the academic collection of plaster casts in use
KUNST
a little touch of history
the academic collection of plaster casts in use

A cast is worth less than an original, but a plaster is more than a copy."

(Humbert de Superville, first curator of a collection of plaster casts in Leiden)

Every drawing academy or applied arts school used to have a collection of plaster casts. After the Second World War, drawing based on a plaster model - under the influence of new art movements such as expressionism and abstract art - gradually fell into disuse. Plaster casts lost their function and were often abandoned to neglect and even destructed. However, the Maastricht collection has withstood the tough times and is nowadays, alongside the collection of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, one of the two remaining highly rare almost complete "academy collections" in the Netherlands.

The Maastricht collection has a long history and it bears witness to more than 150 years of arts and crafts policy. The plasters cover a large number of style periods: Egyptian casts, classical, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, neoclassical and neo-Gothic statues. There are also some casts of objects or images from the last half of the twentieth century. In addition to four life-sized plaster sculptures, there are also small-sized statues (including sometimes reductions in large statues), as well as architectural ornaments, reliefs, body parts, busts, heads, muscle images (écorchés) and ornaments with leaf motifs. At a 2010 count, a total of 473 plaster casts were inventoried.

A cultural-scientific study of this collection by Marjet van de Weerd led in 2008 to the doctoral thesis "The plaster sculpture collection of the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht".

UM uses this collection.

In Maastricht, part of the sculpture collection is used by students of the master's program ‘Fine Art and Design | Scientific Illustration. This international master's program is a collaboration between Hogeschool Zuyd and Maastricht University. Students learn to make accurate visualisations of clinical, medical and biological topics. In addition to drawing to reality, anatomical plaster models and muscle images are part of anatomical form studies. By drawing copies of art-historical images, the aesthetic development of the student is also stimulated.

Since 2017, second-year bachelor of medicine students have been allowed to work with the anatomical models of ABKM's plaster collection within the art and medicine elective block. Drawing according to a living model is supported with, for example, écorchés. Thinking drawing and the development of a personal drawing language is skillfully offered in a playful and individual way. Students are very enthusiastic and very surprised about their drawing results and see the added value of this form of drawing education in their medical studies.

The plaster committee, which is concerned with preserving and making this valuable collection public, has the warm support of Eddy Houwaart, emeritus professor of medical history and Mieke Derickx, curator of art and heritage committee. They joined in 2019 as a member of the commission for the protection of plaster casts.

 

The  academic collection of plaster casts can be seen and is scattered throughout the building,  at the Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht. In the run-up to 200 years of visual arts education in 2023, a more permanent presentation of the collection is being worked on.

Herdenkingsplein 12, 6211 PW Maastricht.

Marjet van de Weerd/ Mieke Derickx

© 2024 Art and Heritage Commission, Maastricht University