Spalding, a director of numerous museums in Great Britain, shows here how museums could use objects and artefacts to create profound and poetic insights into the past. He describes how his own ideal, the Poetic Museum, would transform traditional museums and greatly extend their audiences.

Most importantly, Spalding describes how his own ideal, the Poetic Museum, would transform traditional museums and greatly extend their audiences. Jonathan Spalding has served as director of numerous museums in Great Britain, most recently Glasgow Museums and Galleries. He is the founder of such award-winning museums as the Ruskin Gallery, the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, and the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art.