The Study Of Modern Chinese Museology

In modern China,the cognition of museums began with officials,ambassadors and students going abroad,and the research on museums began with Wang Tao's reflection on the phenomenon of museums.The process of Chinese people's acceptance of museums is a process of the gradual integration of the western advanced systems and theories with traditional Chinese society.Chinese modern museology has reached a remarkable level in the world,which is parallel with the development of western museology.Modern museology has had a considerable understanding of the nature and definition of museums and the social functions of museums,and has conducted a beneficial discussion.This paper focuses on the changes of modern scholars' concepts about the nature and definition of museums and the social functions of museums,takes a relatively perfect museology framework as a reference system,examines the research scope and achievements of modern museology,and tries to explore the historical reasons behind them.In regard to the nature and definition of museums,modern scholars recognized the materiality of museums from the very beginning.With the development of museums and the democratic revolution movements,scholars gradually paid attention to the public nature,another essential attribute of the museum.Therefore,modern museum scholars discovered the transformation of museums from the storage of cultural relics to the educational and public cultural institutions serving the society.The modern scholars' research on the social functions of museums had the following three characteristics: first,the social functions of museums were endowed by the times and continuously expanded to meet the needs of people.Among them,the changes of preservation function and education function were the most obvious.Their connotations were closely related to the theme of the times,and they had their respective emphases with the changes of the times.Among the social functions of the museum,the most important one for modern scholars was the educational function,and the preservation,research and entertainment functions all served the educational function.Second,the service objects of the museum expanded from the social elites to the general public,and the democratization and publicization of the museum and the education level of the public promoted the growth of each other.Thirdly,scholars' understanding of museology was a process from passive acceptance to active exploration.When the social functions of the museum were increasingly prominent,scholars called for the establishment of museums not just for the need of national image but for the need of people's livelihood construction,which helped produce many meaningful theories,such as the Three Big Efficiency Theory of Chen Duanzhi,the Three Mission Theory of Yang Zhongjian and the Four Functions Theory of Zeng Zhaoyu.From the Westernization Movement to the Reform Movement of 1898,to the other national salvation movements such as the New Culture Movement and the New Education Movement,scholars' thoughts on the museum were combined with the key modern vocabulary of self-improvement,industry,democracy,science,rationalism and nationalism.On the basis of full communication with international museology,Chinese modern museology has featured by its own characteristics.