Christopher R. Marshall

When worlds collide: the contemporary museum as art gallery

Deposited with permission of Routledge. Images originally appearing in the chapter have been removed.The book is composed of seventeen chapters, written by different authors, which are divided in four sections that would like to lead to one idea: how come museums had such a radical reshaping in the recent years. Each author explains, with some examples, his own opinion about what are the most evident reasons of these changes, both on the architectural (inside and outside), social and cultural aspects. The authors keep questioning what kind of types the new museum spaces are required, and highlighting a range of possibilities for creative museum design. The authors reflect about the complexity, significance and malleability of museum space, which is always open to change. In the recent years, while museums became consciously recognized as drivers for social and economic regeneration, the architecture of the museum has developed from its traditional forms into often-spectacular one-off statements and architectural visions.

More Beautiful than Nature itself: The Early Commercial and Critical Fortunes of Neapolitan Baroque Still-Life Painting

This article considers the early reception of Neapolitan baroque still-life painting by seventeenthand early eighteenthcentury viewers. Although originating as a relatively cheap and critically under-valued picture type, Neapolitan still life nonetheless came to enjoy widespread popularity in baroque Naples. An analysis of primary and early secondary sources (ranging from payment documents, to art inventories, to early writings on art) reveals a surprisingly high value attached to Neapolitan still life from a relatively early date. This contrasts markedly with the situation in Rome where the local specialists were significantly under-priced relative to their Neapolitan counterparts. Neapolitan still life was highly valued in both a critical as well as an economic sense. Early writing on Neapolitan still life is also remarkably free of the commonplace deprecation of still-life imagery in relation to the supposedly more exalted category of history painting that is found so commonly expressed in other European art-theoretical writings. The positive Neapolitan attitude culminates in Bernardo de’ Dominici’s Vite de’ pittori napoletani (1742–45). While the early Roman biographers tended to downplay the achievements of the Roman still-life specialists or else ignore them altogether, de’ Dominici set the seal on the Neapolitan predilection for still life by writing the first systematic account of a regional school of Italian still-life painting.

Make the Stones Shout: Contemporary museums and the challenge of culture

Contemporary museums continue to play a vital role in articulating powerful statements of national and cultural identity for broad and diverse audiences. Focusing on a range of global case studies