Original scientific paper
Museum, Art and History (Considerations on Pavao Vuk Pavlović Art and Museum Aesthetics
Zlatko Posavac
Abstract
Although in interpretative terms this is a theme for aesthetics, the author considers it important to point out the historiographical fact that Vuk-Pavlović's main work Spoznaja i spoznajna teorija (Cognition and Cognitional Theory) was published in 1926, only a year before Heidegger's capital work Sein und Zeit. This is an important fact in as much as the philosophical deductions within all of Vuk-Pavlović's aesthetics rely on his cognitional theory as a source. So though all Vuk-Pavlović's articles, which systematically structure his aesthetic views were published after World War Two, they define aesthetics as a science of experience, actually extending several lines of European philosophy from the first half of the 20th century, and in their character in this way belong integrally to what is called the »European context« of that time. An exception in the direction of the time historical shift is Vuk-Pavlović's important article, Umjetnost i muzejska estetika (Art and Museum Aesthetics) 11963, 21976, in which the current issues of the philosophy of art are not only touched upon and opened, but they are profi1ed with the some of the most fruitful intellectual efforts to be found in the second half of the 20th century.
In the above-mentioned article by Vuk-Pavlović, after the fact was stated that museums are epochally modern-age institutions, the theoretical problems are developed with the statement, and interpretation of the phenomena of formalization and timelessness of artworks as exhibits, which, when placed in a museum not only change their original place and function, but also their meaning. They are aestheticized definitively and utterly, even though that may not have been their original purpose. When presenting the evident similarities in the need for elaborating on this same problem for Vuk-Pavlović and its treatment by a number of European authors, even such as M. Heidegger and H. G. Gadarner it is shown that Vuk-Pavlović's understanding of the concepts of art is also constitutively determined by respecting the dimensions of temporalization und historicity. It is therefore noted that one must take other of Vuk-Pavlović's articles into consideration for proper insight into his aesthetic concept, the main ones which would be Filozofije i svjetovi (Philosophies and Worlds) and Značenje povijesne predaje) (The Meaning of Historical Tradition).
Aside from interpretation of Vuk-Pavlović's aesthetic view, the problem of museums and the phenomenon of musealization in general is gradually posed in the paper, in principle. Instead of cloaking the authenticity of artworks, emptying their meaningfulness through a »gallery-istic« or museological formalization (i.e. »aesthetization«) - it is necessary in museums to distinguish the possibility of disclosing the fulness and essential meaning of each artistic work. The solution for this can be sensed as both overcoming »museum aesthetics« and the relativism of historicism, in getting rid of falsification or destruction of history, towards discerning, discovering and reaching a true historicity.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
84896
URI
Publication date:
7.12.1987.
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