Museum viewing

As a museum goer, I wouldn't necessarily say that I have a set pattern of approach. Much depends on the museum itself. Is it big or small? New to me or an old standby? Is there something I particularly want to see or am I just browsing through? These factors all must be taken into consideration. Still, I think I do have some repeated characteristics.

First, I try to figure out how a gallery is designed. Should I start on the left or right side? Since someone gave some thought to hanging those pictures (for argument's sake we'll assume we're looking at paintings, but a museum is a museum is a museum), I want to follow that thought. Probably things will be arranged chronologically. That makes sense, and I'll want to follow that chronology. Then there's the reading of the overall gallery tag, if any, the big set of text that our gallery has written to explain this particular room. I don't want to guess what the room is about. And I want whatever information is being given out beforehand. I could easily see someone wanting it the other way around. Look first to get a sense of the work, then read the explanation.

Next comes the hard part. Look at the damned picture. At the individual picture level, look at the thing first before reading the tag. I find that I can easily walk up to a picture and read the tag to find out what the picture is about, then I glance at the picture and go on to the next tag, and repeat the process, hardly spending any time at all considering the art. My problem is, I tend to be word-oriented. Although I came to the museum to see the pictures, not to read the tags, I could easily spend 90% of my time reading and only 10% looking. Obviously this is something to avoid, and I make a conscious effort to do so.

I've got a two-hour span of art attention. Doesn't matter what the art is, two hours later and I'm in the gift shop. Some museums are two-hour museums. Others are two-year museums that I approach two hours at a time. I have on occasion taken a lunch break after my two hours and been able to go back for more, stretching beyond my two hours, but as time goes by my brain fills up and I'm not really looking anymore. I'm not even reading the tags!

The last step is to discuss. I will compare notes with my wife on what we saw, especially if it was something new to us. Actually, sometimes this is the penultimate step, because I'll go on to do some back reading and maybe even write something up after the fact. The thing is, I consider art to be of paramount importance, so I don't just drop in on it once in a while and that's the end of it. But still, I have my two-hour limit. If I were being paid to look at art, in other words, at best I would be a part-timer.

There are numerous studies on how exhibitors should most effectively ply their trade. Anyone who goes to museums over a space of time will see fashions in how things are presented. We are in a period now where interactivity is considered very valuable, and where exhibits and sometimes entire museums are, as some would put it, Disneyfied. The idea that works can stand alone in their presentation to the general public has long gone. Compare the old galleries of the 19th century (like in Morse's famous painting above) to present galleries. In the old galleries, painting was piled on painting and the eye went where the eye went. Now the eye probably goes where the curator wants it to go.

What a Physics Student Can Teach Us About How Visitors Walk Through a Museum is an article from the Smithsonian that covers some of this. Apparently no one has scientifically looked at how people approach museums, and while this article isn't definitive by any means, it is thoughtful.
.