A proposal for an exhibition based on Sir Thomas Browne’s Musaeum Clausum
& Bibliotheca Abscondita
(The Sealed Museum and The Concealed Library)
Sir Thomas Browne
1605 – 1682 was born in London and moved to Norwich in 1637, where he practised
medicine till his death. His writings on archaeology, medicine, philosophy, design
and religion include Religio Medici (the Faith of a Physician), Urn
Burial (an exploration of early cremation practice), and Pseudodoxia Epidemica (an expose of common errors and mistaken beliefs).
Browne
has been described as a link between the beginnings of scientific thought in the early enlightenment and the mystical faith
of the Mediaeval Church. As a thinker, he refers to a wide range of sources in
literature and religious writing, while as a scientist he is an empirical observer.
The regard in which he was held in his time can be seen from
the circumstances of his knighting; King Charles II, on the occasion of a visit to Norwich, was intended to confer knighthood
on the Mayor of Norwich, who stood aside in favour of the eminent local writer, physician and authority on many subjects.
The Musaeum Clausum & Bibliotheca Abscondita, a text published posthumously in 1684 as one of a set of tracts, is a description
of a curious collection of books, pictures and curiosities, some lost, some viable, some fantastical, imagined to be in a
seventeenth century "sealed museum and hidden library". It has been read as carrying aspects of the satirical,
melancholic and as an example of the breadth of knowledge and allusion in use at the time. The British Library
has copies of Miscellaneous Tracts (1684) and Complete Works (1686), which contain the earliest published versions
of the work.
The proposed exhibition is to comprise artists' works in response to Browne's museum. This proposal is collated
by Julian Walker.
Artists' works in response to Browne's museum and library
The following artists
have been invited to make preliminary proposals in response to the text, and their proposals are available on request:
William Cobbing
Polly Gould
Uriel Orlow
Judith Stewart
I have proposed
to make the following works:
Three works responding
to three items in the Musaeum Clausum, one from each section
1/5. A
punctual relation of Hannibal's march out of Spain into Italy, and far more particular than that of Livy,
where about he passed the River Rhodanus or Rhosne; at what place he crossed the Isura or L'isere;
when he marched up toward the confluence of the Sone and the Rhone, or the place where the City Lyons was
afterward built; how wisely he decided the difference between King Brancus and his Brother, at what place he passed
the Alpes, what Vinegar he used, and where he obtained such quantity to break and calcine the Rocks made hot with Fire.
A film of a family seaside event, testing the process of breaking up a large rock using fire and vinegar; presented
as a family video.
2/4. A Moon Piece, describing that notable Battel between Axalla, General of Tamerlane, and Camares the
Persian, fought by the light of the Moon.
A drawing of the moon exactly as it appeared on the date and at the time of the battle,
as seen from the location of the battle.
3/8. A large Ostridges Egg, whereon is neatly and fully wrought that famous Battel of Alcazar, in which
three Kings lost their lives.
An essay inscribed upon the surface of one or more ostrich eggs, examining the history of ostrich eggs as grounds for
writing; as cultural objects conveying a variety of concepts; the relationship if any between the ballad, if it is the ballad
in the Roxburgh Ballads, which describes the Battle of El-al-quibir (The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Stukeley) or
George Peele’s play The Battell of
Alcazar with the Death of Captain Stukely;
Sir Thomas Browne’s collecting and ornithological studies; and the importance to European history of the Battle of El-al-Quibir
in Morocco 1578. The egg or eggs to be on a slowly revolving motor.
