A Note about Cast Courts

A companion post to my UK Story Map Day 4 Friday, 1 June

March 16, 2020

by Kate Forrest

For the full story, check out the Story Map here.

Making casts of sculptures and architectural elements was a common practice in Victorian times when the middle-class was on the rise. They could afford trips to London, but perhaps not to Spain or Italy. That’s where the casts came into play. Artists could make plaster casts of the originals and display them in museums, like the V&A, where travelers and the public could come and enjoy the replicas of great art from around Europe. The practice is not, however, without some controversy.

The casts are controversial because the processes used to capture the details of the original art were not always gentle and, in fact, could be destructive. Clearly, no country wants to see their national treasures damaged by acts to replicate them. Eventually this practice died off as interest in the reproductions peaked by the end of the 1800s. The casts at the V&A were nearly destroyed, but they managed to survive and have come back in popularity. They also show the degradation of the original works over time, as some of the fine detailing on certain architectural features have been lost since the 19^th century. Copying great works of art, architecture, and sites of cultural and historical value continues today using safer modern methods.

A nice example of this comes from the joint endeavor between National Geographic and the National Technical University in Athens, Greece. When I was in Washington, D.C. last winter, I saw the Tomb of Christ exhibit at the National Geographic Museum. The exhibit was an immersive 3-D experience that captured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem with incredible detail and accuracy. This was done using technology such as LIDAR, sonar, laser scanning, and thermal imaging. The project’s focus was to carry out essential conservation works on the Edicule (the structure that houses, what is believed to be, the tomb of Christ) and document the ancient site for preservation. The exhibit created from this documentation was an incredible immersive experience. I think it is wonderful to see such places “copied,” so to speak, in these non-invasive ways that preserve the sites/works so they can be shared with a wider audience. Note: The Tomb of Christ National Geographic Exhibit closed January 1, 2019 after running since November 2017.