Relationships with art
On my way down to the art museum this afternoon, i thought about how nice it is to have such a good museum only 30 minutes away. Having lived in small, rural towns i'm very familiar with having to plan an entire day to see an exhibit--and the questions of cost (transportation, food) that go along with it. But i've been in this suburban town for nearly 20 years now and have been a regular at this museum, off and on, the whole time.
While my purpose in going was to see a special exhibit from another museum, i did of course wander through the permanent collections currently on display. There were old favourites that i will stop with any time they're on the walls. There were pieces that i'd missed in the past, whether through inattention, changing tastes, or they just hadn't been rotated through in a while. And then there were the ones that i immediately recognized as having been purchased from previous special exhibits.
This is the only place i've lived long enough to be able to walk through an exhibit from the permanent collection and make those kinds of distinctions on sight. It's a very different way of experiencing a museum than as a tourist. Less static. More about breadth and depth than highlights.
It's also more about my responses to the art than the pieces themselves, in some respects. There is one painting, in particular, that i always make a point of seeing when it's on display. The engagement portrait of a young British noblewoman, it isn't even the sort of thing i'd normally bother with--not generally caring much for either portraiture, marriage, or nobility. But something in her expression caught my interest from the first viewing, continues to do so, and pulls my feet to a stop regardless of whether i have thoughts of just meandering past this time.
Like re-reading a book many times over the course of decades, every time is a different experience. She can appear more or less open, sad, or entertained depending on my own mood or life circumstances. The pieces in the special exhibit were lovely, but i have no relationship with them. As interesting as it was to see the famous ones in person rather than as prints, it was far more fulfilling to turn a corner to find an old favourite back on the walls.
- current soundscape: Collector's Corner (radio program)
- recently reading: a lot of Bear blog posts