The Museum
A most beautiful graveyard
The Museum - a wonderful place! A place where we can see the old, new, beautiful and strange. Treasures sitting in marble halls, framed with tall columns, highlighted under lights designed to inspire awe. I gazed at enormous paintings taken from great halls from past centuries marveling at the time, detail and love put into each artwork. Even a knight’s armor gleams as both artistry and engineering.
Earlier this year (Aug 2025) I was at the Cleveland Museum. I wandered through, hall after hall, down a flight of stairs, turned a left and suddenly I found myself in the religious section of the museum. There were Islamic prayer tiles arching above doorways, serene Buddhist and Hindu statues — but most of what filled the section were Christian artifacts.
As I walked through, looking at the icons, paintings, bishop chairs and even sections of churches, I didn’t feel awe or reverence; I felt sadness.
Crucified Christ, c. 1340–1350. Germany, Cologne, 14th century. Wood (walnut) once polychromed; overall: 41.6 x 36.9 cm (16 3/8 x 14 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1981.52
I found myself looking at the artwork above: The Crucified Christ. He was alone, encased in a glass box with a light shining down on the depiction of Christ right after the moment of death. The position of the light, directly above the hanging head highlighted the crown of thorns and gaunt torso. I felt compelled to bow to the small icon. If this was in a Church, it would be open to have parishioners, worshipers and visitors touch the feet of the Crucified Christ. But this was housed in a museum which is secular and sterile. Even though I was only half a meter away, the glass made me feel miles apart from this Christian icon.
Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstacy - Clive Bell1
When artists are working on religious artwork, their focus is on the divine. Art created in this manner is done with reverence, focus, prayer and is seen as a form of worship234. Once created the works are displayed in a church or a home to live as an offering to God. Not every tradition does this but the purpose is clear: the art is meant to live somewhere.
The works that are in the museum exist displaced from their indented homes under sterile light. Of course there is a reason for it - preservation, history and access. But even preserved, it feels misplaced.
There is a bishop’s chair from the 16th century living in the climate controlled and secure museum5. It is sat in a corner near another door connecting to another hall. A chair that has, most likely, outlived it’s church. A chair that no one can sit in again to lead a prayer.
These works have been removed from the spaces they were made for. Are the prayers and intent that was imbued into each piece still within the relics? Can we revere the art in a same way in the sterile environment of a museum? I do not know.
They’ve been gathered from different times and places, then, sterilized and mounted. They rest now for all to gaze at - relics of faith turned into decoration.
The museum is a most beautiful graveyard.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/clive_bell_177465
https://wellwateredwomen.com/opening-our-eyes-to-art/
https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/notes-on-method/
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1928.657