While we were in Europe, we hit several major museums, including the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum and the Musee D’Orsay. It’s a humbling experience to stand in the presence of masterworks. But what was even more strange was observing the ebb and flow of people as they moved through the museums.
Perhaps the most amusing thing was the massive crowds clustered around several of the great works. The Venus d’Milo and the Mona Lisa at the Louvre are two cases in point. I almost became more interested in the crowd dynamics around the paintings than I was in the paintings themselves. It was amazing to watch people aiming 3 megapixel digital cameras at these masterpieces, vainly hoping to capture that beauty and take it home with them.
Wouldn’t it be better to just stand there quietly in awe?
Would it be that hard to remember the feeling you had standing in front of the Venus d’Milo? So hard that instead you spent all your time trying to get it in your digital camera’s viewfinder while no one else was standing in front of you or jostling you?
Do these folks really stop to look at the painting they’re photographing? Or do they just snap the shutter and set off to stalk the next one. I almost had to wonder if the first time some of these folks would see the artwork was when they got home and downloaded the images to their computers.
Strange.
I also noticed how tour groups would move through a given room, focusing completely on one work and ignoring everything around them while the guide explained some nuance on the canvas. After they’d move on to another room, another painting, I’d close in on the painting they’d left behind, trying to figure out what had elevated it above everything else in the room.
At the Rijksmuseum, this happened in front of Hendrick Avercamp’s “Winter Landscape with Iceskaters,” which definitely was worthy of close inspection. But there were other works there that I spent time with, too, long after the school of artfish had swum on.
Then there are the solo fish, who swim through the galleries with headphones on, floating in front of a painting, listening to some learned analysis of it and then systematically moving on to the next painting featured on the tour tape.
I’d probably know a lot more about art if I took that approach, but I tend to be more visceral in the way I drift through a gallery. I walk past each work until something catches my eye. Then I move in, read the details and look more closely. In some rooms, where there are a lot of works that I’m interested in, I’ll take a slow pass through, reading the descriptions and details posted with each work. Then I’ll double back and take a second look, making sure I focus on the art itself.
I get annoyed when someone hovers too long in front of a work (the solo tour fish are often guilty of this offense) or cuts in front of me. I often go against the flow to avoid crowds and have the paintings to myself, even if it’s just for 30 or 60 seconds. I guess I’m selfish with the art. I want it all to myself, even if it’s just briefly.