I've recently returned from a trip to Europe where, among other things, I visited some of the world's greatest art museums. Standing among some of the most renowned treasures of Western civilization, I felt... miserable and bored. Ten minutes in a museum seems like an hour to me. By some strange arrangement, 15 minutes in a museum make my feet hurt so much I can barely stand, whereas out in the world I can walk for hours. All this proves that I am a Philistine, it is nothing to be proud of. But as I looked around at my fellow museum goers, I could have sworn that many of them were as desperate to get out of there as I was. So maybe a few other readers will have some idea what I mean when I ask "why are museums supposed to be so wonderful but in fact, so exhausting?"
Well, museums are supposed to be educational, and as an educator I should be all for them. But I find it next to impossible to learn anything in a museum, whether about art or history or dinosaurs. Even if there are little placards packed with information about the exhibit, I don't have the patience to read it all (remember about my feet?) nor the background to put it in context. I have no doubt that those who majored in art history in college can be fascinated by the differences between Tintoretto and Botticelli, but I majored in math.
The paintings suggest another reason for museums: contemplation of great art is a pleasure in itself. I can buy this, because I am capable of sensing beauty in music or a landscape, I guess I'm just sort of challenged when it comes to paintings. Or maybe it's the elbows and nudgings from the crowds of tourists who are trying to contemplate the same beauty as I am that sort of sours the experience for me.
So, I'm saying the unspeakable: Everyone agrees that museums are a fabulous cultural treasure, a sign of our refinement. I'm saying that I find them a source of torment and I suspect I'm not the only one. So why are great museums so packed that people are willing to stand in line for hours just to get in?
Many of us Philistines, I suggest, don't get much education in museums, nor do we successfully contemplate the beauty of great art. Rather, we want to go the museum to see the famous things that are in the museums: The Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, etc. And given that perfectly good pictures of these art works are in fact widely available, it's clear that for many the motivation is just to get close to these famous objects. It's no different from the desire to see a movie star or other celebrity in person. By some weird logic of the contemporary mind, famous things are so exciting that getting close to them makes us cool by extension ("And of course we saw the David, it was magnificent.")
And that brings me at last to my point, a point about the values promoted by a culture of entertainment. Many of us come to understand much of the world in terms of the values of entertainment, even though we are reluctant to acknowledge this. We may claim we attend the museum to appreciate or learn about art-and surely some do-but really most of us hope that museums will be a form of entertainment, packed with celebrity stuff. But in fact, most museums were never intended to be entertaining, and they aren't.
For more information, visit Peter G. Stromberg's website. Photo by Minke Wagenaar.
