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July 7, 2005
A treasure trove
By M.M Alam
A few minutes’ walk from Eiffel Tower takes one to Guimet which, with its 45,000 objects, is the world’s biggest museum of Asian art outside Asia, covering an era as vast in time (five millennia) as in area (from Pakistan to Japan).Guimet’s director Jean-François Jarrige and his wife Catherine, who are globally acclaimed for discovering the 9000-year-old Mehrgarh civilization of Balochistan, had shown this scribe around when the French public museums (including the Mona Lisa-famed Louvre) were closed.
Tracing back its history, Jarrige said that Emile Guimet, a French industrialist who was passionately interested in the Orient, founded the museum in 1889. Initially he brought back thousands of works of art from an 1876 scientific voyage, and later the range kept on increasing due to French expeditions/scientific missions in Asia, donations and acquisitions. When closing in 1920, the Indo-Chinese museum at Trocadero handed all its riches to the Guimet museum.While Louvre harbours art pieces from the western half of the globe (up to Iran), antiques from the east were displayed at Guimet. It exchanged its classical and Egyptian pieces for the artefacts from Louvre’s Asian arts department in 1945.
The director, while pointing towards objects magnificently presented in appropriately lit spaces, said that earlier Guimet was a sleepy museum with few visitors. Many parts, including the third floor (Lacquer Rotunda), were in ruins and home to pigeons. After four years of renovation the museum was re-opened in January 2001, attracting a large number of aficionados.The museum’s tour takes visitors to various regions of Asia including the South East, Far East and Central Asia, explaining the art’s origin and civilization of countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam.
Interiors of ten Buddha sculptures were photographed without opening them, using the same hi-tech instruments physicians utilize to scrutinize insides of human bodies. The impressive three dimensional electronic spectacle takes one to a journey through ancient statues revealing the precious ornaments concealed; a book within had been read without even opening the statue.The Pakistani pavilion is not very developed, which negates the controversy that French archaeologists might have taken antiques out of Pakistan. The Jarriges worked at the Mehrgarh site for 35 years and were victims to the local political vendettas.
Ninety rockets, fired some time ago at Raisani village, had destroyed the Jarrige camp that possessed documents regarding their findings and a personal collection of ethnic outfits which attackers looted. The only things of any scientific value left behind were figurines.During their recent visit, the couple saw ‘holes’ at the Mehrgarh sites made by well-organized gangs led by sardars. Objects from various Pakistani locations are smuggled out to Dubai, Paris, London, New York and Tokyo via drug routes. Thieves, in order to make a few bucks, are destroying the traces of human history, which could help decipher the evolution of climate, crops, domesticating animals, etc..
Adjacent to the Guimet museum is an extension that houses a number of displays and bureaus. From Cathe-rine’s office windows one can see the Japanese garden of the Buddhist Pantheon galleries, where she organizes tea ceremonies that the public is invited to attend upon reservation.
In another room, Quivron Gonzague was seen busy tracing and drawing the Pakistani motifs to be scanned and documented. Macron Vincent, who excavates in Pakistan during winters, was compiling his findings in another cubicle.Vincent is working towards his PhD thesis on flints used in spheres by pre-historic hunters in Pakistan. Working here earlier, three Pakistani students have also got their PhDs on topics related to Pakistan.
The Guimet museum regularly organizes cultural events like film festivals and concerts featuring Oriental instruments and eastern dances.
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