It's a beautiful essay, Robert. I enjoyed it very much. I also did art history for my BA and spent a lot of time looking at paintings. I want to get back to that when I have more time after I finish my PhD this year. I have also started sketching so I'm imagining a future when I can sit in a gallery space and look, and sketch, and muse, and discover. No amount of digitalisation replaces the 'thingness' of art.
Ah I’m so glad you finished this - a brilliant, brilliant essay. One of the best I’ve read on substack in ages, actually. Could not agree more with almost every point, and brilliantly delivered. Thanks for sharing
Yeah, I suppose that for some people visiting a museum feels like an obligatory todo list item, and nothing consummates a “been there, seen that” better than snapping a photo. Though it happens not only in museums, but in music concerts as well. Some fifteen years ago I was taking a photo of a church abroad when my friend next to me mentioned how there were already hundreds of like photos on Google Images. This made immediate sense to me and I stopped thenceforward with that behaviour. I still take the occasional photo at the museum, but only of works I had not known of and which I wished to not forget.
I also mused about all this once, leading me to take pictures for a period of people who took pictures of art. I don't know if it has any merit. I think I did catch some curious juxtapositions (and recall just barely missing others):
(I wish I had taken more photos of selfiers-by-the-Campbell-soups)
Already a while ago I saw a news article about a newly inaugurated museum, designed for people to take selfies in. I vaguely recall it being in Taiwan. I googled it now, expecting to find it immediately, instead got results for such a museum here in Berlin. I guess where there's demand, there's supply. (Wikipedia, I now find, has a page for the concept.)
Honestly, I've been to a religious service proper (not including weddings and funerals) only once in my life, rather recently, incidentally mentioned on a Substack post from my travel writing. The people there were genuinely for the function. There was a sign outside that bid tourists not to come in, but me and my friend had been already inside and at my request sat down at a corner pew. We took no photos but I did take an audio recording, which was rather discreet. I understand of course the cringiness you speak of.
The sense of self for most of us is overriding. I often wonder if the creators of the paintings you so fully absorb were in any way, the same.
As with writing, it has only the value conferred upon it by those who actually grasp the expressions of its source. Thus what I write is worthless until such time as it is both read and understood; the magic in that painting only issues forth when gazed upon, imagined, appreciated, placed in its time and context. In my own opinion a painter is less interested in perception of brush strokes than in the mood and the entire image that paased from the mind to the canvas.
Brilliant piece. Forwarding on to several souls in the family. Museums have acted as refuges since childhood, guided or set loose in them. You know the meaning of epiphany in them in the moments of awe (as I believe that word to be). The second you hope you can resume breathing, when (at least I) wished I could swallow a visual and visceral experience so I could carry it away within myself.
At the Louvre for several days I experienced a feeling of disappointment, except twice - looking at Leonardo’s Saint Anne - but more so when I glanced over and saw The Winged Nike. I can still feel that moment.
I had an experience like that very recently, one that reminded me that it's all about not art history in the abstract but specific encounters with specific pieces.
This is a great point. I've--for a while--been struggling with the idea of reading translated literature:
'By offering a more direct sensory experience than any other form of media, with the exception of instrumental music, the visual artwork provides an almost uniquely unmediated piece of the past.
For example, I cannot speak Italian and thus cannot read Dante’s Comedia in its original form. My experience of that incredible epic poem is second-hand, mediated by the translator and his or her interpretation. These translators can give me helpful and fascinating forewords, introductions and footnotes that explain some of Dante’s now-obscure references and situate his poem in the context of his world, but they cannot give me Dante’s own words.
When it comes to Dante’s contemporaries in the visual arts, however, the situation is quite different. I can visit an art gallery and see, with my own eyes, the exact image —its colors perhaps faded by the centuries — painted by Duccio or Giotto di Bondone. While these paintings do have decodable aspects, specifically Renaissance flower symbolism and traditional saints’ attributes, I don’t need them to experience and enjoy rich royal blues, glinting gold halos, rhyming diagonals, elegant lines delineating drapery. I have eyes and can use them. I can see just what Italians who died seven hundred years ago saw.'
I remember traveling through a dutch fishing village with a cinematographer friend of mine, a professional of capturing the visual. I asked him why he of all people wasn’t taking any pictures. He responded, “If i start taking pictures, i won’t remember what I’ve seen.” Still think about that moment to this day.
Entertaining read. Thanks, you have my subscription.
You state to not get Dante's words, yet to see what old painters saw. I beg to... ponder a while on the subject. While you can see and appreciate aesthetics of craft in the painting, I implore you to take a moment and contemplate foreign literary works for similar sensation.
