Compositional model and analysis of palace museums

Abstract

The problem of interdisciplinary research in the field of museology in the focus of the article. The article proposes the author’s concept of the typology of compositional models. It is based on the understanding of the compositional model as a theoretically created object. This object reflects the essential features of the works, which is based on the idea of the type of composition. A variant of the periodization of the history of the museum of palace and park ensembles of Russia and China is presented in the article. These are: the initial stage (the palace and park complexes of the two countries performed utilitarian household functions for members of the imperial or royal family and aristocracy, were closed private zones), a transitional stage (formerly closed palaces and parks of the imperial and aristocratic families were nationalized and turned into public spaces), a period of decline (the cultural heritage has undergone considerable destruction during the Second World War and the Cultural Revolution), a stage of recovery (associated with the processes of international integration of museums) institutions. The study of palace and park ensembles goes in three separate directions: museum studies (issues of organizing museums, storage, exhibiting), art history studies (studying landscape art, mainly of the past), landscape design. The compositional model is an instrument of art history analysis, a theoretically created object reflecting the essential features of a work (set of works), which is based on the idea of the type of composition, allowing to combine several specific works (or ensembles) based on common features that can be represented as types. The history of the palace and park ensembles of Russia and China are very different. In the 20th century, they demonstrate the similar features of the development of museification processes.