The Museum as Temple, and Art as Holy

A place of solitude and introspection, the museum is my temple. While wandering through the halls of the Louvre or the MoMA or the Met we are given the opportunity to experience works of art we never knew before, and to see them in different lights and from different angles. There is no substitute for this physical and immediate experience of comprehending and internalizing visual art, and I will argue that while the digitalization of museums (for my purposes, art museums) has certain and profound benefits, when given the opportunity I would never choose to view art on the internet when I could see it in person. Museums have always been a place of hands-on (or at the very least eyes-on) learning in my life, and as technology allows for the expansion of the museum space from the purely physical and finite world to the more ambiguous sphere of the infinite and digitalized I wonder if the ‘museum experience’ itself is in flux.

Styliani et al. make a few excellent points in regards to the value of virtual museums in their piece, Virtual museums, a survey and some issues for consideration. While the digital sharing process undoubtedly enables the preservation and sharing of fragile artifacts (when a single scan can spread a piece of art to countless eyes for the remainder of the digital age), putting art on the internet also allows for audiences around the world to experience and appreciate the art – especially those who would otherwise be unable to see it. Whether personal geography or economy is the barrier to a museum visit, digitizing and sharing works of art over the Internet broadens the available audience and can inspire those halfway around the world. There is no question this increase in audience size and diversity is a benefit for all within the audience – and for art itself. How are we to broaden the capabilities, complexities, and even definitions of art without spreading the art-bug, as it were, to people all around the world?

For B.J. Soren in Best practices in creating quality online experiences for museum users, the focus was not on defending online museums as such but to enable digitized museums to be more productive and effective in reaching the young in particular. Targeting young users - especially first-time users - is essential to fostering an appreciation for art and history (and their nexus), while at the same time ensuring that professionals and adults remain interested is key to ensure the casual and fanatic fans of art return. Soren found, through rather meticulous research, that instead of focusing on either one target audience or one particular focus of teaching, museums must offer a range of different outlets for people of all ages and experience-levels to further enjoy and learn from the museum piece. Fundamentally important were ideas such as sharing and spreading information, making the reception of art/history more than a simple one-way street by encouraging participation and the exchange of ideas between visitors and educators, and finally inspiring creativity and reflection in regards to any given museum exhibit. The bottom line for Soren was to make sure that particularly children remained interested and engaged – and in the online museum world this could mean anything from virtual games relating to the presented information to prompts to create something new with the information garnered from the museum visit. I very much appreciated that one of Soren’s ultimate concerns was with being sensitive to the needs of the community in which museums operate – both to ensure respect for a given culture as well as to reach out and hopefully ensure that the community itself offers information and creative help to individual exhibits and museums for a richer and more honest presentation of the information at hand.

In addition to our readings, I am reminded of one of the most impacting and inspiring TED talks of recent memory (and, as a TED talk junkie, this is not a claim I make lightly). Amit Sood worked for Google and developed the company's Art Project, and, to make a long story short (and not ruin the glory of Sood's attached talk) the Art Project is an inter-museum approach to digitizing the works of the world's great museums in one place, for all people to access on the Internet. The opportunity for individuals to amass digital collections of their favorite works of art and in some small sense 'own' their experience in this permanent way is one, I think, particularly important gift of the Art Project. Attached is the TED talk, for more information certainly take an adventure at the Art Project's home page. 

Both authors and Mr. Sood understand that there are certain limitations to the virtual museum as a locus of presenting (and hopefully inspiring) discussion and history – and I think that at the end of the day virtual museums must “act in a complementary and auxiliary manner” to traditional museums (Styliani et al. 524). So, given all the benefits and wonder of the virtual museum as a learning and teaching tool, why my concern for the loss of the museum-space of old? There are a few tangible (and many more intangible) beauties to the physical museum, and they are the causes I wish to champion.

While the scan of a piece of art may show incredible detail and provide complementary historical information on the piece, its creator, the time period of creation, etc. I truly do not believe that the dimensional experience of a piece of art can be adequately replicated in the digital world. 

To see the individual brush strokes and texture of a painting in real-time, right before your eyes is decidedly different than to see the admittedly incredible pixelation of that same piece on the Internet. This connection with the artist, this fundamental connection to human creation, is irreplaceable and missing in the scans of paintings that I peruse online. 

The physical settings of the museum space itself add to and complicate the experience of appreciating art. Whether the chairs in front of a piece are comfortable or not impacts how long I will spend appreciating any single item - whether there are chairs at all is certainly a consideration for my achey bones. 

Seeing a piece of art (especially one that requires true three-dimensional appreciation as a statue does) from different angles and in different light can have a profound impact on any art lover - another task difficult to replicate with a single scan or even a detailed 3D rendering of a model. 

While it is certainly not encouraged in all museums, to touch a piece of art and thereby further limit the philosophical and spatial distance between the creator and the purveyor of art is another benefit not provided by the virtual museum.

It is extremely hard to quantify the visceral reaction of any individual to a piece of visual art - when the contours of the brush strokes strike one under a certain light or angle and one's reaction and response (even a silent one) to others visiting the museum takes hold in an almost uncontrollable way. By means of some (hopefully rare) self-indulgence, I will leave you with my personal experience - the last time I visited an art museum.

In New York with friends for a long weekend about two months ago, we visited the holy of holies, the Museum of Natural History to explore new exhibits and live vicariously through our younger selves by visiting the old. After a leisurely walk across the Park we made our way to the last stop of the day - the sacred Met. While I somewhat anti-socially broke off from our small group to spend some time alone with the pieces that surrounded me (art is to be appreciated communally, perhaps, but internalized in solitude), I walked for some time examining some pieces and barely taking others in. Until I stopped. For whatever reason - maybe drowsiness from a long day of walking the city or slight confusion from some pre-museum imbibing of spirits - I chose to sit down in front of a particular piece. 

André Derain's Houses of Parliament at Night (1905-06) took from me the desire to keep walking. This piece, with its haunting colors and historic setting, challenged my motivation to see as much as possible and instilled a deeply peaceful feeling that to take in one piece of art fully - truly fully - was perhaps more desirable than to sneak a glance at every piece on earth. 

I spent nearly forty minutes sitting there, in an uncomfortable chair, examining and internalizing every aspect and inch of Derain's work. I took pictures, I contemplated sketches, and, ultimately, I sat in silence hoping that I could someday further reflect on the experience and the moment. To see Houses of Parliament at Night in a digital form would be to do it a disservice - but I will provide it anyway, to give my reader a glimpse of what kept me seated, in an uncomfortable chair, for the better part of an hour. 

The museum is my temple, and the self-sacrifice of time pays off a thousand fold when this congregant finds something truly holy. Use virtual museums and scans of art when you are unable to experience the physical alternatives - use them to store and invigorate your most cherished memories - but never forget the simple humility and profound peace of spending some time in the physical presence of the art you love.