You need to seek for the book from period, manuscript, Arab or Chinese calligraphed poetry, cuneiform tablet, and treat it just like you did treat a painting. It's all there to impress the emotion you seek in a brushstroke, even if you are illiterate and cannot decode the thing. It still works. If you are willing to receive it.
Imagine being a peasant coming for Sunday mass to witness Book of Kells from afar. That must have been big. Today it waits to take you to a similar place, where Bondone or anonymous scribe(s) must have went to produce it for us. No reading required. The composition, melody and rythm is all there.
The problem with material qualities of craft, physicality of object, its context in place and culture is being transformed and, I reckon, lost to dulled audience. This is a worm box of problems not fit for a comment on the internet though.
Well done, Robert! "Thingness" is a great concept, from the books to the sculptures and paintings you reference. I'm sure there's a German word that nicely joins, illuminates, or translates that concept with absolute bluntness.
Very interesting thank you, glad you finished it! I agree there’s nothing like seeing the object itself, we were recently in Washington and took the chance to visit The Art Institute of Chicago, I’ve always found Hopper’s nighthawks incredibly melancholy but I have to admit seeing it for real felt like a privilege and that feeling of melancholy was intensified for me, incredibly moving. Of course we know from Art History studies that we bring our own experiences to looking at art and somehow that painting just literally touches a nerve for me that is as much a part of my owns experiences as the artist’s. So yes, there’s nothing like the real thing but I will just say though, don’t be too hard on the rushing teenagers, the good thing is that they’re in the gallery even if it’s through a phone lens and they may well come to appreciate looking more as they get older. There is a real cultural barrier to entering museum spaces unless it’s an orbit you’ve been used to inhabiting as a matter of course, they’ll get there!
It's a beautiful essay, Robert. I enjoyed it very much. I also did art history for my BA and spent a lot of time looking at paintings. I want to get back to that when I have more time after I finish my PhD this year. I have also started sketching so I'm imagining a future when I can sit in a gallery space and look, and sketch, and muse, and discover. No amount of digitalisation replaces the 'thingness' of art.
Do you have any thoughts on another word for that? "Objecthood" already has a different meaning, IE in the dichotomy of subject vs. object.
Not sure I do have another word for it at the moment. Nice to think about it.
"Physicality" might be the best option.
Yes, it works in a variety of situations.
Ah I’m so glad you finished this - a brilliant, brilliant essay. One of the best I’ve read on substack in ages, actually. Could not agree more with almost every point, and brilliantly delivered. Thanks for sharing
Thanks so much, I truly appreciate it.
Yeah, I suppose that for some people visiting a museum feels like an obligatory todo list item, and nothing consummates a “been there, seen that” better than snapping a photo. Though it happens not only in museums, but in music concerts as well. Some fifteen years ago I was taking a photo of a church abroad when my friend next to me mentioned how there were already hundreds of like photos on Google Images. This made immediate sense to me and I stopped thenceforward with that behaviour. I still take the occasional photo at the museum, but only of works I had not known of and which I wished to not forget.
I also mused about all this once, leading me to take pictures for a period of people who took pictures of art. I don't know if it has any merit. I think I did catch some curious juxtapositions (and recall just barely missing others):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neznansky/albums/72157645636904001
(I wish I had taken more photos of selfiers-by-the-Campbell-soups)
Already a while ago I saw a news article about a newly inaugurated museum, designed for people to take selfies in. I vaguely recall it being in Taiwan. I googled it now, expecting to find it immediately, instead got results for such a museum here in Berlin. I guess where there's demand, there's supply. (Wikipedia, I now find, has a page for the concept.)
Some interesting pictures.
Have you ever seen someone taking cell phone pictures at a religious service? I have, and it was a very cringe-inducing moment.
Honestly, I've been to a religious service proper (not including weddings and funerals) only once in my life, rather recently, incidentally mentioned on a Substack post from my travel writing. The people there were genuinely for the function. There was a sign outside that bid tourists not to come in, but me and my friend had been already inside and at my request sat down at a corner pew. We took no photos but I did take an audio recording, which was rather discreet. I understand of course the cringiness you speak of.
Amazing to me
Brilliantly insightful essay. Thank you, Robert. So glad you finished it :)
Thank you very much.
The sense of self for most of us is overriding. I often wonder if the creators of the paintings you so fully absorb were in any way, the same.
