The Debate Over "Context": From Elgin to Eakins

Kathleen Foster, senior curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum, speaking about Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" at the "American Icons" conference

Critics of the source countries' stance in the cultural-property wars (such as Edward Rothstein in yesterday's NY Times) frequently call into question the assertion by Greeks, Italians, Egyptians and others that context is crucial. Having admired antiquities in both encyclopedic museums and source-country museums, I appreciate the advantages of each and wouldn't want to do without either. But part of the joy of travel is experiencing the special resonance that large concentrations of superlative pieces have when encountered near their original surroundings.

Nevertheless, when I was asked to speak last March at the Athens International Conference on the Return of Cultural Objects to their Countries of Origin, one of the questions that I received in advance from the chairman of my panel---Elena Korka, the head of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture's Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities---did give me pause:

In what way does the return of a cultural object to its country of origin and its restoration to its natural and historical context contribute to its better study and research?

She never got around to asking that loaded question during our public discussion, but I had prepared this equivocating response:

To the extent that you have a better concentration of experts and objects in the country of origin, you are probably in a better position to interpret and present these objects in a comprehensive, sophisticated way. But that's not to say that we'd be better off if everything went to its country of origin. I don't believe that's true and I'm not sure that the source countries believe that's true. I don't hear the Italian government say that the Getty Bronze should go back to Greece because it's a Greek sculpture.

I was thinking about the Greeks' insistence on the importance of an object's cultural and historical context while listening on May 16 to an analysis of the Eakins "rescue" by Kathleen Foster (above), the Philadelphia Museum's senior curator of American art, at a conference on "American Icons" held at the New-York Historical Society. She listed the 10 reasons why it was essential that Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" remain in Philadelphia, its city of origin.

Reason #9:

Context adds meaning and importance to a work of art.

In other words, she essentially espoused the source-country argument. Foster noted that the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which is now co-owner of the Eakins with the Philadelphia Museum, "is the most fabulous period frame we could build---an artifact of the same period, with archives and study materials about Eakins as a teacher." And when it returns to the Philadelphia Museum in July from its stint at PAFA, it will "drop into the middle of a hundred other works by Thomas Eakins"---given to the museum by the artist's widow.

Foster added:

The audience brings to an artwork their own experience and emotions. In Philadelphia, that's just a richer chemical reaction....To save "The Gross Clinic" is to defend the excellence of Philadelphia."

True, today's Philadelphians are closer in time to "The Gross Clinic" than today's Athenians are to the artifacts of ancient Athens. But the Greeks' "chemical reaction" is, if anything, more intense. Philadelphians had largely ignored the masterpiece in their midst until preempting its $68-million joint purchase by the National Gallery and Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum became a highly expensive matter of local pride.

Meanwhile, in an Associated Press interview last week, James Cuno reasserted the argument of his new book that cultural property should know no geographical boundaries:

We know that culture has always been fluid, hybrid and mongrel, and has never accepted political borders, and it has linked more people together than it has separated. These cultural property laws...put walls up between peoples.

His obtuseness when it comes to understanding the concerns of source countries, which are motivated not only by politics but also by genuine concern for cultural heritage, is best illustrated by this excerpt from Cuno's AP remarks, in which he responds to an interviewer's observation that encyclopedic museums (which Cuno champions) are "concentrated in the West":

I recognize it's a legacy of the Enlightenment and that encyclopedic museums tend to be only where that legacy reached. It tends to be only Anglo-Saxon areas or where the French Enlightenment took place---France and Russia. That isn't an argument against the principle of the encyclopedic museum. It's an argument for encouraging the development of encyclopedic museums everywhere.

Wow, what a GREAT idea: Why don't we ALL start encyclopedic museums! Even Abu Dhabi, which has the funds for such a feat, knows that it must resort to rent-a-Louvre to get the goods at this late date.

But back to Foster: She concluded her talk with a call for vigilance against what I described (in this Wall Street Journal piece) as "culture vulture[s], poised to swoop down and seize tasty masterpieces from weak hands." Foster commented:

I worry about other icons being movable, as people of great wealth come to pluck them from other institutions looking for money to repair the roof....This is going to be happening again and again. We need to be ready to save our icons.

Speaking of which: Is a Christie's bidder, untroubled by such concerns, going to pluck Rufino Tamayo's Trovador from Randolph College's Maier Museum tonight?