Rimini museums

The new Museum of Impressions was inaugurated in December 2005 and brings together material found on various contintents by travellers and collectors. In its displays the museum's philosophy iso to encourage visitors to look at the objects, rather than at labels or texts, and to trace the history of the changing attitudes, of Westerners to the more exotic regions featured in ethnographical collections. Its aim is to make its visitors more aware of the different aspects of art, which in turn have appeared scandalous (Christians seeing apparent exotic proof of the existence of the devil); surprising (the wonders of nature); instructive (through the eyes of archaeologists and early ethnographers); disturbing (the first representation of modern art and its vision of the world); and sublime (those who admire the purely aesthetic aspect of the objects). For visitors who are accustomed to stereotypes of 'tourist art', the exploration of the various aspects of art given above, explained by the museum, is a refreshing alternative.