As with writing, it has only the value conferred upon it by those who actually grasp the expressions of its source. Thus what I write is worthless until such time as it is both read and understood; the magic in that painting only issues forth when gazed upon, imagined, appreciated, placed in its time and context. In my own opinion a painter is less interested in perception of brush strokes than in the mood and the entire image that paased from the mind to the canvas.
Brilliant piece. Forwarding on to several souls in the family. Museums have acted as refuges since childhood, guided or set loose in them. You know the meaning of epiphany in them in the moments of awe (as I believe that word to be). The second you hope you can resume breathing, when (at least I) wished I could swallow a visual and visceral experience so I could carry it away within myself.
At the Louvre for several days I experienced a feeling of disappointment, except twice - looking at Leonardo’s Saint Anne - but more so when I glanced over and saw The Winged Nike. I can still feel that moment.
Thank you.
I had an experience like that very recently, one that reminded me that it's all about not art history in the abstract but specific encounters with specific pieces.
This is a great point. I've--for a while--been struggling with the idea of reading translated literature:
'By offering a more direct sensory experience than any other form of media, with the exception of instrumental music, the visual artwork provides an almost uniquely unmediated piece of the past.
For example, I cannot speak Italian and thus cannot read Dante’s Comedia in its original form. My experience of that incredible epic poem is second-hand, mediated by the translator and his or her interpretation. These translators can give me helpful and fascinating forewords, introductions and footnotes that explain some of Dante’s now-obscure references and situate his poem in the context of his world, but they cannot give me Dante’s own words.
When it comes to Dante’s contemporaries in the visual arts, however, the situation is quite different. I can visit an art gallery and see, with my own eyes, the exact image —its colors perhaps faded by the centuries — painted by Duccio or Giotto di Bondone. While these paintings do have decodable aspects, specifically Renaissance flower symbolism and traditional saints’ attributes, I don’t need them to experience and enjoy rich royal blues, glinting gold halos, rhyming diagonals, elegant lines delineating drapery. I have eyes and can use them. I can see just what Italians who died seven hundred years ago saw.'
I remember traveling through a dutch fishing village with a cinematographer friend of mine, a professional of capturing the visual. I asked him why he of all people wasn’t taking any pictures. He responded, “If i start taking pictures, i won’t remember what I’ve seen.” Still think about that moment to this day.
A beautiful and important piece of writing. Thank you, Robert.
Thank you.
Entertaining read. Thanks, you have my subscription.
You state to not get Dante's words, yet to see what old painters saw. I beg to... ponder a while on the subject. While you can see and appreciate aesthetics of craft in the painting, I implore you to take a moment and contemplate foreign literary works for similar sensation.
You need to seek for the book from period, manuscript, Arab or Chinese calligraphed poetry, cuneiform tablet, and treat it just like you did treat a painting. It's all there to impress the emotion you seek in a brushstroke, even if you are illiterate and cannot decode the thing. It still works. If you are willing to receive it.
Imagine being a peasant coming for Sunday mass to witness Book of Kells from afar. That must have been big. Today it waits to take you to a similar place, where Bondone or anonymous scribe(s) must have went to produce it for us. No reading required. The composition, melody and rythm is all there.
The problem with material qualities of craft, physicality of object, its context in place and culture is being transformed and, I reckon, lost to dulled audience. This is a worm box of problems not fit for a comment on the internet though.
I look forward for your other essays,
Victor.
Thanks so much.
Well done, Robert! "Thingness" is a great concept, from the books to the sculptures and paintings you reference. I'm sure there's a German word that nicely joins, illuminates, or translates that concept with absolute bluntness.
This was great!
I especially enjoyed this line:
“This was only the most blatant atrophying of museum-going skills I’ve experienced as an adult.”
Thanks so much.
Very interesting thank you, glad you finished it! I agree there’s nothing like seeing the object itself, we were recently in Washington and took the chance to visit The Art Institute of Chicago, I’ve always found Hopper’s nighthawks incredibly melancholy but I have to admit seeing it for real felt like a privilege and that feeling of melancholy was intensified for me, incredibly moving. Of course we know from Art History studies that we bring our own experiences to looking at art and somehow that painting just literally touches a nerve for me that is as much a part of my owns experiences as the artist’s. So yes, there’s nothing like the real thing but I will just say though, don’t be too hard on the rushing teenagers, the good thing is that they’re in the gallery even if it’s through a phone lens and they may well come to appreciate looking more as they get older. There is a real cultural barrier to entering museum spaces unless it’s an orbit you’ve been used to inhabiting as a matter of course, they’ll get there!