Religion, Culture, and Museums: How We Conceptualize Categories

When people think of working in museums, they imagine the curators and the designers, whose immense creative efforts culminate in an exhibition aimed at showcasing the collection and creating meaningful engagement with the museum visitors. In contrast, I have always loved the “back end” of museum work – the management, organization, and preservation of a museum’s collections, much of which remains hidden from visitors in inventory spaces. However, I argue that the tough work of globalizing these collections, of engaging with attentive visitors, truly begins in that behind-the-scenes work. The conceptualization of this art history is rooted in the research, metadata and categorization of these objects, which become the body of object descriptions for museum labels. The categorization of objects is not only required for the functioning of the museum but also acts as the foundation for visitor engagement and cognitive competence in the museum setting.

For the GPRI’s Cairo workshop, my team framed our analysis of art at the Coptic museum through Kesner’s chapter “Is a Truly Global Art History Possible?” [1]. While I have worked in art history, my primary research focuses on the history of religion, which examines these objects more as reflections of shifting religious ideas. However, while I initially grappled with the theoretical conceptions of global art history, I found that my experience within the museum, discussing the art and objects, was much more familiar territory. As a museum professional, I wasn’t just thinking about how to express these theoretical ideas through a piece of art to the larger academic group: I was also trying to be conscientious about how different visitors would perceive the object within the space.

Kesner’s chapter explores the possibility of a global art history, particularly how we conceptualize the uniqueness of art versus the limited structures of art history [2]. It focuses on the reconciliation between the distinctiveness of cultural art traditions and the universality of global art history. Thus, we must both recognize that a piece of art comes from a specific historical and cultural context, which is unique, but also conceive of it as a piece of “art” within a global world of art. However, Kesner also had previously raised the important aspect of cognitive competence in the art museum experience, highlighting the complex issue that museums face with visitors encountering art for the first time [3]. Both of these questions – the way we as scholars analyse art within the framework of art history, as well as the way visitors engage with works of art within a museum setting – are crucial in our examination of the global past. The problems highlighted in the self-criticism of art history for being insufficiently “global” align well with the postcolonial and multicultural role of the museum.

The piece of art I decided to discuss was a stunning wooden door lintel from the Coptic Museum of Cairo (inv. No. 753). This object is dated to the fifth century and is labelled as being from the “Hanging Church” (el-Mo’allaqa) in Old Cairo [4]. I was particularly drawn to this piece as a reflection of both the cultural uniqueness of Coptic culture and the broader global development of Christian art. Although touted as “exceptional,” the museum’s description of the lintel centered on its depictions of Jesus in his Entrance to Jerusalem on the left and his Ascension on the right side. However, in focusing on describing the traditional Christian elements of the lintel, we lose the uniqueness of the Coptic influence. Particularly, the central aspect of Marian devotion – the main character, the Virgin Mary – was barely mentioned.

This exclusion is in no way a fault of the museum. Museums must strike a difficult balance between information that engages visitors’ basic understanding of the object and the complex information that gives visitors a deep understanding of the cultural meaning, but which might be misunderstood. They have chosen one specific approach in describing art objects to museum visitors out of a plethora of techniques. In explaining the Christian origins of the object, the cultural uniqueness of the art piece disappears, and, arguably, the religious history of the culture is also somewhat obscured. In this way, the museum had to choose between highlighting the connection between the Christian religion and the Coptic culture and people, or reflecting the religious and artistic uniqueness of the Coptic culture in its depictions of Christian art. The outcome is the museum showing how Christianity influenced Coptic art, but not necessarily how Coptic art influenced Christianity. Thus, the description has in some way emphasized the globality of the art, but in doing so the particular meaning of the art has been diminished.

The art on the lintel is described clearly and effectively, making sure that a visitor who is not familiar with Christian iconography can identify what is happening in the scene. The visitor walks away with an introductory understanding of Christian art, but the particular “Coptic-ness” of the piece goes unnoticed. While narrating the story of Jesus’ Entrance and Ascension, the central figure of the lintel is the Virgin Mary. Positioned directly at its centre, she stands beneath her own lintel within the scene, symbolizing the literal doorway between the earthly and heavenly realms. Removed from the context of the church, it loses the religious connection it creates – in that the viewer would be standing in the lintel of the church, looking at Mary standing within the lintel herself. This mirroring position reflects the deep-rooted Marian devotion in Coptic culture, including in the Coptic name of the church (Church of the Mother of God Saint Mary) which is lost in the Arabic and English names. The church is known as the site of several apparitions of Mary, but the art’s connection to its Coptic heritage has been removed through its global emphasis, as well as its place within a museum. 

While the museum’s space and art are stunning, it faces the same problem that many museums still have – the problem of making art, especially religious art, into a collection of objects. This unique cultural heritage and experience that the lintel would have created is lost in the hollow corridors of a museum. This is especially true because the lintel has been categorized as a “Christian” Coptic object, a religious object that requires an understanding of some Christian art history to appreciate the unique Coptic character of the art. The label describes the scene but does not explain its cultural meaning. The issue with this globality of religious artwork is that it creates an image of religious unity and cohesiveness that undermines cultural uniqueness and oversimplifies religious experiences. Thus, just as this question of globality is crucial for the field of art history, so too does it spill over into museums and heritage spaces, which must strive to encourage visitor experience and comprehension. In creating a collection of cultural and religious art, these objects remain neither religious nor art. 

NOTES

[1] Ladislav, Kesner. “Is A Truly Global Art History Possible?” In James Elkins, Is Art History Global? Edited by James Elkins (New York: Routledge, 2007): 81-111.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ladislav, Kesner. “The Role of Cognitive Competence in the Art Museum Experience,” Museum Management and Curatorship 21, no. 1 (January 2006): 4–19.

[4] The museum uses the name “Hanging Church” in the label description. Many scholars prefer the term “Elevated Church,” as it is built atop a Roman fortress, with stairs leading up towards the elevated entrance. In Arabic the church is also called “(Al-Kanisa) Al-Muallaqa” or “الكنيسة المعلقة” which means “hanging,” but in the same sense as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, referring to overhanging or terracing (from κρεμαστός). However, the official name of the building is the “Coptic Church of the Virgin Mary” or translated from Coptic as the “Church of the Mother of God Saint Mary in Egyptian Babylon.” This Coptic name, I argue, reflects the more indigenous cultural and religious name of the space, rather than an external name being applied to it which obscures that significance.