The Museum of the Senses: Experiencing Art and Collections

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Description

Traditionally sight has been the only sense with a ticket to enter the museum. The same is true of histories of art, in which artworks are often presented as purely visual objects. In The Museum of the Senses Constance Classen offers a new way of approaching the history of art through the senses, revealing how people used to handle, smell and even taste collection pieces. Topics range from the tactile power of relics to the sensuous allure of cabinets of curiosities, and from the feel of a Rembrandt to the scent of Monet's garden. The book concludes with a discussion of how contemporary museums are stimulating the senses through interactive and multimedia displays. Classen, a leading authority on the cultural history of the senses, has produced a fascinating study of sensual and emotional responses to artefacts from the middle ages to the present. The Museum of the Senses is an important read for anyone interested in the history of art as well as for students and researchers in cultural studies and museum studies.

Reviews

Rich in stories about peoples sensory experiences in the art world, Classens work bridges the fields of sensory studies and art history with a brand new perspective. * Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford *
Interesting ... Provides copious food for thought on the benefits of sensory museums and educational programmes. * Journal of Education in Museums *
Read The Museum of the Senses before you next venture into a gallery or museum and youll understand the art anew. This is a fabulous study by an exceptionally talented historian. * Mark M. Smith, University of South Carolina, USA *
Elegantly written, utterly readable, and a real contribution to the fields of museology and sensory studies. * Fiona Candlin, Birkbeck, University of London, UK *

Author Bio

Constance Classen is the author of The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch (2012) and The Color of Angels: Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imagination (1998), among other works. She currently serves as an associate on two international research projects on art and the senses.