ABSTRACT
There is a current trend for museums to represent Enlightenment museum spaces, recreating the displays of the eighteenth century. In this chapter I will ask why museums are representing Enlightenment spaces in the twenty-first century, suggesting that the answer has to do with the concept of representation itself. I will look at three recent exhibitions that manifest this trend: Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century, a major new permanent display at the British Museum; Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780–1836, a 2001–2 temporary exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery; and the new, permanent Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum.1 What these three exhibitions have in common is that they not only display the art and objects collected in the eighteenth century, but also show how these collections were understood, organized and displayed at the time they were collected. These exhibitions share an ambitious aim to increase visitors’ understanding of the history of the museum space, and to challenge them to consider the nature of museum representation itself. I will argue that it is in this sense that they are truly ‘Enlightenment’ spaces, and I will consider the challenges this approach poses to museums and visitors.
