MUSEUM, an institution that acquires, preserves, displays, and interprets an encyclopedic range of objects. Concerned with both the natural world and artifacts, museums cover such varied fields as art and aeronautics, religion and sports, biology and music. Educational and recreational, they seek to serve both scholars and the general public. By the authenticity of their contents and their appeal to the eye, museums have the power to stimulate thinking and engage emotions. They may be considered purveyors of truth and leaders in improving the quality of life.

博物馆，一个获得、保存、展示并解释百科全书式对象范围的机构。既关注自然世界，也关注人工产品，博物馆涵盖这样一些不同的领域，如艺术和航空学，宗教和体育运动，生物学和音乐等。在教育和娱乐方面，它们寻求既为学者服务，也为公众服务。通过它们内容的真实性和对眼球的吸引力，博物馆具有激发思考和调动情绪的能力。它们可以被认为是真理传播者和提高生活品质的引领者。

Types of Museums. Museums fall into THREE main categories—history, art, and science. The categories may overlap, and they are much subdivided. Open-air museums cut across categories.

博物馆的类型。博物馆分为三大类别—历史、艺术和科学。这些类别可能会重叠，而且它们被分得很细。但露天博物馆横跨了这些类别。

History museums are the most numerous. They may survey the history of a nation—for example, the Museo Nacional de Historia in Mexico City and the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. More limited in scope are regional museums; local historical societies; and museums of city history, such as those in Amsterdam, Warsaw, and New York. The houses of famous persons and other period buildings, either preserved and restored on site as in Newport, R. I., or grandiosely reconstructed as was Colonial Williamsburg, Va., may also be considered history museums. So are archaeological, anthropological, and historical sites, such as Roman ruins in Bath, England, Pueblo Indian cliff dwellings in the southwestern United States, the battlefields of Waterloo in Belgium, and the humble peasant farms at Skansen (1891), near Stockholm, the first permanent outdoor museum. Anthropology museums, such as the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexica City, have historical, scientific, and artistic aspects.

历史博物馆的数量最多。它们可能会调查一个国家的历史—例如，墨西哥城的国家历史博物馆和布达佩斯的匈牙利国家博物馆。范围更有限的是地区博物馆；当地的历史学会；以及城市历史博物馆，如在阿姆斯特丹、华沙和纽约的那些博物馆。名人的房屋和其它时期的建筑，要么像罗德岛的纽波特那样在现场保存和修复，要么如弗吉尼亚的殖民地威廉斯堡一样宏伟地重建，也可以被视为历史博物馆。考古学、人类学以及历史遗迹也是如此，如英格兰巴斯的罗马遗址，美国西南部的普韦布洛印第安人的悬崖屋，比利时的滑铁卢战场，以及第一个永久性户外博物馆，斯德哥尔摩附近的斯堪森（1891）简陋的农民农场。人类学博物馆，如墨西哥城的国家人类学博物馆，拥有历史、科学和艺术的地位。

Art museums are collections not only of the “fine arts” of sculpture and painting of high civilizations but also of decorative and folk arts and the arts of nonliterate peoples. Among the great national museums of fine arts are the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Hermitage in Leningrad. Some fine-art museums specialize in one period or culture—for example, the Musee de Cluny in Paris for medieval art, the Guggenheim in New York for modern art, and Asia House in New York City for Oriental art. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London covers worldwide decorative arts, while the Corning Museum in Corning, N. Y., specializes in glass. Folk-art museums, sometimes considered history museums, can frequently be seen in Europe. A unique art museum is the Museum of Images of the Unconscious in Rio de Janeiro, which displays works by mental patients.

艺术博物馆的收藏不仅是高等文明雕塑和绘画的“美术”，也收藏了装饰和民间艺术，以及不识字民族的艺术。在著名的国家美术馆中有巴黎的卢浮宫，马德里的普拉多，佛罗伦萨的乌菲兹以及列宁格勒的冬宫。某些美术馆专门从事一个时期的文化—例如，巴黎克鲁尼美术馆的中世纪艺术，纽约古根海姆美术馆的现代艺术，以及纽约市亚洲之家的东方艺术。伦敦维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆涵盖了全世界的装饰艺术，而位于纽约州康宁的康宁博物馆专攻玻璃制品的研究。有时被视为历史博物馆的民间艺术博物馆，在欧洲可经常见到。里约热内卢的无意识图像博物馆是一个独特的艺术博物馆，展示了精神病患者的作品。       Motives for collecting. A survey of the history and types of museums reveals a variety of motives, often combined, influencing man to invest talent, time, and money in assembling objects of no direct utilitarian value.

收藏的动机。对博物馆的历史和形态的一项调查揭示了各种各样的动机，常常是组合型的，影响人们投入人才、时间，以及聚集没有直接实用价值物品的金钱。

(1) Of primary importance is the age-old desire to expand the frontiers of knowledge. The 16 century Italian physician Ulisse Aldrovandi set himself the task of illustrating all nature in his private museum. Thomas Jefferson sent paleontological specimens to French naturalist G. L. L. Buffon that animals and peoples deteriorated when transplanted to America.

（1）最根本的重要性是扩大知识前沿的古老愿望。16世纪的意大利内科医生乌利塞·阿尔德罗万迪给自己设定了在其私人博物馆中说明自然界万物的任务。由于动物和人群迁移至美洲后的恶化，托马斯·杰弗逊将古生物学样本寄给了法国博物学家G. L. L. 布冯。

(2) Another strong motive in the urge to identity with a particular group. Thus Europeans since the Renaissance, admiring the achievements of classical Greece and Rome, collected antiquities from those civilizations. The attitude survives in the J. Paul Getty Museum, a reconstruction of a Roman villa, built in Malibu, Calif., in the 1970’s. Strengthening religions identity are museums of objects inspired by faith, such as the Tantra Museum in New Delhi and the Mennonite Village Museum in Steinbach, Canada.

