It's interesting how the perception of art changes. In the same way that Monet furnished fridge magnets, yet was extraordinary in his time, there's John Constable, depicting the lives and landscapes of ordinary people when painters *should* have been painting classical figures and the rich. He was revolutionary in his time, the painting version of Wordsworth and co., but when I was a child, I knew Constable through our set of table mats.
The whole selfie thing, though, is incredibly annoying. I've never understood photographing artworks when you can buy a professionally-taken postcard in the shop. But to insist on inserting the viewer into the image.... What? Why? There are a lot of egotists in the world. But also, I think, people who do it because that's what we do now ("we" meant vaguely, not to include everyone!).
I went to Barcelona several years ago and found the Miró museum quite stressful because everywhere I turned were people with recorded tours clamped to their ears. They seemed to think they had more right to look at the artworks than anyone else and stood right in front of them, the metallic susurration interrupting other people's focus. In art galleries, if I'm looking at something and I'm aware of another visitor standing beside me, I shuffle slightly aside so they can see it better. Not at the Miró. My memory of that place is peering at everything from a side angle, while trying to ignore the half-heard recorded guides.
The gallery selfies seem like a version or extension of that, planting themselves in the place and stuff everyone else. Only now, they can put their experience online and show everyone that they saw some paintings ("pics or it didn't happen?". Not just come home and repeat what the recorded tour told them.
But then, people photographing or filming gigs, so that everyone behind them sees a forest of arms and tiny screens and *maybe* glimpses of the band flitting through the gaps between....
I recall traveling to Paris before cell phones… yes, we had cameras, and we followed “no flash allowed”…. So we took photos….but not of ourselves.
I find our current state of world abysmal.
This is absolutely true. So many works of art now have been lost in this way.
It's interesting how the perception of art changes. In the same way that Monet furnished fridge magnets, yet was extraordinary in his time, there's John Constable, depicting the lives and landscapes of ordinary people when painters *should* have been painting classical figures and the rich. He was revolutionary in his time, the painting version of Wordsworth and co., but when I was a child, I knew Constable through our set of table mats.
The whole selfie thing, though, is incredibly annoying. I've never understood photographing artworks when you can buy a professionally-taken postcard in the shop. But to insist on inserting the viewer into the image.... What? Why? There are a lot of egotists in the world. But also, I think, people who do it because that's what we do now ("we" meant vaguely, not to include everyone!).
I went to Barcelona several years ago and found the Miró museum quite stressful because everywhere I turned were people with recorded tours clamped to their ears. They seemed to think they had more right to look at the artworks than anyone else and stood right in front of them, the metallic susurration interrupting other people's focus. In art galleries, if I'm looking at something and I'm aware of another visitor standing beside me, I shuffle slightly aside so they can see it better. Not at the Miró. My memory of that place is peering at everything from a side angle, while trying to ignore the half-heard recorded guides.
The gallery selfies seem like a version or extension of that, planting themselves in the place and stuff everyone else. Only now, they can put their experience online and show everyone that they saw some paintings ("pics or it didn't happen?". Not just come home and repeat what the recorded tour told them.
But then, people photographing or filming gigs, so that everyone behind them sees a forest of arms and tiny screens and *maybe* glimpses of the band flitting through the gaps between....