ART : Museum Coaxes Novices With Novel Experiment

What do you think of when you stand in front of your favorite work of art? Does it remind you of somewhere you’ve been or someone you’ve known? Is it just, somehow, “beautiful”?

Are you impressed by how much someone paid for it? Do you enjoy the formal qualities (line, mass, color, brush stroke) of the work? Are you captivated by the ideas the piece seems to convey?

Some of these ways of looking are typical of the so-called “naive viewer”; others are more typical of people with some background in art. But surely everyone would agree that looking at a work of art is a peculiarly specialized activity.

There are few things in life--other than “views” in nature--that we are expected simply to look at for any space of time. For people lacking formal training in art, this activity often seems to be nothing short of mystical. What the devil are you supposed to think about, anyway, while you’re doing all this looking?

The closest I’ve been able to come to “listening in” to people’s thoughts about art is eavesdropping in local museums. Here’s one conversation I jotted down:

“Now that’s what I think of as modern art,” said a middle-aged man to the jolly-sounding middle-aged couple with whom he was touring the galleries.

“It’s got texture to it,” agreed the woman.

“The person who drew this had artistic ability,” declared the other man.

The group moved to another painting.

“That’s a pretty piece,” said the woman.

“Color-wise,” added the first man, whose voice held a trace of doubt.

“Well, in contemporary art, that’s all it has to be, well-colored,” maintained the woman.

Clearly, these people had encountered abstract art before, but they seemed to lack a frame of reference in which to discuss it. We’re all faced with this problem when the conversation turns to a subject we don’t know much about, whether it’s the stock market, the national defense budget or the breeding of Doberman pinschers.

So how do people become more fluent about the art they see? Most museums publish catalogues about their exhibits, but they tend to be written in a specialized language that shuts out all but the most patient general reader. Museums also organize docent tours of their exhibitions and lectures by experts, but these may not be in progress at the moment you’ve chosen to drop in.

It seems logical that information about works of art in museums comes largely from the one source that’s always standing by: the labels and didactic panels on the walls. But exactly what ought to go on those labels is a matter of widespread disagreement. Some museum professionals put stock in panels that go into detail. Other professionals believe in giving only minimal information so as not to spoil the viewer’s immediate aesthetic experience.

Long or short, however, labels frequently seem pitched to people who already know a lot about art. Where does that leave the intelligent viewer who has ventured into alien territory?

An article in a recent issue of Museum News magazine discusses the way one museum tried to make labels more viewer-friendly. Funded by grants from the Getty Grant Program and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Denver Art Museum set out to rethink the way viewers absorb information in gallery labels.

The staff realized that, to quote museum publications director Marlene Chambers, the usual thinking behind labels “encourages an outpouring of art historical, biographical and cultural information in a setting little suited to the acquisition of an organized body of knowledge--knowledge that’s more easily acquired in classrooms and libraries.

“This traditional approach also ignored the unique experience an art museum has to offer--an immediate experience with art objects,” Chambers continues. “By handing down all the answers, it sends the implied message that these answers can only be discovered by experts. And it cares nothing for motivating what it wrongly assumes to be a captive audience.”

Chambers and an education department intern decided to experiment with new labels for a sentimental painting by 19th-Century artist Adolphe William Bouguereau that was apparently a big favorite, based on viewer interviews and the number of post card reproductions sold in the museum’s bookstore.

The label texts were arranged in two columns: “If you like this painting, it is because . . . “ and “If you don’t like this painting, it is because. . . . “ Underneath were supporting statements.

On the pro side, for example: “You are charmed by the artist’s portrayal of youth and innocence.” On the con side: “Although you find the subject pleasant, it seems trite and uninspired.” And so on.

At the bottom of the statements, hidden under a sliding door, a label read: “Is your reaction to this painting influenced more by the personal associations you bring to it or by the painting itself?”

The third component of the experiment was a brochure comparing the Bouguereau painting with a pastel drawing by 19th-Century master Edgar Degas “that most visitors barely glance at.”

One viewer said the label “made him want to take another look at a contemporary painting he had hated on sight.” Another viewer said, “Even if I stare at a painting for a long time and try to think about it, I never really think about position and shape. . . . (That) adds another dimension to the painting.”

Surely, much the same type of educational tool--involving personal discovery rather than irrelevant or undigestible masses of facts--could be devised for abstract work and other media. While no museum is likely to want to pursue this approach for an entire exhibition, it might be a welcome guide to major pieces or especially popular works.

Anyone out there want to give it a whirl?