Instrument flying

“A Conversation with Phillippe de Montebello + Eugene V. Thaw”
The Morgan Library + Museum April 16, 2009

I attended this event which featured a sharp and witty dialogue between Eugene V. Thaw and Phillippe de Montebello. Mr. Thaw began by asking if museums, especially the new ones that have opened in recent years are making art better understood. During the course of the conversation both men pointed out major criticisms and issues art museums face, especially problems with displaying art.

Mr. de Montebello repeated a particular point at least twice, which given the linear direction of the conversation stands out as significant. The point was that museums cannot allow casual handling of the objects by the public for obvious an unavoidable reasons and this restriction is not the best for looking at certain kinds of art.

I agree that this matters. When looking at paintings the problem is not obvious because the embodied part of looking at painting is positioning ourselves in front of it and there are few restrictions for movement at the museum. It is possible to get a good enough look at objects in vitrines such that holding them to see them may seem to be redundant. However, in my opinion the tactile part of vision, the haptics, the sensory motor skills, or whatever you want to call them, are so important that the limited viewing conditions of art under glass becomes palpable when looking at 3 dimensional objects.

I can think of two cases that show how irresistible touch can be. At the John Hay library at Brown University there is a large dark patina bronze bust of Mr. Hayes looking stern and 19th century. When I saw this bust circa 1994 the nose was polished to a high shine which is a sharp break with the tradition of bronze portraits. I hung around long enough to notice that every student who walked past would give Mr. Hayes’ nose a tweak. That explained the shine, but what about the students’ behavior? I asked around and was told that tweaking the nose was believed to bring good luck on tests. That reason is superstitious, but would the touching cease completely if there was no explicit promise of future reward?

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a program that allows visitors to touch certain objects and there is signage that alerts all visitors, though they do have a special program just for the blind. This program includes a small bronze portrait of Abraham Lincoln that I think is a study for the Memorial in D.C. The interesting thing about this piece is the shiny parts, evidence of where the sculpture is most frequently touched. It is the hands and feet. I don’t know of any superstition driving the preference for touching the hands and feet, but there is no question that if people are allowed to touch the sculpture they will.

Even though we can look right through glass it remains a barrier that prevents us from using all of the senses we might employ if given the opportunity. If your definition of seeing is restricted to the stimulation of the eyes then there may be no issue, but if you think of seeing as a full embodied process then clear glass becomes a veil.