c/o Emma Kendall
Recently, the Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre in Madrid, Spain, has started allowing visitors to photograph Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” arguing that it would make the exhibit more accessible and “enhance the experience of viewing the painting.” But whether or not this is a positive update remains to be seen.
Whenever I go to a museum, or see any piece of art that strikes me in some sort of way, my first instinct is usually to take a picture. But I’ve started to hesitate more. Will my picture really be that good? If I start taking pictures of every piece of art I like, will I ever look at the hundreds of photos again? Do I really need another image of an image taking up storage in my phone when I could go online and look up a much better quality image of the same image? And don’t even get me started on the pictures of the plaques.
This practice of photographing art came to a peak last semester for me while I was studying abroad in Paris—I’m sorry, please forgive me, I will stop bringing it up, I promise. As an art history major, I could flash my art history student ID and get into nearly any museum I wanted, completely for free! Every weekend I chose a different museum and, because there were just so many, I never ran out. I went to the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, sure, but I also visited the Palais de Tokyo, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée de l’Orangerie, the Musée de Cluny, the Musée de Luxembourg, the Musée Rodin, the Musée Carnavalet, the Musée des impressionismes Giverny, the Musée Picasso, and the Musée de Montmartre, to name a few. I wanted to see it all, make the most of it, and take everything in for the brief time I was there. But the more photos I took, the less I wanted to look at them. There was too much material to accurately record it all, and it was so hard to draw the line between which historical and priceless masterpieces were worth a picture and which maybe not.
It’s a natural reaction; it’s how we’ve learned to process the world. We see something we like, something we want to remember forever, and we take a photo for safekeeping. But in the same way that we often take footage of an entire concert and then just let those three-minute videos sit there unwatched, there is a limit to the way we can store our memories. This isn’t supposed to be a revolutionary thought: Get off your phone, stop posting on social media, live in the moment, etc. But when it comes to the way we enjoy art, the observation part seems more paramount to the experience. The need to preserve every last little memory seems to be getting in the way of this enjoyment.
We see this happen to art all the time; the more it gets reproduced in media, in our consciousness, and in pop culture, the less powerful the effect of the actual image. We see this in the crowds constantly surrounding the tiny, overwhelmed “Mona Lisa.” We see it in the overserialization of Hokusai’s “Great Wave” and Andy Warhol’s Marilyns. This is similar to the way we are constantly taking in information, and when too much of this information (i.e., news) is negative, we become desensitized to receiving it. Art has become more accessible, yes, but its value has also changed. I do not advocate for the privatization of art; having close, available, free ways to be surrounded by art is good for your mental health, creativity, and overall happiness. It’s insane that museums are increasing admission fees rather than trying to make the art world a more welcoming and diverse space for all groups.
It makes sense that you would want to just take a picture and keep the museum tour moving when you don’t have the time or money to keep coming back to a museum in order to spend 30 minutes sitting and looking at one painting (most would call this excessive, but I think it sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon). Museum fatigue is also a real thing and I have definitely been prone to a couple of doses. But if you’re that tired during your visit, are you really going to enjoy that picture you took of a piece of art where your headspace was just one of taking pictures so you could get out as quickly as possible and never have to look at another painting ever again?
Many museums and institutions have histories of long-lasting photo bans throughout their facilities. Some, like the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, have only recently lifted these rules while others, like the Museo Nacional del Prado, remain restricted. I don’t agree with these bans. If you want to take a picture, and it feels significant to you, you should take a picture. But I encourage you to seek out a new way of interacting with art because there are many that go beyond just a blurry picture you’ll never see again.
Art is not just for spectacle, and it’s certainly not just for posting on your Instagram story. Many museums have begun implementing late-night programming, like the annual “Nuit des musées” in Paris, where institutions across the city all leave open their doors into the night. This kind of intimate, special access can bring about new ways of viewing and makes the need for a quick photo seem obsolete. Other events include live music or literary readings against the backdrop of these works, a sort of multidisciplinary crossover. Another reminder is that you don’t have to be an art historian or an artist to talk about, joke about, write about, or sketch the art. Bring a friend and maybe you’ll get lost in the moment and even forget to take a picture. Or bring a notebook. You don’t even have to be writing about the art — you could write whatever came to mind just from being around the art. The same goes for sketching: Your contribution could be as simple as some lines on the page or as complex as a totally identical duplicate of what you’re looking at.
Just imagine yourself as one of those kids you see on an elementary school field trip to an art museum. They sit sprawled across the pristine hardwood floors or the unforgiving marble, doing their very best to recreate a Michelangelo. They don’t take pictures, nor do they take the art too seriously. They simply take it for what they see, feel, and observe about it.
Emma Kendall is a member of the class of 2024 and can be reached at erkendall@wesleyan.edu.