（2）渴望认同特定群体的另一个强烈动机。因此，自文艺复兴以来，欧洲人钦佩古典希腊和罗马的成就，从这些文明中收集古物。这种态度在J. 保罗·盖提博物馆中幸存了下来，是一个于20世纪70年代在加利福尼亚州马里布建造的一栋罗马别墅的重建。强化宗教认同的是受到信仰启发物品的博物馆，如新德里的密宗博物馆和位于加拿大斯坦巴赫的门诺派乡村博物馆。

National loyalty is encouraged by the reconstruction of a former Polish royal residence in Warsaw, the National Museum of New Delhi, and the Shahyad Arya Mehr Monument, containing masterpieces of Iranian art, which marks the approach to Teheran. Museums in the USSR commemorating political and war heroes contribute to Soviet patriotic feeling, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D. C., keeps alive the memory of noted Americans. An outdoor museum of 11 distinct ethnic farmsteads in Eagle, Wis. EXPRESSES that state’s loyalty to its immigrant heritage. In such countries as Vietnam, Thailand, and Bangladesh, “living museums of ethnography” are raising citizens’ consciousness of their ancient cultural past. The identity of black Americans is articulated by special exhibits such as “African Tribal Images” at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1968.

通过对华沙的前波兰皇家住宅的重建激励了对国家的忠诚，新德里的国家博物馆，以及沙希亚德·雅利阿·梅尔纪念碑包含着伊朗艺术的代表作，它标记了通向德黑兰的方法。苏联纪念政治与战争的英雄博物馆为苏维埃爱国情感起到了积极作用，而位于华盛顿特区的国家肖像画廊让人们保持着对美国著名人物鲜活的记忆。位于威斯康星州伊格尔11个不同民族农庄的户外博物馆表达了该州对其移民遗产的忠诚。在越南、泰国和孟加拉国这些国家中，“活的人种志博物馆”正在提高公民对他们古老文化过往的意识。对美国黑人的认同是通过特别展览来阐述的，如1968年在克利夫兰艺术博物馆展出的“非洲部落图像”。

(3) Another impulse to collecting is the desire to prove success and gain prestige. Military conquerors frequently carried home art objects from subjugated lands as evidence of triumph and as status symbols. Thus Roman soldiers filled their houses with art objects plundered from Greece. Napoleon in 1798 ordered that works of art seized by his armies be paraded on the Champs de Mars in Paris before being deposited in the short-lived Musee Napoleon. In the late 19^th century a desire for conspicuous collections of European art objects gripped American entrepreneurs who wished to display their financial success. There is still a tendency in some museums to take pride in the size and opulence of their buildings, not always to the benefit of visitors. The wish of a prestigious institution to secure at all costs a famous work of art contributes to the often fabulous prices paid for such works at auctions.

（3）收藏的另一个推动力是渴望证明成功并获得声望。军队的征服者通常会从被征服的土地带回艺术品作为胜利的证明和身份的象征。因此，罗马士兵从希腊掠夺的艺术品填满了他们的房子。1798年拿破仑下令由其军队缴获的艺术品在存入短命的拿破仑博物馆之前要在巴黎的战神广场上检阅。在19世纪末，一种对欧洲艺术品显眼收藏的渴望吸引了希望展示其财务成功的美国企业家们。在某些博物馆中依然有一种趋势，以他们建筑的规模和富裕为傲，并不总是对游客有利。有声望的机构希望不惜一切代价获得一件著名的艺术品，这有助于经常在拍卖会为这类作品支付惊人的高价。

(4) Closely related to the motive of prestige is that of hoarding. Some collectors are infatuated with quantity. The Roman statesman Cicero, for example, filled 18 villas with treasures, and the son of the 19^th century American collector William Thompson Walters chartered a ship to convey his Italian paintings to Baltimore. In a modern museum, of course, large numbers of objects may be less a matter of greed than a necessity for scholarly research.

（4）与声望的动机密切相关的是囤积。一些收藏者痴迷于数量。例如，罗马政治家西塞罗用宝藏填满了18个别墅，而19世纪美国收藏家的儿子威廉·汤普森·沃尔特斯包了一艘船将他的意大利绘画运至巴尔的摩。当然，在现代的博物馆中，大量物品与其说是贪婪问题，不如说是学术研究的必然性。

(5) Finally there is the appeal of art objects to the senses and the emotions. According to the 16th century painter Francisco de Holanda, “Paintings make sad people feel joy and let the contented discover misery ... they make us experience love ... pity.” Art museums are concerned with these emotional faculties, which have been slighted in favor of cognition by formal academic education but which are now recognized as being just as much a part of the functions of the nervous system.

(5) 最后，艺术品对感官和情感有一种吸引力。根据16世纪的画家弗朗西斯科·德·霍兰达的说法“绘画使伤心的人感到快乐，并让满足者发现痛苦... 它们使我们体验到爱 ... 遗憾。”艺术博物馆关注这些情感能力，它被有利于正规学术教育的认知所轻视，但现在它被认为同样是神经系统功能的一部分。

待续部分：FUNCTIONS(功能)；HISTORY(历史)

                                           ALMA S. WITTLIN

                                       Author of “The Museum:

                             Its History and Its Tasks in Education”

                                             阿尔玛 S. 维特林

                      “博物馆：它的历史和它在教育中的任务”作者

                                        2024年9月15日译

（译者注：该词条部分位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第19卷，第636页至637页）