Art Museums: a Good Context for Outreach Activities on Natural Stones and Heritage

Abstract

Natural stones have had an important use in sculpture, both as the main material and as suitable bases on which to mount and enhance the artistic pieces. Many pieces of art can be admired in museums around the world standing on beautiful stones. However, in very few cases are the stones given correct recognition or names. In general, they are all labelled as “marble”. Illustrative examples can be provided from museums in Salamanca, Spain: Museum Casa Lis but, also, and, briefly, the museum Mateo Hernandez. The first of these is a very prestigious museum where a superb collection of Art Nouveau and Art Deco sculptures can be admired. Among them are many chryselephantine: sculptures made of ivory, bronze and other materials dating from the European nineteenth century art, placed on plinths of natural stone. Our work has identified, as accurately as possible, those stones. Most of the natural stones used as pedestals consist of onyx, but there are many other stones, ranging from serpentinite to travertine as well as some, as yet, unidentified materials. The second museum, Mateo Hernandez, houses a large collection of sculptures by this local artist. The sculptor used different kind of stones, but mainly “Petit Granit”, from Belgium. Despite the trade name, it is actually a type of limestone, but most museum catalogues have translated the name as “Black Granite”. The aim of our work is to help curators to correctly describe stones. The character of the natural stone is related to the aesthetic qualities and history of the sculpture. But proper identification of the stone can also contribute to important work for earth scientists: to disseminate understanding of the importance of natural stones, historical quarries and geoheritage among the general public.