Big little kid lost in the museum
As part of my self-education in art I attended art shows with a notebook in hand, like a kid on a school trip, and I sketched small reproductions of paintings and sculptures that my eyes were attracted to.
The Metropolitan in New York City put together all its Dutch paintings in one show, more than two hundred pictures of astounding quality: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and their peers. It was a little strange, walking the rooms and looking at the paintings not with the awed eyes of an art lover, but with the no less awed but somewhat sober eyes of a craftsman. As I stood there sketching, it may have appeared to an observer that I was missing out on the emotional response to the works. That's not how it felt to me at all; in fact, I was truly seeing things for the first time, truly observing, taking in, admiring, and appreciating the sights in front of me. It was a highly emotional experience, but if I had gone berserk with emotion... I wouldn't be able to draw a thing! So I kind of “sublimated” the emotion, kept it in, swallowed it and put it back out as a drawing. It was no less emotional an experience, and in fact it was a rather more multi-dimensional experience than many previous visits to the museum.
There's a certain skill in standing in front of a masterpiece in a crowded room and focusing yourself for the minute or two that it takes to do a basic little sketch. You can't be too bothered by the people around you; you can't worry about what they're thinking and feeling about you. From time to time I could tell that someone was looking over my shoulder and glancing over my drawing. Did the person like my drawing or dislike it? Was the person annoyed that I was standing there? I didn't give it much thought, because I was invested primarily in the process of sketching, not the process of worrying about what other people were thinking of me! So, part of the fun is in occupying a crowded little space for however long you need to, not bump into people, not let people bump into you... look and sketch... and move on. I stayed in the Met show for about ninety minutes, and I did 15 or 18 sketches of varying degrees of skill, from the blobby to the surprisingly adept.
I’m not saying my sketches were great; the experience, the discovery, the learning all were.
I went to the Louvre a few times too, and drew mostly sculptures in the huge inner gardens. The Louvre is a magnificent museum, but let me confess a dark secret: sometimes I find it a chore visiting it. I think it displays some of its art in a haughty manner that alienates the viewer, while the Met in New York consider its visitors as friends worthy of attention and comfort. There are rooms in the Louvre packed to the gills with paintings of historical merit but—to my eyes—little artistic beauty; those rooms are archival, showing you bits of French or European history while squashing you as an individual, as a human being. In those rooms I feel like the museum is saying to me, “You ignoramus. Look at these big, big paintings. Monarchs. Military campaigns. Generals. This is true greatness. You, on the other hand, you're so little you could disappear right now and nothing in the world would change. Au revoir, little person! Come again if you dare!” The paintings are way up on huge walls, too many busy images displayed too close together. I don't get the same feeling at the Met. It's more democratic, more person-oriented instead of archive-oriented. The Met says, “Hey, guys! Swing right in and share in all this beauty! Don't care for historical stuff? Not to worry! Next gallery is full of treats for the modern eye!”
You art lovers out there—what about if you help me change my mind by sharing your positive experiences of the Louvre with us?
Pedro
10 Comments
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (10)
Hallo Pedro,
Would you permit me a word (or two) in defence of curators and generals?
The historical paintings are almost certainly displayed as they are because the curators share your opinion of their artistic merit and current popularity. But in spite of a desire to hide them in a vault somewhere, they (the curators) are probably obliged to display them or risk attracting the complaints of the Amalgamated Union of People who are Interested in That Kind of Thing, a small but vocal group - (and suppose you were a historical novelist who desperately needed to know whether MacMahon - or whoever - really did have the 'glassy stare of a born bloody fool' or if that was just your deranged imagination).
Such paintings are hung high since that is how they are designed to be seen - hanging imposingly 15 feet above the left ear of the ambassador to Guinea-Bissau, or wherever, and if they were hung at eye-level their technical deficiencies might cause civil unrest among the visually sensitive. (Interesting that it's only recent European history which seems to offend you, you don't seem to have a problem with with Egyptiana or Minoan burial masks - some of which probably give nightmares to those of a nervous disposition.) From what I remember of the Louvre however, none of the rooms is obligatory.
And why take everything so personally? It's not you, but the Guinea-Bissauan Foreign Minister that the generals were designed to intimidate. - These days I expect ambassadors have to sit under stuff that is considered more modern, cool and one-worldly (perhaps a neon installation saying "je suis un mec sympa"...).
