The
Mission of encouraging the contemporary Lebanese creation goes hand in hand with
the setting off of the national
heritage treasures.
The campaigns to search for and study Lebanese collections
generally take the form of large thematic exhibitions accompanied with luxurious
publications that remain as reference works: "Precious Manuscripts and Rare Books" (1962), "Oriental
Rugs" (1963), "Islamic Art in The Lebanese Collections" (1974) -
which marked a
milestone
because it came a few years prior to the
vogue
for Islamic arts
in
Europe and America - "The book and Lebanon - 4000 years of
Humanism" (1982) and "Lebanese Architecture from the 15th
to the 19th Century" (1984).
Nevertheless, the most prestigious of these events
remains the "Melkite Icons" (1969), dedicated to "the
memory of the donor of the museum and the painters of the patriarchates of
Antioch and Jerusalem who bequeathed us an expression of the art of icons
characteristic of the nations of the Near East".
The research carried out under the supervision of Professor
Virgil Candea brought to light an art that was unknown until
then. Other scholars of high calibre like André Grabar,
Jules Leroy, Joseph Nasrallah, Manolis Chatzidakis or Sylvia
Agémian have also contributed to the work.
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