What is the role of the British Museum in the history of modern Essay

What is the role of the British Museum in the history of modern sculpture in Britain - Essay Example Its collection of great art and antiquities has been collected from around the globe and is an excellent portrayal of all the continents. This collection documents and illustrates in great detail the story of human culture from the very beginning till the present day, encompassing 2 million years of human history (British Museum, n.d.). The British Museum’s establishment was based on the belief that a collection based on human history should be accessible to the general public for free. Another idea behind the Museum was that the different human cultures can understand each other through mutual engagement regardless of any differences between them. The purpose behind the Museum was to have a place where human cross-cultural investigation could take place (British Museum, n.d.). ... The main topic that Moore worked on included fallen warriors, the mother-and-child and family groups as well as most the reclining human figure (Mark Barrow Fine Art, 2005). After much criticism of his early work, Henry Moore finally received the International Prize for Sculpture which helped his worldwide reputation to increase and grow. Moore also became well known for his sketches which depicted people of London sheltering underground during the Second World War. His sketches of working miners also gained a lot of popularity (Mark Barrow Fine Art, 2005). It was in 1921, when Henry Moore was attending the Royal College of Art in London, that the young artist began visiting the British Museum (Phelan, 2001). In his own words ‘the Museum was a revelation to me. I went at least twice a week for two or three hours and one room or another caught my enthusiasm. The wonderful thing about the British Museum is that everything is stretched out before you and you are free to make your own discoveries’ (Finn, 1981) Moore worked his way through the different many departments of the British Museum. The galleries housing the Antiquities of Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, Prehistoric and Roman-Britain, Rome and the Orient were a great favorite of the artist. In the time of Moore, the Ethnographic Galleries which housed the artifacts of Oceania was also located within the British Museum (Phelan, 2001). As an aspirant modernist sculptor, Moore had always been a fan of Roger Fry's ‘Vision and Design,, a collection of essays. This book is considered the most prominent and significant work of art criticism that was written in England