Musings on the Muses at the Museum
As a recent
entrant to the world of museums, I was delighted to discover that the word
‘museum’ arises from the ancient Greek word Μουσεῖον which is interpreted by
Wikipedia, at least, as ‘…a building set apart for study and the arts’. It goes
further to say that a museum is ‘a place or temple dedicated to the Muses’(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum) The artist in me delighted in this discovery and was prompted to look further into ‘the muses’:
The Muses, the personification of knowledge
and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters of
Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified). Hesiod's account and description of
the Muses was the one generally followed by the writers of antiquity. It was
not until Roman times that the following functions were assigned to them, and
even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes:
Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry),
Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance),
Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy).’(
Under the Influence of the Muses
The muses,
of course, are not merely characters in a story. Rather they are the energies
and qualities experienced in the day-to-day living of life and its dramas
through the telling of stories (particularly in ritualised form). The stories
are not merely entertainments but rather they are processes by which the gods
come to be known and invoked. Like all ancient cultures, Greek and Roman
cultures sought to explain the natural energies and qualities of the world in
the form of deities, divinities, gods and goddesses. The essential idea is that
the gods are lived and experienced realities.
The naming of the gods in the pantheons of the world – including our own Māori
pantheon – are attempts to grasp in the human mind the way the world is. More
particularly the naming of the gods, the recitation of their stories and the
conducting of rituals are human processes designed to bring people into
alignment with the gods and to harness their power.
The muses
are not merely to be read about but are to be experienced. Life is at its
fullest when it is lived under their influence. I have been reading the
wonderful The War of Art by Steven
Pressfield who quotes Socrates in Phaedrus
by Plato:
The third type of possession and madness is
possession by the Muses. When this seizes upon a gentle and virgin soul it
rouses it to inspired expression in lyric and other sorts of poetry, and
glorifies countless deeds of the heroes of old for the instruction of
posterity. But if a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of
the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his
sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the
performances of the inspired madman.
Pressfield
goes further:
The Greek way of apprehending the mystery was
to personify it. The ancients sensed powerful primordial forces in the world.
To make them approachable, they gave them human faces. They called them Zeus,
Apollo, Aphrodite. American Indians felt the same mystery but rendered it in
animistic forms —Bear Teacher, Hawk Messenger, Coyote Trickster.
I have been
involved in a new theatre production of The
Bacchae, an ancient Greek tragedy by
Euripides. The play centres on Dionysus, the Greek god of entertainment and
revelry. Dionysus is also the god of wine - to be drunk is to fall under the
Dionysian influence. Mild inebriation offers a tangible experience – one we
have all had – demonstrating the practical effect of this particular god in our
lives. Whether we want it or not is another thing. The key point is, again, the
gods are energies and qualities to be known, understood, experienced and
harnessed. When sitting
down to work as an artist, Pressfield at first offers the following prayer to
the muses.
"The first duty is to sacrifice to the
gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render
your command most pleasing to the gods and to bring yourself, your friends, and
your city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage.” Xenophon, The Cavalry Commander
Muses and the Museum Today
All this
points to the question of the place and influence of the muses in the museum of
today. Of course, we do not live in ancient Greece nor 19th century
New Zealand. Rather we live and work today in an institution whose historical
and philosophical origins at least can be traced to the idea of ‘a place or temple dedicated to the Muses’. Is this relevant
to us today? There will be
much to say and discuss, however, museum professional Robert Stein (of the
Dallas Museum of Art) argues that the muses need to be returned to the museum.
In an article called ‘Museums… So What?’
What I like
about this discussion is that it offers a vision of the museum as a place or
temple of creativity rather than merely a stockpile of objects, a testimony of
where we have been, what we have done as a people. Robert Stein writes:
As repositories of the world’s greatest
creative endeavors, museums provide a tremendous workshop for exploring
creative genius both past and present. If one were to look for a place where
creativity could be learned, studied, examined, and replicated in all its
forms, you could scarcely do better than by exploring the collections at your
local museum.
Pressfield,
Steven: The War of Art: Break through the
blocks and win your inner creative battles
Black Irish Books, 2002
Stein,
Robert: Museums…So What?
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