The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition

The late Oxford art historian Haskell (Patrons and Painters, etc.) produced permanently valuable books on the social climates that produced great art in earlier centuries. This study is based on various lectures, and was put into final shape by Haskell's coauthor on Taste and the Antique, Nicholas Penny. It describes how international blockbuster museum exhibits aroseDfrom 17th-century ""old master"" retrospectives in Italy and the bureaucratic ""salons"" of France beginning in the 18th century, to the 19th-century nationally based shows (Rembrandt in Amsterdam) and today's global extravaganzasDalong with some of their worst excesses. In nine chapters devoted to specific exhibits, Haskell goes behind the scenes, delving through miles of source material to explain the political context for many of the shows. In a striking chapter, ""Botticelli in the Service of Fascism,"" he describes a landmark 1930 London exhibit of Italian art that turned into a propaganda platform for Mussolini. Haskell is openly horrified at the risks museum directors now habitually run in order to win brownie points with their trustees and other art world honchos, putting their irreplaceable artworks in harm's way: ""Miles above us jets speed through the skies carrying their freight of Titians and Poussins, Van Dycks and Goyas."" Throughout, Haskell's clear prose brings what is often a highly detailed and specialist discussion into clear focus, though it won't make it much past the art and art historical worlds. (Dec.)