Essay On A Museum

Museums are shaped by society as a place where it is known to be silent. As soon as people that visit the museum enter, they are greeted by silence, which is only followed by the footsteps of people walking on the marble floor. This silence is constructed upon the steady historical conventions and veneration for the remembrance, education, and facts museums provide that cast the museum niche in society. Although the museum does become a part of society, it does not mean society should become a part of the museum. If a museum commercializes itself, society will destroy what the museum stands for. A museum is not a place that should be seen as a circus, a freak show, or a theatre. A museum should be viewed as what it is, a place where knowledge

An example would be Colonial Williamsburg due to the fact that there is educational sacrifice that emerged from the making of a museum as a place where people go for pleasure. This place is supposed to be fun like “Disney Enterprises” (Source E) but fails to do so since it is an unpleasant reflection of colonial life. The museum does not “include the filth and stench that would have been commonplace in the eighteenth-century colonial town” so that the public does not shy away from going into the museum. Taking away the facts of history makes the works of art lose their historical value since they no longer stand with the same meaning when they were created. This cutting off on facts strips away the past and creates a false history in order to remain commercially clean in order to be appealing to the public. People can only benefit from visiting a museum if they are presented with the cold hard facts of history. If museums around are showing art that has no historical value and meaning, there is no point in calling it a museum. A museum should only show art works and artifacts that hold value in order to connect with the people, not try to hide important facts that happened in history in order to become a better known museum. Museums should not change as society changes, they should hold the honor of teaching society and make it a visual art that represents