THE ART OF SEEING Appreciation of Art Encourages Living Slow by Patricia Staino
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
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efore we can see, we need to look. But what does it mean “to look”? Think back to your last art gallery visit. How long did you gaze at each installation? Did you give the object your full attention? Or did you slow down briefly, focus your phone, click a photo, then move on to the next work? The average person spends less than 17 seconds looking at a work of art; but are they really looking? More importantly, are they seeing? Observe any visitor walking through a museum and it’s a clear the 17-second threshold is optimistic. If they do spend that much time in front of a painting, they read its descriptive placard rather than contemplate the artwork. In a world of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, we’ve come to expect a fully 22
engaging, multi-sensory assault on our senses, no matter the situation. In that context, spending 10 minutes focused on a single, silent, stationary object is an uncomfortable experience for most people. More alarming, taking 10 minutes to really see something may be viewed as an imposition on our time. That’s precisely why the small details of life are often missed and little appreciated. Enter the “slow” movement. It’s been creeping up on us over the years. More than a decade ago, mindful chefs started touting the pleasure of “slow food”. Now there are similar movements around slow travel, slow reading, slow cities and slow money. Most have managed to gain just a toehold within niche populations here or there, but often they experience pushback because much of the “civilized” world
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is unwilling to give up the luxuries and convenience necessary to live slowly. If done with intent, looking at art may produce a relaxing, meditative state, and Slow Art Day was born to show museum visitors how to achieve such mindfulness. Launched in 2009, Slow Art Day was the brainchild of Phil Terry, founder of the Reading Odyssey and CEO of Collaborative Gain: “My wife kept dragging me to museums. I did not know how to look at art. Like most people, I would walk by quickly,” he said. His first “test” of the slow art concept was spending an hour in front of Hans Hoffman’s Fantasia in The Jewish Museum. He found it such a powerful experience, he brought along friends on subsequent experiments, finally deciding to launch and promote Slow Art Day in 2009. The now-annual event usually takes place in April, and a number of Connecticut museums and arts organizations take part, including Clare Gallery in Hartford, ARTworks Gallery in Norwalk, the Norwalk Arts Commission, and Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. The participating museums (around 200 worldwide) choose a number of works from their collections, and visitors commit to spending no less than 10 minutes with each work, viewing, contemplating, taking notes, and sketching. Organizers encourage viewers to look closely at a work, then back up and view from a distance. Terry reminds viewers “there is not a right or wrong way…be naïve, be patient, allow the experience to unfold…breathe.” Turns out that may be easier said than done. Until recently our common goal was to do as much as we could in as little time as possible for the maximum amount of payoff. We don’t know how to live slow. Foreign correspondence arrives instantaneously via email; Amazon delivers just about anything within hours; any data we need can be accessed in seconds. How can we possibly justify 10 minutes looking at art, an activity with no immediate, tangible takeaway? Art requires the viewer to seek, find and maintain a personal connection. The artist hopes we will stop, consider, think, and
