In Situ (Jan 2021)
Un conservatoire des plâtres antiques, 2
Abstract
In the early 19th century, the plaster casts of the Louvre were transferred to the former collège des Quatre-Nations (“College of the Four Nations”) and gathered with an other ensemble in what would then form the “École royale et spéciale des beaux-arts” (“Royal and Special School of Fine Arts”). Ill-suited to the needs of the institution, during the return of the monarchy under the reign of Louis XVIII, the “Nouvelle École royale et spéciale des beaux-arts” (“New Royal and Special School of Fine Arts”) was founded in 1816 in Paris, in the former convent of the Petits-Augustins. Later on, the school was equipped with a “palais des Études” (“Palace of Studies”) completed in 1834, then with a “musée des Antiques” (“Museum of Antiques”) showcased in the “Cour vitrée” (“Glass Courtyard”) inaugurated in 1874. Thus, on the left bank, opened a centre of excellence for practitioners on which Adolphe Thiers set his seal, from afar but firmly. On the right bank of Paris, at the Louvre, during the very difficult period in which the rooms of the Museum were increasingly emptied, its Director since 1816, Auguste de Forbin, worked on creating a place of delight for the art and archaeology lovers. From 1820 was set up a “musée spécial des Antiques” (“Special Museum of Antiques”), still referred to as “musée de Plastique” (“Museum of Plastic”), which revealed to the public an enlarged area of antique with the installation of prestigious models of classical Greece. The second half of the 19th century was marked by initiatives that focused on an other perception and a different way of looking at ancient art; it had to do with the philosopher and philhellene Félix Ravaisson Mollien, who, from the Ministry of Public education and with the support of Napoleon III, left a decisive mark by introducing two fundamental notions: the notion of “Greek scissor” during Roman restorations, and above all, the notion of “incomplete”, i.e. of fragmentary original fragment, admissible as such in the rooms of the museum. A third pole emerged in France during this period, intended for art theorists. From 1876 onwards, in the faculties of Arts, the conditions for the creation of academic chairs in archaeology, established as a distinct discipline, were met: at the Sorbonne at first, and then in a specific place, the Institut d’art et d’archéologie (“Institute of Art and Archaeology”), inaugurated with its museum in 1932. However, lack of interest, noticeable in the middle of the 20th century, led to an iconoclastic crisis in which plaster casts were not spared… The collections of the Institut d’art et d’archéologie of Paris were the first victims of the damage caused by students, long before the collections of the École des beaux-arts were in turn vandalised. Some part of what remained of the collections was then transferred to Versailles, for a very ambitious project that will never see the light of day.
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