Title: The historical approach to the display of paintings
Abstract: There are today widely different views about how pictures should be displayed in historic art galleries of architectural distinction. These differences of approach to display are the source of much controversy but they are of such importance that they require open discussion. They concern changing attitudes to the hanging of pictures in Western Europe, from the fifteenth century until the present day. This, to some extent, means discussing paintings in the context of room decoration, one of the chief purposes for which they were originally executed. My intention is to defend the best elements of the historic approach to picture hanging whilst posing a few questions about contemporary display techniques, since most modern picture displays are based on the assumption that paintings can, and should, be able to exist out of context, and consequently the designer sets out to create deliberately a neutral environment for them. The attitude of the National Gallery, London, still seems to be summed up by the late Sir Martin Davies in The Annual Report of the Gallery in 1970:
Publication Year: 1982
Publication Date: 1982-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 5
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