. In his ‘Introduction’ Andrew Oddy discusses the history of conservation/restoration, the growth of the conservation profession, recent and future developments in conservaand causes of decay and its tion, with examples and referprevention, ences to the following contributions. The original idea for the book sprang from the public interest in the restora-
113
tion of Leonardo da Vinci’s Cartoon, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, following the shotgun damage sustained in 1987, and this is described by Eric Harding and Andrew Oddy as the first case study. The remaining case studies describe the re-restoration of ‘The Portland Vase’ (Sandra Smith), the recovery of the original composition of ‘Henry Prince of WaZes on Horseback, by Robert Peake the Elder’ (Ian McClure), the rerestoration of ‘The Sutton Hoo Helmet’ (Nigel Williams), the cleaning of ‘Michelangelo’s Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel (Fabrizio Mancinelli), the conservation of ‘The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius’ (Allessandra Melucco Vaccare), the investigation and reassembly of ‘The Piranesi Vase’ (Eric Miller), the restoration of the crushed and dismembered silverware of ‘The Hockwold Treasure’ (Andrew Oddy and Robert Holmes), the removal of old repairs and the restoration of ‘The Roman de la Rose Tapestry’ (Norma Borg Clyde), the dismantling and re-restoration of ‘The Sophilos Vase’ (Penelope Fisher) and the cleaning of the ‘Statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin’ (John Larson). Apart from describing modern conservation and restoration techniques, and the highest standards of manual skili, these essays taken together illustrate well the changing attitudes to conservation and restoration, as well as the ethical problems encountered. 1994.1.13.1 Heritage and Tourism in ‘the Global Village’, by Priscilla Boniface and Peter J. Fowler. 234 x 154mm, xiv + 176pp., with black and white illustrations. Lon1993, E15.99 (ISBN don, Routledge, 0 415 07237 9). Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, UK. Depending upon your viewpoint, the apparently inexorable rise in tourism, and predictions that it is set to become the world’s largest industry, may be seen as a potential goldmine or an accelerating disaster, but, not surprisingly, Priscilla
114
Publications Digest
Boniface and Peter Fowler attempt to adopt a guarded, if idiosyncratic, middle course. It is a premise of the book that the interactions implicit in mass tourism ‘have inbuilt potential to debase both presenter and onlooker’, while the authors attempt to identify ‘what heritage narrative is being selected for the purposes of tourism, and why’. The authors have evidently sampled the heritage delights of many countries and one of their most telling conclusions is ‘such is the efficacy of the communications media worldwide and so prevalent is their use as vehicles for heritage interpretation that, essentially, all that would have been necessary to our study tour would have been armchair travel’. The middle course adopted for this study does not entirely disguise the profound disquiet of the authors at what they had experienced, and the preliminary chapters (‘Introduction: setting the global scene’, ‘Home thoughts’, ‘Indigenous and colonial’ and ‘East and West’) provide much food for thought, often in short note form, while avoiding the drawing of excessively pessimistic conclusions at every turn. The authors’ visits to Hawaii (‘The aloha experience: Hawaii’) provides a case study which reinforces this ambivalence, while the same basic approach is adopted for experiences gathered under ‘Urbane and streetwise’ and ‘The rural scene’, and for museum managers there are many uncomfortable insights embodied in the chapter ‘In the museum direction’. ‘The “moving object” ’ covers many aspects of loot, illegal excavations and exports, exhibitions, etc., as well as travelling while aspects of marketing are explored in ‘Global products’. The conclusions which emerge from ‘Heritage, tourism the and “the village” ‘, with which volume ends, are neither simple nor happy, but this in no way detracts from their significance. 1994.1.13.2 Privatisation and commercialisation open air museums: opportunity
of or
