Let's get to the art of the matter

So I took my family (parents, brother and his girlfriend were visiting) to the "Caravaggio and his followers in Rome" exhibit at the National Gallery last Saturday.


Caravaggio's "John the Baptist"

 I must admit that I'm not the biggest art fan in the universe. I'd almost go so far as to say that I just plain old don't like art galleries. But I do make a point to visit them and try to get something out of them. I find that effective interpretation is even more important in galleries, although ironically it's usually really basic. Most gallery labels simply provide you with the artist's name, location, dates and the title of the piece.
That's fine, I suppose, if you're an art specialist or student. But let's be honest, those people are few and far between.


I have a friend who wrote her masters dissertation on the use of modern art at historic sites and houses. (It's quite the movement, really. Check out the National Trust's Trust New Art for an example.) She's an artist and wanted to see if art could draw new visitors or bring old visitors back. In fact, I went to a bunch of those sites with her to serve as both chauffeur and impartial judge. I can't tell you how many times I asked, "But what does it mean?" when looking at some artsy branches bunched in a corner of a room, or overheard other visitors asking similar questions.

I saw this wrapped tree last year at Croft Castle. I'm still not sure I "get it".

Unsurprisingly, her dissertation found that art at historic houses could bring in more visitor numbers, but that effective interpretation made the difference between a total flop and a great success. Surprise, surprise.

I have the personal motto that "there's no such thing as a stupid question or an obvious answer". Generally speaking, I think it's our responsability as museums to do our utmost to engage our visitors and making them feel stupid just alienates them. I'm not saying that I think that galleries and museums do this on purpose, but that sometimes in an effort to provide people with endless information and details we forget that most of our visitors just want to enjoy our institutions on a surface level and can be turned off by endless text or obscure references.

Getting back to the Caravaggio exhibit, I was struck by the balance of interpretation and simple viewing that the curators had struck. I was able to learn a little bit about the paintings and was encouraged to look deeper based on the info on the tiny labels. Kudos.
I was terrified that my brother (a 25 year old who had never before visited an art gallery) wouldn't enjoy himself and would later tease me for my decidedly geeky choice of activity. And that was a strong possibility after the science museum disaster a few weeks ago...
I couldn't have been happier when he found me near the end of the exhibit and started to excitedly inform me what he had learned from previous interpretive labels and proceeded to interpret the art I was looking at. "These labels are awesome," he said, "It makes you think more about the paintings. They're not just pictures; there's more to them. I didn't realize art was like that."
Much to our chagrin, he spent the rest of the day sitting in a corner reading the Caravaggio biography and interrupting our conversations with "interesting" tidbits about the man and his art.

Score one for effective interpretation.

And for providing fodder for annoying little brothers. Who knew?