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I enjoyed Julie Bloom’s article on looking at art in Monday’s New York Times. Her observation that our visits to museums are often like trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet where we try to stuff as much in as we can in the time we have is all to correct. “Almost nobody, over the course of that hour or two, paused before any object for as long as a full minute,” she observed of her time at the Louvre in Paris. I must confess that I’ve found myself doing the same thing, especially when in a city that I don’t get to visit often.
How much more satisfying, though, to be a bit more selective. I’ve taken to visiting small museums (and have recommended the best I’ve found in the One Hour Tourist section of each of our city pages) where the temptation to gorge is naturally limited. When visiting a large museum, I hunt for the smaller, off-beat exhibitions that aren’t so heavily trafficked.
The result is getting to spend more time with the art at hand. It’s a welcome antidote to the working life where it sometimes feel that if the thumbs stop texting, breathing too will cease. No worry, it is possible to simply sit and enjoy a painting or sculpture without endangering one’s health. In fact, focusing on a single object — letting it speak to you, challenge you, or wash over you as the case may be — can be a wonderful restorative.
I spent nearly an hour looking at Monet’s Water Lilies in Paris and felt positively rejuvenated. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Frick Collection in New York, the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC, the Delacroix Museum in Paris, and many others (even the Chocolate Museum in Barcelona ♥) offer wonderful opportunities to spend time with special art. I’m a big fan of the British approach to museum admissions — most have no fee — for this very reason. It’s easy to grab a few minutes during a commute or between meetings to duck into the National Portrait Gallery when you don’t have to plunk down 5 or 10£ just to get in the door.
Be careful, though, as this may become popular. “Slow looking, like slow cooking, may yet become the new radical chic,” Bloom says.
What are your favorite small museums or quiet galleries in the big museums? Have you found ways to sneak a little culture in your business trips? Your fellow Nomads would love to know.
