Darkness and light
In
Asia the gods dwell in darkness, in the smoky, innermost shrine of the
temple, surrounded in stillness by a few butter or oil lamps. Only
rarely do they leave this abode: then, however, the gods are bathed with
water and light and are carried around through their cities in festive
processions. Until again they return to the darkness of their
sanctuaries.
Shall
we treat these sculptures of bronze as deities which after all they
still are, or as art objects and exhibits? Shall one leave them in the
darkness of a deep alcove, with traces of blood sacrifice and vermilion
on them, the golden patina only sparsely lit, or shall one expose them
to bright daylight and its equivalent of cold Halogen or Neon
illumination? Profane them, once and forever, to become objects in the
history of religions or otherwise treasures of art?
Can we, to
paraphrase Joseph Beuys, forego their charm which goes beyond beauty?
Would not a humane museum concept almost demand that the gods of an
ancient culture be left, as far as possible, in
their context and not be divested of darkness, their most common shroud
?
Götz
Hagmüller: "Wenn das Licht ausgeht in Kathmandu" (When the
lights go off in Kathmandu), Wien 1991
Appropriate
Exhibition Technology at the Patan Museum
 Above all with regard
to maintenance and equipment which are available locally – there was
no high-tech to start with. Other future repairs, the technical
equipment used had to be compatible with the skills, materials and
constraints also necessitated some compromises after a careful
consideration of the pros and cons involved. In the absence of any
patent recipes in such a situation, the endeavour to adapt to local
conditions and available skills was a particular challenge.
For the museum’s
abundant information display, the graphic design and production of more
than 200 object labels and some two dozen gallery texts could make good
use of the rapidly developing computer and print technology in Nepal.
The humid climate, and
the high amount of dust and pollution in the air of the Kathmandu Valley
are fundamental problems for a museum, particularly in a historical
building which does not allow comprehensive glazing of its windows, and
precludes an air-conditioning system. The necessary protection of
exhibits has therefore been almost completely confined to the showcases
– apart from a number of large, free-standing objects. The showcases
are made of simple steel sections, welded and screwed together, with the
glazing and sealing made as airtight as possible. The objects are
protected against the heat from the light compartment above by sandwich
panels of glass. Showcase doors have been avoided in all those showcases
which are not built into walls, in order to avoid problems of
locking and air-tightness, which makes their contents only accessible by
removing the entire glazed box frame from the case bottom. This solution
involves a concession to the fact that the frequent high humidity is
reduced only during admission hours, and then only slightly (by heat
radiation from the light compartment) and cannot be regulated by
humidity equalizers (e.g. silica gel), which would require frequent
access, as well as an unrealistic high level of competence and control.
However, the light compartments can be easily opened for inspection and
maintenance and are also well-ventilated, in order not to reduce the
lifespan of their lamps through excessive heat.
The tempting array of
modern light fixtures on the international market has also been
dispensed with, in particular low-voltage technology: not only for
reasons of maintenance and supply, but also because project
experimentation has proved that the normal incandescent light of the
reflector bulb (which is available in Nepal) provides the best
illumination for sculptures anyway, especially for those made of bronze
or gilt copper. This light is neither as sharp as that of
12-volt-halogen bulbs, nor as diffuse and unreflective as that of
fluorescent tube lights.
In some cases, mirrors
are inserted into the bottom of the showcase to reflect the light from
above and thus provide additional contour lighting for the exhibits from
below – a minor reference to the original method of lighting, which
placed oil lamps on the floors of the shrines.
Gallery
G : Deep bay windows on the second floor provide sitting
comfort and views of the square below. The original mud floors
have been replaced by handmade
terracotta tiles. |
Gallery entrance, first floor: The carved wooden door was salvaged from the
demolition of an old house. The triangular loopholes are for the
passage of spirits who avoid thresholds in their flight path. |
Gallery
G: The photograph was taken before the Museum’s section on
traditional metal technology was fully installed. The bay
windows on the left provide a view of the Northern part of Patan
Darbar Square.
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Gallery
D: Looking through into Gallery E. Stone sculptures of the
Vedic Gods Chandra and Surya on the left, and of tantric deities
of Nepal in the hanging show cases. |
West-wing
gallery on top floor: The gallery overlooks Darbar Square. It is used for
meetings and lectures, and for banquets on special occasions. |
View
from the South tower pavilion over Darbar Square: The bell was rung during rituals invoking the gods in
times of severe drought. Krishna Mandir in the right background. |
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Top Right: Perspective drawing
of early design by Roland Hagmuller
Top Left: The southern part of
gallery E, with a triangular alcove protruding through gable wall |
East wing, First
Floor, Gallery E
A triangular hole under the ridge of the gable wall allows a ray of sun
light to enter during noon hours, apart from providing the traditional
exit for volatile spirits.
The
crossing of two invisible lines (defined by the axis of alcoves and
doors as dominant features) suggests the main route of visitor
circulation where it turns between the East- and the South-wing.
The Colour Scheme: monochrome
In 1887 Max Müller,
the German Sanskrit scholar and editor of The Sacred Books of the East,
noted that our ancestors of 2,000 years ago were more or less colour-blind
– as most animals are. Xenophon was aware of only three colours in the
rainbow (purple, red and yellow) and Democritus of only four (black,
white, red and yellow). Even Aristotle spoke of the three-coloured
rainbow and for Homer the sea evidently had the same colour as wine.
