In her recent New York Times article, The Art of Slowing Down in a Museum, Stephanie Rosenbloom admonishes us to slow down when we visit museums. 20 minutes, she says, in front of a single work of art provides the most therapeutic experience. She sights several studies and experiments to buttress her argument, but essentially she’s pulled the number out of thin air.
Leaving aside the therapeutic value of art, I take her point. I spend several hours in front of select paintings at my local museum each year, spread out over many visits. But I’m not the typical museum-visiting tourist to whom her article is addressed. For the typical tourist trying to see everything in forty-five minutes before the tour bus leaves, a cursory glance and brief pause are all they can manage.
How many of us when visiting a museum in some faraway land for the first–and perhaps last–time will spend half our visit before a single work without exploring the rest of the museum? So, although her article is written for the time-starved tourist, her advice boils down to: don’t be like that!
I’m off-put by arguments for the therapeutic value of art. A lot of nonsense is written in this vein, but nothing I’ve read sheds any light on actual art. As a thought experiment, the next time you read something about the therapeutic value of art substitute ‘meditation,’ or ‘nature hike’ or ‘good scotch’ for ‘art’ and see if it makes the slightest difference. I won’t belabor the point, but I just don’t see it.
No one can argue for the therapeutic value of visiting museums. Modern museums are chaotic and crowded places filled with noisy and (all too often) rude people. Her advice in this regard is to take music or something you can listen to through head-phones. Good advice. I’ve written about the etiquette of visiting museums and the challenges art lovers face when visiting modern museums, so I won’t repeat myself here.
I am in complete accord with the author’s main point that it takes time to experience a work of art. I would add that it also takes repeated visits. The question of whether experiencing art outside any perceived therapeutic value is worthwhile I leave to you.
[Photo copyright Thomas Hudson.]