My reverie today concerns those art lovers who really want ideas for enriching the museum viewing experience. I have one fairly reliable recipe. I take ownership for the whole experience. I think about what I want to learn and see. I think about how I propose to learn and see. By way of example, the recent Renoir landscape show at PMA.
Once in the gallery, I try to size up the general feel for the space. How is it organized? Chronologically? Stylistically? Not at all? I then glance around to see which works jump out at me. I never attempt to look at every work, instead, limit myself to perhaps ten or twelve for fear of acquiring the dreaded "museum head". This is, of course, the state of confusion and anxiety that overtakes a person when they try to look at too many works. A bit like motion sickness. Selective looking allows me the time and patience to really look carefully- more like enjoying a meal than tearing through a bag of Herr's kettle cooked potato chips. When I look, I am contemplating the composition....the layout. Is it symmetrical? Is it realistic? Not that it ought to be. I am looking at effects of light and shadow. I am looking at colors. Are they mixed? Are they limited and muted or complex and vivid? What relationship does the painting have with others that are nearby? What about the use of the brush? Is it delicate and refined or loosely applied and textured? How do the frame and the painting coexist? If the work evokes emotions, what are they? How does the physical construction of the work evoke those feelings? Is there a convincing sense of depth in space, or does the artist not care about perspective? I just try to ask lots of questions mentally and look slowly, moving my vantage points, and allowing the piece to speak for itself. Here then are my keys then to museum going:
1. Clear your mind of intellectual clutter and enter with a blank screen. 2. Don't look at too many things. Instead, quickly see what things jump at you and then spend some quality time. 3. Ask yourself (or non-audiophone having humans) lots of questions about the work, especially those that address your emotions and how the painter wittingly or not, induced your response. 4)Skip the audio tour. You can always read or listen later. 5.Cultivate your own eye and be confident about what is meaningful in a painting. 6)Always celebrate the discovery of a bad painting by a great artist and have fun shocking people by saying this or that painting by this or that old master was really marginal.
Philadelphia, sometimes in not so obvious places. There are for example a dozen or so superb etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, d.1778,) on display at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The prints are absolutely gorgeous if a little bit frightening. They depict, in Piranesi's words, "prisons of the imagination." These works show dark interiors of ancient prisons, full of ghastly machinery, pulleys, wheels, chains, wracks and all things macabre. I am struck by a few things as I contemplate these works. They are absolutely monumental in scale. One wonders how many lost souls simply withered away in these dark and cavernous structures. They are richly detailed. You could spend a half hour on one print, come back some other day and find lots of new surprises. Finally, it seems clear that Piranesi was showing off his perfect understanding of linear perspective.
