Portal:Museums

Introduction

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world attracting millions of visitors annually.

Since the establishment of the earliest known museum in ancient times, museums have been associated with academia and the preservation of rare items. Museums originated as private collections of interesting items, and not until much later did the emphasis on educating the public take root. (Full article...)

Selected museum

The Louvre Museum

The Louvre (English: /ˈluːv(rə)/ LOOV(-rə)), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.

The building was redesigned and extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 m² (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 m² (782,910 sq ft), making it the largest museum in the world. It received 8.9 million visitors in 2023, 14 percent more than in 2022, but still below the 10.1 million visitors in 2018. The Louvre is the most-visited museum in the world, ahead of the second-place Vatican Museums. (Full article...)

Selected interior

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  The Industrial Gallery, housed in the original part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, designed by Yeoville Thomason and opened in 1885
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  The Dinosaur Hall of the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin, showing the skeleton of Giraffatitan brancai, among the largest mounted skeletons in the world
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  Exhibit in Indonesia Museum, Jakarta, displaying the traditional costumes of Indonesian ethnic groups
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  Floating Heads by Sophie Cave (2006), installed in the East Court of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
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  An early 18th-century German Schrank with a traditional display of corals, from the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin
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  Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, an archaeology and anthropology museum
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  Old Dutch display case in Branderszaal Lange Haven 97, Schiedam
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  Display cases in Altena Castle
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  The South Hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, an aerospace museum, showing the Enola Gay bomber and other aeroplanes
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  Entrance hall of the Vienna Technical Museum, one of the largest technology museums in Europe
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  The Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Versailles
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  Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
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  Antique cuckoo clocks displayed at Cuckooland Museum, Tabley, an example of a specialised museum
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  Iron bed in torture room at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
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  The queen's chamber of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, the former residence of Marie Antoinette
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  Triangular prism-shaped display cases in the Red Dot Design Museum, Essen

Selected general article

This Year Venuses Again!, 1864. Honoré Daumier satirizes the bourgeoisie scandalized by the Paris Salon's Venuses.

An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is occasionally true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" (the French word) or "show". In UK English, they are always called "exhibitions" or "shows", and an individual item in the show is an "exhibit".

Such expositions may present pictures, drawings, video, sound, installation, performance, interactive art, new media art or sculptures by individual artists, groups of artists or collections of a specific form of art. (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that squatters in Hamburg briefly occupied the former Erotic Art Museum?
• ... that Gracie Mansion became New York City's mayoral residence after serving as a public toilet and a museum?
• ... that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh from his residence in Dhaka before his arrest by the Pakistan Army?
• ... that Daniel Sickles's leg is a popular museum display?
• ... that Ukrainian museum director Horpyna Vatchenko forced the Hermitage Museum to abide by its agreement and return the Kernosovskiy idol after a loan?
• ... that the Al Qarara Cultural Museum, housed in a former grain silo, contained 6000 years of history?

Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Selected exterior

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  The State Historical Museum, Moscow
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  The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
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  Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
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  The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
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  The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
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  The Museum Island, Berlin
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  The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
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  Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
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  The Lower Castle of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, one of the earliest buildings constructed specifically for use as a museum; it remains a museum displaying its original collections
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  A maritime museum located in the village of Bolungarvík, Vestfirðir, Iceland, showing a 19th-century fishing base with a typical boat of the period and associated industrial buildings: an example of a very small museum
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  The Louvre, Paris, showing the glass-and-metal Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei to act as the museum's main entrance, and completed in 1989
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  Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
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  São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, a 1968 concrete-and-glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, considered a landmark of the city and a major example of modern Brazilian architecture
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  National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
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  The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
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  The British Museum, London

Selected type of museum

The Wild Center, a natural history museum in Tupper Lake, New York, United States

A green museum is a museum that incorporates concepts of sustainability into its operations, programming, and facility. Many green museums use their collections to produce exhibitions, events, classes, and other programming to educate the public about the natural environment. Many, but not all, green museums reside in a building featuring sustainable architecture and technology. Green museums interpret their own sustainable practices and green design to present a model of behavior.

Green museums strive to help people become more conscious of the limitations of their world, and how their actions affect their world. The goal is to create positive change by encouraging people to make sustainable choices in their daily lives. They use their position as community-centered institutions to create a culture of sustainability. (Full article...)

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Subtopics

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Lists

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