The Neuchâtel Museum of Art and History
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| The Museum of Art and History in Neuchâtel (MAHN) was opened in 1885 in the
building built for that purpose by the Town of Neuchâtel, under the control of the
architect Léo Châtelain. With the revealing name of «Palais des Beaux-Arts» (Palace of
the Fine Arts), its patrons, both public and private, used it to house all the scattered
collections that the town had amassed, in the field of fine arts as well as applied arts,
numismatics and, more generally speaking, of history and prehistory. Thus a double institution was born, consisting of a Museum of Art and a Museum of History, housed under the same roof. Here the visitor was invited to stroll around from the basement up to the top floor, passing through all the stages in the development of the local civilisations, illustrated by hundreds of objects taken from highly heterogeneous collections: Neolithic tools, medieval remains, pottery, textiles, furniture, jewellery, prints, sculptures, paintings… Since 1990, the MAHN has been split into four departments (fine arts, applied arts, numismatics and history), each placed under the scientific responsibility of a curator. This division of competences meets today’s scientific requirements but also multiplies the approaches within an institution that finds it more and more difficult to maintain its unity under the complex regard of the visitors. The persons in charge are faced with a new challenge today. |
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| Christiane
Dubois. 1998. Scène de genre. Huile sur papier marouflé sur toile. 120 x
140 cm. Créée dans le cadre d’une exposition du Musée d’Art et
d’Histoire de Neuchâtel, intitulée: Temps dense: un dialogue artistique
1848-1998. (20.02-18.04.1999). Pour cette exposition triennale de la Section
neuchâteloise de la Société des peintres, sculpteurs et architectes suisses (SPSAS),
le département des arts plastiques du Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de
Neuchâtel a proposé aux artistes neuchâtelois de cette fin de siècle de se laisser
inspirer par des œuvres datant de l’époque où Neuchâtel, par la révolution
ferme et paisible du 1er mars 1848, mit un terme à l’Ancien Régime et se donna
un statut républicain. Claude [Claudius] Jacquand (1804-1878). 1834. Voltaire est arrêté à Francfort en 1753. 65,5 x 93 cm. MAHN - inv. AP 20. Aux parois et dans une vitrine, divers objets familiers du type de ceux que l’on peut voir sur les tableaux de Jacquand: une épée d’officier, un encrier et un nécessaire d’écriture de voyage, des boucles de souliers masculins, des lunettes, etc. Dans une autre vitrine, une lettre de Frédéric II, roi de Prusse, à ses sujets neuchâtelois, munie de sa signature autographe.
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The Museums of Art and History
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| Museums of art and history belong to the family of great public institutions of
an encyclopaedic nature, created by young nations in the 19th century to replace the
collections of curios, which in form and spirit were undeniably attached to the Ancien
Régime. These new temples, that bore the stamp of the rationalist philosophy of
progress and in which beautiful artworks were found next to picturesque articles of
everyday life, originally had the formidable task of showing their public the arduous path
on which civilisations had advanced till reaching the incomparable happiness of triumphant
modernity. Later, under the shock of the breakdown in values (which expanded merrily in the second half of the 20th century), they momentarily became the preferred refuge of the sterile champions of the «good days» those times in which painters allegedly still used to paint and cabinetmakers still used to make cabinets. But today, some men and women, who are as receptive to historical facts as to the most daring creative act, have turned them into one of the last places for exhibiting this polysemous culture which maintains its standard of living humanism only through a constant dialogue between earlier and modern artists. In a cultural environment which all too willingly makes sacrifices to the theoretical edicts and the purely verbal extravagancies of those who create events – which we also need – the museums of art and history are definitely places of an essential balance.
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Claude [Claudius] Jacquand (1804-1878). 1834. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, décrété de prise de corps par le Parlement, après la publication de l’Emile, prend congé, à Montmorency, en 1762, de la famille du Maréchal de Luxembourg. 76 x 89,5 cm. MAHN - inv. AP 21. Christiane Dubois. 1998. Scène de genre. Huile sur papier marouflé sur toile. 120 x 140 cm. Créée dans le cadre d’une exposition du Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâtel, intitulée: Temps dense: un dialogue artistique 1848-1998. (20.02-18.04.1999). Aux parois et dans deux vitrines, divers objets familiers du type de ceux que l’on peut voir sur le tableau de Jacquand: une canne d’apparat, une coiffe de dentelle, un éventail, des boucles de souliers, des escarpins féminins, etc. Dans une autre vitrine, une page originale et quelques échantillons végétaux tirés de l’herbier de Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
> Souche.
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