threat?-Privatisierung und Kommerzialisierung von Freilicbtmuseen: eine Chance oder eine Bedrohung?, edited by Adriaan A.M. de Jong. 221 x 153mm, 128pp., with black and white illustrations. Arnhem, Netherlands Open Air Museum, 1993 (ISBN 90 70300 09 5). Nederlands Openluchtmuseum, Schelmseweg 89, Postbus 649, NL-6800 AP Arnhem, The Netherlands. Published in a bilingual edition with summaries, this valuable document is a report of the meeting of a special working group of the Association of European Open Air Museums at Arnhem, 14-15 January 1993, called to address the need to continue to provide high quality services and yet depend less and less on public funding. The words ‘privatization’ and ‘commercialization’ when translated carry significantly different meanings in different European countries and the clarification of those differences had to be the preliminary task of that meeting. Adriaan A.M. de Jong provides a re:ort on the general course of the conference. identifvine the main points made and the conclu~ons reached, including summaries of the English and German language group discussions, and the printing in full of the text of the Arnhem peculation 1993 on ‘Privatisation’ of Open Air Museums. The texts are provided of the individual papers presented by Christopher Zeuner (‘Introduction to the conference: defining the problem’), Jan A.M.F. Vaessen (‘The “privatisation” of the Netherlands Open Air Museum: an interim balance’), Gunnar Elfstriim (‘Case study Gamla Linkoping’), Peter Oeschager (‘Fallstudie Ballenberg: Probleme und Lijsungen’), Michael G.L. Thomas (‘Case study Ironbridge Gorge Museum’), Helmut Ottenjann (‘Das Fallbeispiel Museumsdorf CloppenFreilichtburg-Niedersichtisches museum’), Dieter Pesch (‘Vom Gffentlichen Museum zur privaten Stiftung: Fallstudie Rheinisches Freilichtmuseum Kommern’), Eugen Ernst (‘Fallstudie Freilichtmuseum Hessenpark’), Stefan
special technical problems and related considerations. The appendices cover ‘Methods of distinguishing handmade and machine-made paper’, ‘Standard tests for the measurement of paper strength’ and ‘Specifications of paper for permanent records’, and a substantial Bibliography is provided. Unfortunately, the clarity of the text is not always helped by the grammatical oddities and mi&spellings/t~pographical errors which have escaned the nroof-reading and the erratic quality of the reproducz tions and book production, but these problems do not impair the value of the work significantly. 1
I
1994.1.11.4 The Art of the Conservator, edited by Andrew Oddy. 275 X 216mm, 196pp., illustrated in colour and in black and white. London, British Museum Press, 1992,E19.95 (ISBN 0 7141 2056 1). British Museum Press, 46 Bloomsbury Street, London WClB SQQ, UK, and The Smithsonian Institution Press, 470 L’Enfant Plaza, Suite 7100, Washington, DC 20560, USA. Well-written case studies often provide the most effective means of illustrating techniques and ways of thinking, and for the non-specialist those of conservation are particularly difficult to grasp. Andrew Oddy brings together 11 such case studies, written in a lively style by those specialists responsible, and in selecting them the criteria have been ‘outstanding artefacts of international importance conserved using a wide range of materials and numerous scientific techniques of investigation, including microscopy, metallography, radiography and chemical analysis’. In his ‘Introduction’ Andrew Oddy discusses the history of conservation/restoration, the growth of the conservation profession, recent and future developments in conservaand causes of decay and its tion, with examples and referprevention, ences to the following contributions. The original idea for the book sprang from the public interest in the restora-
113
tion of Leonardo da Vinci’s Cartoon, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, following the shotgun damage sustained in 1987, and this is described by Eric Harding and Andrew Oddy as the first case study. The remaining case studies describe the re-restoration of ‘The Portland Vase’ (Sandra Smith), the recovery of the original composition of ‘Henry Prince of WaZes on Horseback, by Robert Peake the Elder’ (Ian McClure), the rerestoration of ‘The Sutton Hoo Helmet’ (Nigel Williams), the cleaning of ‘Michelangelo’s Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel (Fabrizio Mancinelli), the conservation of ‘The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius’ (Allessandra Melucco Vaccare), the investigation and reassembly of ‘The Piranesi Vase’ (Eric Miller), the restoration of the crushed and dismembered silverware of ‘The Hockwold Treasure’ (Andrew Oddy and Robert Holmes), the removal of old repairs and the restoration of ‘The Roman de la Rose Tapestry’ (Norma Borg Clyde), the dismantling and re-restoration of ‘The Sophilos Vase’ (Penelope Fisher) and the cleaning of the ‘Statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin’ (John Larson). Apart from describing modern conservation and restoration techniques, and the highest standards of manual skili, these essays taken together illustrate well the changing attitudes to conservation and restoration, as well as the ethical problems encountered. 