The ideal essence of a museum object

Abstract

The article examines the museum object from the theoretical and methodological positions of the idealistic approach, placing the Human Creator at the center of culture and history. The museum object is characterized as a substance of nature from the theoretical point of view. Also, it is designed in accordance with the ideological content of human consciousness and having value from the point of view of the main ideas of society’s worldview. An explanation of the phenomenon of information of a museum object is provided in the article. The process of endowing a museum object with such a specific property as museum character is substantiated and the procedure for its creation is described. At the same time, it is indicated that the main properties of a museum object are not immanent, but they are instilled in it by the consciousness of a museum worker and a visitor. The value of a museum object is determined by the ideas of the dominant worldview; when it changes, the value of the museum object also changes. The degree of expression of the main properties of a museum object such as expressiveness, attractiveness, and associativity also depend on the ideas of the current worldview. Original objects that sufficiently express the main content of the subject are of the greatest value. From the authors’ positions, criticism of views on the most important properties of a museum object is made. From the standpoint of an idealistic approach, a definition of authenticity of a museum object is provided and the particular importance of authentic objects in the current time of multimedia and interactive technologies being introduced into museum practices is emphasized. The article concludes that the idealistic approach, offering a solution to many problems in relation to a museum object, nevertheless, is not at the moment an all-encompassing theory that can explain it in all manifestations of creation and functioning. However, according to the author, in comparison with other theories the idealistic approach is able to give more answers to questions in this area than other museological concepts.