One could presumably
make a similar claim for rural Nepal, as also for many of the
traditional societies in the Third World: many differences, nuances and
blends of colour are not even perceived and therefore not designated by
words. Colour is a luxury. A few colours do indeed have their own
exactly defined symbolic values in painting and ritual, but they are
neither artistic nor individual means of expression as such. Most
people's clothing in non-urban Nepal tends to be 'earth-brown' – the
same colour as the architecture. The women also use red, especially at
festivals, and red is also the colour of the flag aprons on the eaves of
the pagoda roofs. In everyday life, however, the colours that
predominate are those of rust or dust, of earth and terracotta, of
untreated wood and natural yarn.
In only a few
historical buildings are there coloured interior rooms. An even rarer
sight are coloured wooden elements which are visible from outside, as in
the case of the Golden Window of the Patan Darbar 100 years ago, which
Gustave Le Bon documented in some detail and published in the form of a
coloured engraving. However, since the date of the paintwork is unknown
and its authentication as dating from the early 18th century is
doubtful, there has so far been no attempt to reconstruct what can in
any case hardly be ascertained from the scarce traces of paint which
remain.
Even if it might seem
as if the above assumption of colour-blindness in traditional Nepal is a
justification of the monochrome use of colour in the Patan Museum, the
choice of colours did in fact arise almost naturally. Building
components such as brick, terracotta and wood were already there, as
were a couple of whitewashed elements. Yet the inner walls were
deliberately not painted the traditional white but a brick colour – on
the one hand for perceptual reasons, to reduce the differences of
brightness in the surrounding areas (to the advantage of the illuminated
museum exhibits), on the other hand for the practical reason that the
underlying plaster, which consisted of brick dust and lime mortar, had
this colour anyway, so that the inevitable damage caused by the wear and
tear of the paint would then not be too conspicuous.
The choice of colour
for the frames of the showcases and for all new, visible construction
and furnishing elements which were made of steel had a similarly
practical background. The dark rust-brown colour is the same tone as the
usual rust-protection coat, which can be obtained in every paint shop in
Nepal and which would therefore not have to be specially mixed when used
for redecorating in the future (the satin surface was obtained by adding
boiled linseed oil).
Consequently, the
colours used for the insides of the showcases, as well as for the
information boards which present pictures and texts, were simply a
logical consequence of the foregoing: their matte brick-red, sepia or
sandy tones produce the most pleasant colour scheme for the majority of
the exhibits, the smooth and reflective surfaces of which are usually
made of bronze or copper and in many cases are also gilded.
To
bring the circle to a close, even the museum's textiles and the
traditional clothing of the gallery attendants have been included in
this monochrome scheme.
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East wing, First Floor, Gallery A
This
gallery is the first one the visitor enters. It provides an introduction
to the exhibits and explains how to recognize the various Hindu and
Buddhist deities or ritual objects by their particular features.
One
showcase and two separate stone reliefs in this gallery display
miscellaneous aspects of iconography and include objects which cannot be
identified: e.g. the faceless image of the repoussé shrine in the center
would only be recognized by the family who had dedicated this object to
their personal deity in 1855. |
Design
for showcase no. 4
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South wing, second
floor Gallery D
To maximize a sense of space in the long and narrow galleries,
freestanding exhibitions were kept to a minimum and showcases were
suspended from the ceilings.
Design of show case
interiors
Although most showcases
are standardized to some extent with regard to measurements and technical
details, each case has a different interior form, individually designed
for its particular group of exhibits.
Within its group, each
object again has been given a particular space, either in a niche receding
from the slanting main plane or on a pedestal protruding from it. Thus,
each exhibit has its own “spatial aura” in distinction from its
neighbors, and each group is gathered in a homogenous setting.
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| Manuscript of Tantric Hinduism
(detail); Bhaktapur, Nepal, 17th-18th century, handmade paper, ink,
watercolors, Object 772 |
In some cases, mirrors
are inserted into the bottom of the showcase to reflect the light from
above and thus provide additional contour lighting for the exhibits from
below – a minor reference to the original method of lighting, which
placed oil lamps on the floors of the shrines.
The design for this
individual showcase takes into account the unusual dimensions of the
exhibit: a continuous illustration spreading over 21 folios of a leparello-type
manuscript measuring 20 cm in width and two meters in length.
It would have been
logical to display the manuscript vertically in order to keep upright both
the script and the image (a schematic human figure with all chakras
depicted above each other along the spine), but that would have meant
forgoing the possibility of seeing and reading each folio easily and at
close range.
Thus the manuscript is
laid out horizontally, as it would have been on the floor or a table. The
60 degree angle of the glass sides of the case and the two horizontal
hand-bars invite one to lean a bit over the exhibit for a closer view.
Wall niches
Traditional wall niches of the Malla period were replicated with
precast concrete elements set in the mud-mortar masonry walls and housing
concealed lighting.
Although this particular
shape of niche shows late influence from Mughal India, its archetype is
also found in the earliest flowering of Nepalese art, the Licchavi period
(4th-7th c.).
North wing, second
floor Gallery G, technology section
The niche above one of the typical
latticed windows was converted into a showcase with a glazed steel frame
in front and a hidden light box above. The case exhibits a pair of gilded
bronze hands, cast in the lost wax (cire perdue) process which is
explained in this gallery.
Bigger than life-size,
the hands may have been part of a large image of Shakyamuni, the
historical Buddha (a superb example of which is shown on the facing page). In this most common pose he is seated in meditation, one hand in
his lap, the other in the gesture of “calling the Earth to witness” by
touching her with the tip of the middle finger at the moment of his
enlightenment. |