1994.1.13.1 Heritage and Tourism in ‘the Global Village’, by Priscilla Boniface and Peter J. Fowler. 234 x 154mm, xiv + 176pp., with black and white illustrations. Lon1993, E15.99 (ISBN don, Routledge, 0 415 07237 9). Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, UK. Depending upon your viewpoint, the apparently inexorable rise in tourism, and predictions that it is set to become the world’s largest industry, may be seen as a potential goldmine or an accelerating disaster, but, not surprisingly, Priscilla
114
Publications Digest
Boniface and Peter Fowler attempt to adopt a guarded, if idiosyncratic, middle course. It is a premise of the book that the interactions implicit in mass tourism ‘have inbuilt potential to debase both presenter and onlooker’, while the authors attempt to identify ‘what heritage narrative is being selected for the purposes of tourism, and why’. The authors have evidently sampled the heritage delights of many countries and one of their most telling conclusions is ‘such is the efficacy of the communications media worldwide and so prevalent is their use as vehicles for heritage interpretation that, essentially, all that would have been necessary to our study tour would have been armchair travel’. The middle course adopted for this study does not entirely disguise the profound disquiet of the authors at what they had experienced, and the preliminary chapters (‘Introduction: setting the global scene’, ‘Home thoughts’, ‘Indigenous and colonial’ and ‘East and West’) provide much food for thought, often in short note form, while avoiding the drawing of excessively pessimistic conclusions at every turn. The authors’ visits to Hawaii (‘The aloha experience: Hawaii’) provides a case study which reinforces this ambivalence, while the same basic approach is adopted for experiences gathered under ‘Urbane and streetwise’ and ‘The rural scene’, and for museum managers there are many uncomfortable insights embodied in the chapter ‘In the museum direction’. ‘The “moving object” ’ covers many aspects of loot, illegal excavations and exports, exhibitions, etc., as well as travelling while aspects of marketing are explored in ‘Global products’. The conclusions which emerge from ‘Heritage, tourism the and “the village” ‘, with which volume ends, are neither simple nor happy, but this in no way detracts from their significance. 1994.1.13.2 Privatisation and commercialisation open air museums: opportunity
of or
threat?-Privatisierung und Kommerzialisierung von Freilicbtmuseen: eine Chance oder eine Bedrohung?, edited by Adriaan A.M. de Jong. 221 x 153mm, 128pp., with black and white illustrations. Arnhem, Netherlands Open Air Museum, 1993 (ISBN 90 70300 09 5). Nederlands Openluchtmuseum, Schelmseweg 89, Postbus 649, NL-6800 AP Arnhem, The Netherlands. Published in a bilingual edition with summaries, this valuable document is a report of the meeting of a special working group of the Association of European Open Air Museums at Arnhem, 14-15 January 1993, called to address the need to continue to provide high quality services and yet depend less and less on public funding. The words ‘privatization’ and ‘commercialization’ when translated carry significantly different meanings in different European countries and the clarification of those differences had to be the preliminary task of that meeting. Adriaan A.M. de Jong provides a re:ort on the general course of the conference. identifvine the main points made and the conclu~ons reached, including summaries of the English and German language group discussions, and the printing in full of the text of the Arnhem peculation 1993 on ‘Privatisation’ of Open Air Museums. The texts are provided of the individual papers presented by Christopher Zeuner (‘Introduction to the conference: defining the problem’), Jan A.M.F. Vaessen (‘The “privatisation” of the Netherlands Open Air Museum: an interim balance’), Gunnar Elfstriim (‘Case study Gamla Linkoping’), Peter Oeschager (‘Fallstudie Ballenberg: Probleme und Lijsungen’), Michael G.L. Thomas (‘Case study Ironbridge Gorge Museum’), Helmut Ottenjann (‘Das Fallbeispiel Museumsdorf CloppenFreilichtburg-Niedersichtisches museum’), Dieter Pesch (‘Vom Gffentlichen Museum zur privaten Stiftung: Fallstudie Rheinisches Freilichtmuseum Kommern’), Eugen Ernst (‘Fallstudie Freilichtmuseum Hessenpark’), Stefan