Perceiving the Past: From Age Value to Pastness. Issue 4 (14th December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Holtorf, Cornelius
• Is Part Of: International journal of cultural property. Volume 24:Issue 4(2017)
• Page Start: 497
• Page End: 515
• Publication Date: 2017-12-14
• Subjects: Alois Riegl, -- age value, -- heritage values, -- Dresden, -- Planet of the Apes; Cultural property -- Protection -- Periodicals; Cultural property -- Protection -- Law and legislation -- Periodicals; Cultural property -- Protection (International law) -- Periodicals; Cultural policy -- Periodicals; 341.7677
• DOI: 10.1017/S0940739117000236
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0940-7391

Abstract

Abstract: According to the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1857–1905), cultural heritage possesses age value ( Alterswert ) based on the perception of an object's visible traces of age. His 1903 essay "The Modern Cult of Monuments" became a classic, and age value has ever since been constitutive for cultural heritage. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that clever copies, reconstructions, and imaginative inventions can possess age value too. I therefore suggest "pastness" as a useful term for denoting the perception that a given object is "of the past." Pastness is not immanent in an object but, rather, results from its appearance (for example, patina), its context (for example, in a museum), or its correspondence with preconceived expectations among the audience. In this article, I review the concept of pastness and discuss its implications for the global heritage sector. Age value emerges as being less universal than Riegl thought and was linked to a very particular intellectual and cultural context.