Art Museums

 

Why do we need art museums?

I visited the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa.

I saw parts of it, perhaps fifteen feet away, over the heads of the crowd. 

I would have done better to stay at home in Canada and view it online. Then I could even zoom in and examine small details. The point is in the image, the design. If you see it, you see it. Why do you need the original object? It almost seems like some kind of superstitious magic to imagine this is important. It almost seems philistine. Like a community showing off wealth.

Granted, it’s not quite the same. There is something about seeing the thing in real light.

But we could do that. We have the technology to make exact reproductions, up to matching the topography of the brush strokes. Too expensive, no doubt, for individuals to own, but not for a public institution.

Why not have a local art gallery in every town as we have a local library? Cycle through reproductions of the great paintings? This month Vermeer; next month Dali? Wouldn’t this be better than filling them with second-rate art? 

Would this kill the market for artists? It should do the reverse; developing the printing press hardly killed the market for authors.

But it would greatly enrich the average life, and develop a greater appreciation for the visual arts.