Museum Madness with John Berger
When first given this assigned I was excited to be able to go to a museum and spend time looking at all of the art that was housed there. Unfortunately, living at the extreme bottom of NJ, EVERYTHING is out of the way so museum trips have never really been a spur of the moment type of trip! I decided to go to the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Upon arrival (after a slight panic attack since it was my first time driving into the city and I was alone) I got out of my car (and promptly kissed the ground.. well, not really) and stood back for a second to just take in the surrounding area. Made up of 3 different buildings (Main Building, Perelman Building, Rodin Museum) and a section of historical houses, the property alone was a spectacle to be seen.
Walking in, I was unsure what to expect. I had been to a couple of museums in Washington D.C. when I was younger but have never had the opportunity to visit an art museum. I was given a few maps and sent on my way. Immediately overwhelmed I just began to go through room by room. This is where my level of hopefulness and excitement began to decline. I wanted to try to make my own connections to the art that was being displayed and went through exhibits of furniture, paintings, collages and even a live crustacean exhibit, trying to do just that. However, the more rooms I walked though, the more I realized that I was not connecting at all. While looking at old furniture and appliances used in previous times in history was interesting and even though I enjoyed looking at different collections and types of artwork done by various artists, I just was not feeling like I fully APPRECIATED what was trying to be conveyed. I felt like I was walking through the rooms and everything was going “in one ear and out the other” except with my eyes of course. I am not sure if it is because growing up and not being exposed to art as much as others might have been? Or if my history of not really being an “artsy” thinker was holding my back from fully experience what the museum had to offer? Whatever the case, I quickly became frustrated, felt very uncomfortable, uncultured, and just flat out disappointed.
I decided that in order for me to get ANYTHING from this trip I take a mental break, regroup, grab a snack and attack the museum a different way. Ways of Seeing, written by John Berger was given as a helpful source for this project. John Berger is (87 years old today) an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. This book was written as an accompaniment to a BBC television series and a critic of the London Sunday Times said “This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings… he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures”. As I was enjoying my Philadelphia soft pretzel (I mean, how could I get anything else?!) I was also flipping through the pages of this book that we have already read, to try to pick out a couple main ideas that I wanted to focus my attention on more. I realized that I should pick out themes or topics that I wanted to explore more and build my personal tour around those.
The first aspect that I wanted to explore more was the idea of naked vs. nude. “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself” (Berger, 54). In chapter 3 of Ways of Seeing, Berger talks about the history, symbolism and meaning behind photos or paintings of women considered (in my brain) to be naked. He then goes and gives a definition of what it means to be NAKED and compares it to what it means to be NUDE. In short:
Naked
· To be oneself
· Reveals itself
· Without disguise
Nude
· To be seen naked by others / not recognized for oneself
· Naked body seen as an object
· Form of dress
· Placed on display
The first aspect that I wanted to explore more was the idea of naked vs. nude. “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself” (Berger, 54). In chapter 3 of Ways of Seeing, Berger talks about the history, symbolism and meaning behind photos or paintings of women considered (in my brain) to be naked. He then goes and gives a definition of what it means to be NAKED and compares it to what it means to be NUDE. In short:
Naked
· To be oneself
· Reveals itself
· Without disguise
Nude
· To be seen naked by others / not recognized for oneself
· Naked body seen as an object
· Form of dress
· Placed on display
With those ideas in mind, I began to redirect my attention. After looking through a couple of rooms of Eurpoean paintings vast majority with naked bodies I decided to go back to the American art section and see if I could find anything that depicted this distinction. While looking through the exhibit with old furniture I found a painting done by Thomas Eakins that summed up everything that I read about being naked vs. nude. In the painting there is a woman standing on a pedestal, naked, while holding something over her shoulder. Looking further into the picture it is seen that a man in the background is sculpting her. After reading the caption that went along with this picture I found out that when this painting was first exhibited, it caused somewhat of a controversy. A New York reviewer said “What ruins the picture is much less the want of beauty in the model than the presence in the foreground of the clothes that young woman, cast carelessly over a chair. This gives shock which makes one think about the nudity – and at once the picture becomes improper”. I believe this goes hand in hand with Berger’s argument about naked vs. nude. In the painting, the naked body was not what made it sexually suggestive. The critic says that the fact that the model is LOOKING for beauty as a result is what takes it from being a nude, to depicting a naked woman. For my own mind and understanding I realized that when someone is pictured as being “naked” it is more for show or sexual reasons while being “nude” involves being looked at as a body of art.
The other aspect that I wanted to explore was the idea of the museum set up. Personally, I think that part of the reason I was not able to connect completely with the experience was being I was being taken in and out of topics mostly based on artists. Berger talks about how adults and children sometimes have inspiration boards, grouping together pictures, text, post cards, etc. based on common themes (Berger, 30). He says “Logically, these boards should replace museums”. I was able to find a section in the museum that was strictly based on collages and found a definition of collage that not only applies to the material aspect but also the thought process behind the work of art. On a caption in between two pieces it says:
“…artists today continue to experiment with this radical form of visual expression to pursue diverse artistic, and sometimes political objectives.”
I wish I had the chance to explore the Barnes foundation as well because from what I have heard about the set up of that museum, I have a feeling I would have been able to connect with that more than I did going through many rooms of paintings by the same artist but not necessarily of the same theme. I walked through rooms of American art, European art and Asian treasures for example, all of which having a overlying theme of place of origin, but once inside the exhibits were not very cohesive in my opinion which made it hard to me to make distinctions.
Although I do not believe I had the best experience possible for this project, overall I was happy to be able to get some information and make a couple connections to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. After realizing that finding themes on my own was going to be too much of a challenge, going back and using the book helped ease my mind and make the experience more enjoyable. Breaking the museum down from a whole to different topics that I wanted to look further into was also extremely helpful. If I were ever to have to do a project like this again I would definitely make sure that I went with someone who I was able to bounce my ideas off of which probably would have helped me feel like not so much of an uncultured moron but unfortunately, scheduling and distance placed a factor and that was not possible. Overall, this project was definitely a learning experience for me and I look forward to hopefully exploring more topics like this in the future!
OH! By the way, if anyone has time I would definitely suggest checking out the work by Cy Twombly. Out of all the exhibits in the museum, HIS exhibit was the one I spent the most time in, even if I couldn’t fully use it for this project. He took one topic and displayed different aspects of it in a way that was almost haunting and is DEFINITELY (in my opinion) worth exploring!
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print.
OH! By the way, if anyone has time I would definitely suggest checking out the work by Cy Twombly. Out of all the exhibits in the museum, HIS exhibit was the one I spent the most time in, even if I couldn’t fully use it for this project. He took one topic and displayed different aspects of it in a way that was almost haunting and is DEFINITELY (in my opinion) worth exploring!
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print.