On Art

...Elsewhere this would be known as merchandising...

...tour at the Metropolitan...

...Directors must use all their savvy to keep their culture palaces alive and thriving...

...Finally, the crowning achievement in museum exhibitions: the now legendary "Treasures of Tutenkhamun," which in December will wind up its U.S...

...You may detect a note of wistfulness in my unhappiness with mass viewing —a longing for the good old days when one could go to an art museum on a Sunday afternoon and hear nothing except the sound of one's own footsteps on the marble or parquet floors...

...They filed past in an endless line, and not one of them could have had more than a fleeting glance of the masterpiece—unless he wished to return to the end of the line and wait for another look...

...In addition, he can encourage esthetic standards—tell what to look for and how to look at a work of art...

...In the long run, if we do not insist that people raise their sights and their level of esthetic comprehension, the level of offerings will sink...

...Murals, mosaics, sculpture are deposited in public buildings, on lawns and sidewalks...

...What he suggested would require a minimum of a half-hour's examination, and probably more than one visit...

...Far too much enthusiasm already exists for what is "established" and often mediocre...

...There it was enclosed in a glass case and bathed in a corny blue light that surrounded the white marble with a sentimental, melodramatic glow...

...Once one's feelings are touched, and contact is made with the picture, only then, by examining these feelings can one begin to comprehend the many aspects of the work...

...Peter's Cathedral to the Vatican exhibit at the Fair...

...Hundreds of thousands of people were taken past the sculpture on a moving belt (at a distance of about 20 feet), permitting a 20-second glimpse...

...Thus they have had to learn the art of grantsmanship, and since both government and private-corporation grants are generally predicated on box-office appeal, they also have learned how to bring in the public with attractive, widely advertised shows...

...Consider, for example, the following mass-exposure events of the past decade and a half: ?In 1963 the French government, in a gesture of friendship, sent one of its most highly prized art treasures, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, to the United States...

...There is a danger in this point of view, though...

...in Washington, thousands waited for nine hours or more...

...The exhibition of Michelangelo's Pieta at the 1964 New York World's Fair proved similarly unrewarding...

...Concerts, dance recitals, theater and film programs are scheduled as regularly as the tides...

...The acquisition of these paintings and the organization of the show was a scholarly coup for the Museum of Modern Art in New York...

...By providing historic perspective, the educated critic can neutralize the hysteria attending some of the glamour offerings...

...A more recent example was the exhibit of Cezanne's later works...

...Nevertheless, an important question remains to be asked: Are we getting enrichment (quality), or just exposure (quantity...

...Yet beyond any personal preference for space, silence and time, there is a reality to be considered: Looking at a work of art may take a few moments...

...Going to a museum has too often become merely an afternoon's entertainment—that is, if you like standing on long lines...

...necessary to make one's first approach to this painting—as to all great works of art—in terms of feeling rather than of understanding...

...If numbers and audience become the main thrust of a cujtural program, the tendency to present the safe, the tasteful and the acceptable will rule...

...He can even mollify the frustrated citizens who did not make the Tutenkhamun scene by advising them of the wealth of Egyr> tian art and artifacts on permanent display in major museums throughout the nation—spanning not just the six years of Tut's reign, but 312 dynasties and 3,000 years of creativity...

...H_ n all fairness, of course, the museums cannot be entirely faulted for their efforts at mass marketing...

...But one group of people can help the situation...

...In an article in the Metropolitan's Bulletin preceding the exhibition, James J. Rorimer, the then director of the museum, wrote: "It is...

...They are victims of our economy...

...It may be argued that art can be enjoyed on many levels, that it is better to have looked and not seen than never to have looked at all...

...The statue, insured for a record $10 million, was transferred from St...

...It was exhibited at the National Gallery ih Washington for one month, and subsequently at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for an equal period...

...But for most of those who attended, waiting on line and craning to see the pictures was a frustrating experience...

...Yet looking at the pictures and reading the commentary was a monumental task while jockeying for position among the spectators who stood three and four deep in front of the paintings...

...After that introduction, Rorimer's sensitive and scholarly essay described how to view the painting...

...Complaining about this proliferation might be looked upon as tantamount to deploring democracy...

...Under circumstances such as these, a deep appreciation of the Mona Lisa becomes a virtual impossibility...

...Unfortunately, as anyone who visited the museum to see the Mona Lisa will recall, the picture was installed on a wall behind a velvet rope that kept viewers at a safe distance...

...He can help the layman appreciate why a half-hour with a hundred Cezanne paintings is not as valuable an experience as a whole hour with one Cezanne...

...I'm referring to the critics...

...A few years ago, a comprehensive and thoroughly documented show of Impressionist paintings was installed at the Met...

...that there is value in forming the museum habit...

...that the more people we attract the merrier...

...He can point out that if you missed a major Monet exhibit, there are x-number of Monets in the permanent collection of a given museum, waiting to be experienced in a leisurely contemplative setting...

...Despite the fact that the museum expects to accommodate 1.3 million visitors, hundreds of thousands will be turned away—chagrined and inconsolable...

...The current trend toward wholesale dissemination of culture does not permit understanding on a profound level...

...Not only museums but suburban libraries, art foundations and government and private agencies have also been vying to assure us a continuous flow of esthetic experiences...

...While the curatorial staff may deplore the hectic, hyped-up activity because it interferes with scholarly endeavors, it has become a factor of museum life we are likely to see more of...

...This was looking at art under the most undesirable conditions...

...One wonders, given all these Tut-crazed individuals, why the fabulous Egyptian Galleries at the Met, brimming with ancient treasures, usually stand virtually empty...

...This is an essentially personal, intimate experience...

...The Met, forewarned and forearmed, arranged to sell tickets through Ticket -ron outlets starting in this month and all group reservations have already been filled...

...seeing it may take an hour, 10 hours, or 10 visits...

...There is no immediate or direct solution to the problem—museums must keep themselves in business and the public cannot be blamed for responding to the excitement engendered by the heavily promoted cultural treats...

...There was no time to linger, no time to consider the work or even to be touched by it, and certainly there was no possibility of viewing it as a three-dimensional piece of sculpture...

...Tight budgets mean staff cutbacks, closed-off galleries and operating on a less than full-time basis...

...1 confess to harboring such selfish memories...

...In Chicago, lines of people waited all night to gain entrance...