If you ever need to get away from the crowds, you'll find a seat with the generals, ... and I think you'll find that one of them will be hurrumphing something like this : - "Dashed nerve! The fellow wafts in here, and complains we don't look friendly. Well, 'friendly' was never my point fort and my expression possibly became more severe after seeing the lines of wounded at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Thank God no one commissioned an artist to paint those!... I still see them on a bad day .... And now I have to sit here, in full dress uniform, opposite an image of Himself at Marengo and pass the time trying to recognise the sad captains in the arrière plan, wreathed in cannon-smoke; my contemporaries, the ones who never made it back to be promoted. Bound to make a chap look a bit on the grim side. Still, one musn't brood, as Nanny always said (and at least my paint isn't peeling off in the humidity as it did in Guinea-Bissau)..... Always think it odd how these artist-fellows, whilst never actually lying about his Imperial Majesty's height, always depict him as more real than the rest of us, hovering in a more vivid dimension, more precisely chiselled, better lit, - as one tourist said the other day 'like Tom Cruise in a silly hat'. Of course he didn't, in fact, look like that. He just thought he did. Funny though, that the artist knew...pass the cognac..Never did understand what we were doing at the Alma... why were we allied with the British defending the interests of Turkey? the Russian officers we took prisoner all spoke perfect French.. Confusing, politics, very.... cigar?"
I think you are right that emotions, particularly those caused by aesthetic response probably flourish better if you don't look at yourself having them (which might make them disappear) But is this sublimation? And would such treatment be good for a restive inner Bolshevik or even for the more improbable inner martyr? The sovereign remedy that I would recommend for both these conditions would be to keep them out in the open where one can see them, perhaps to take them for a drink, to tell them for heaven's sake to lighten up, and possibly even to giggle disrespectfully at them....
Kind regards
Lisa, it seems almost unfair that you would respond to my narrow-minded and provocative little paragraph with a well-constructed essay brimming with in-depth artistic, historical, and psychological arguments. In self-defense let me say I'm a member of the Société des Amis du Louvre and I'm always astounded when I visit it. But the feeling remains that the Met is friendlier and more democratic.
You ought to consider the possibility of writing novels and plays. Or perhaps you do that already and I just didn't know that about you?
Ah, I am unable to argue about your comparison with the Metropolitain since, umm, I've never been there. My own, quite unreasonable complaint about the Louvre is that its too successful,- too big, it has too much in it, and it attracts too many people. My favourite art museum is in Antwerp where there is an astonishing collection of Flemish masters, -some of the ones you saw in New York were probably on loan from there- Rembrandt, Vermeer and some heart-stoppingly beautiful, jewel-like paintings by van der Weyden and Van Eyck. You can get very close to them, they are unfussily lit and, if you visit in the morning, the museum is nearly deserted, even at weekends (well, that was twelve years ago, maybe things have changed since).
Thank you for your kind remarks about my comment, it was meant to amuse rather than squash, I hope it succeeded. No, I am not a writer, and considering it is about as far as I get - the facility for being mildly amusing over a short distance doesn't seem particularly commercial. Words bother me though,choosing the right ones I mean, and their rhythms.
Kind regards
I've had some marvelous visits to small museums. I love the Noguchi in New York (I'll post a photojournal of it in a few weeks). I had a fantastic time at Joseph Albers' museum in Bottrop, Germany, my wife and I virtually alone in a beautiful space full of color and light.
The Dutch paintings in the show I mention were from the Met's own collection, not loans! It's one rich museum, I tell ya. The Louvre is wonderfully rich too, but as you say, it's "too big." Which is not the feeling I have at the Met.
Hoity toity! you don't think you might be being a touch prickly? I meant no disrespect to the Met, heaven forbid....
How do museums successfully democratize themselves, or modernize for modern eyes?
(Actually, aren't all museums, even the most dusty, rather specifically modern institutions? They are full of a peculiarly modern melancholy, the melancholy of,
"I awoke with this marble head in my hands;
it exhausts my elbows and I don't know where to put it down."
G Seferis, Mythistorima
"George! That marble head belongs in a museum!"
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Modernism
Questions abound. Yes, it's hard to create or modernize a museum that honors the art and doesn't alienate the viewer -- and doesn't treat the viewer condescendingly either. I thought the revamped Musee Guimet was a model of modernity and beauty. Have you visited it?
No, unfortunately not. However, I asked someone if he knew it and he said, yes, it was a very beautiful museum, a bit like Antwerp - natural light, creaking parquet and nearly empty - but he hadn't seen it since it had been modernised. Did you know it Before so as to make a comparison with After?
Abound? Yes, well, one tends to lead to six more, I find... Is that allowed?
kind regards
Yes, I did see the Guimet before (dusty and disorganized, claustrophobic) and after (spacious, a kind of modern temple to ancient art, much of which was sacred in its original setting). One mourns the colonial thievery involved in creating such a museum, but the final result, a hundred years after the plundering started, is in fact stunning.
Weeeell, at least muddle isn't anti-democratic, even if it is something I get enough of at home...
Yes, it is true that museums (and concert halls) do seem to be getting progressively more temple-like. But the art inside them fortunately persists in pointing elsewhere, away from itself. Perhaps a ritual deploring of our ancestral sins will become part of the liturgy - which will be good news for people who enjoy that kind of thing...
kind regards
Hey, you've written such good essays and mini-plays -- how about writing some liturgy, prayers, psalms, and suchlike? I'm curious to see what you'd come up with