In an article published not too long ago in The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks argued that art is as important to human helath as exercise and good nutrition. Art needn’t be primarily an escapist activity or something we’ll hopefully get to do when the “real demands” of life allow it. Rather, art is, or can be, a means of actively improving quality of life, a way to feel more connected with instead of divided from each other, more in touch with life’s purpose and meaning.

In his article, Art Should Be a Habit, Not a Luxury, Brooks writes:

Too often we allow the humdrum reality of life get in the way of the arts, which can feel frivolous by comparison. But this is a mistake. The arts are the opposite of a diversion from reality; they might just be the most realistic glimpse we ever get into the nature and meaning of life. And if you make time for consuming and producing art — the same way you make time for work and exercise and family commitments —you’ll find your life getting fuller and happier.

“I believe passionately in museums on many levels,” says Sara J. Hall, director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland. “They are educational spaces that expose us to different modes of expression; they are nurturing spaces where we can find beauty, comfort, sanctuary, and reflection; they are challenging spaces where we confront history, opinions, ideas, different approaches to life, and even ugliness. Art museums help us engage in thinking and conversation about our world — past and present.”

The last thing anyone should feel about visiting an art museum is intimidated, she suggests. On the Washington County museum’s website, executive director Hall lists her staff’s responses to a recent institution-wide conversation about what museums do that is vital for their communities. Among the aspects of any museum’s mission they identified the following:

  • The museum provides a deep connection to human experience through art.
  • We are here for everyone: from children to scholars.
  • We are here because of the community and for the community
  • We provide experiences that make life better.
  • We provide a pathway to finding personal meaning. We really do change lives and save lives.
  • Everyone feels welcome and leaves enriched.

The Washington County Museum’s website also offers a nice collection of quotes on the importance of the arts and the work of museums dedicated to preserving and sharing them:

A society that forgets art risks losing its soul.
–Camille Paglia

A country that has few museums is both materially poor and spiritually poor … museums, like theatres and libraries, are a means to freedom.
– Wendy Beckett

Don’t go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. They are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you…and the world should begin to change for you.
– Jerry Saltz

Museums should be places where you raise questions, not just show stuff.
–William Thorsell

Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.
–Orhan Pamuk

It’s a funny thing, but although we often hesitate, or simply don’t think to visit a museum in a new city (or even in the cities we live near), we never forget the experience when we do. It really is thrilling to stand in front of the actual paintings you’ve only ever seen in books or tiny images online. 

There’s no better way to study, up close, how your favorite artists made their pictures. Careful study can tell whether they painted in layers or wet-on-wet, over multiple sittings or alla prima. You can also finally see the real relationship between the real colors – computer screens with different calibrations CHANGE THE COLOR of images that we see. You can study brushstrokes, mark–making, surface texture, and surmise all kinds of technical info, which can lead to real breakthroughs in your own paintings. And that’s not all. 

Museums Change Your Life

The real honest-to-goodness objects emit a veritable electrical charge, a live-wire current carried by their brushstrokes, running along the loops and diagonals of their compositions, crackling in their luminous varnished layers and skipping across their startling impasto surfaces. Seeing them in person truly changes your life. 

I can remember visiting the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on a field trip with my class from Roosevelt Elementary School on Long Island (we were able to take the train into the city right from our town). I had to have been no more than 7 or 8. But I still vividly recall passing the enormous sculptures on the endless series of steps outside and entering the cool, marble-columned and stone-arched lobby with its vaulted ceilings, prehistoric dinosaur skeletons, and giant (5,200-square-foot!) colorful wall murals.

An exhibition on the Venice paintings of John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2021.

Yet most important overall, I remember how it felt to leave with the newly discovered sense that there really are places of wonder in the world, places anyone can go to connect with larger purpose and meaning and to have magical, unforgettable “experiences that make life better.

And I’ll leave you with one more quote: “It is difficult/to get the news from poems” or any kind of art, as William Carlos Williams said, “yet men die miserably every day/for lack of what is found there.”

Artists, museum-goers, and art-lovers-from-afar alike will find a constant source of inspiration and education in Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine. Published six times per year, Fine Art Connoisseur is now a widely consulted platform for the world’s most knowledgeable experts, who write articles that inform readers and give them the tools necessary to make better purchasing decisions. Fine Art Connoisseur’s jargon-free text and large color illustrations are attracting an ever-growing readership passionate about high-quality artworks and the fascinating stories around them. Learn more about becoming a subscriber here.

 

Visit the Great Museums of Venice

It so happens that Peter Trippi, of Fine Art Connoisseur, and Inside Art publisher Eric Rhoads, are taking a small group of artists, collectors, and art lovers on an incredible “behind the scenes” tours to Venice and Verona, Italy in October 2024. 

“We don’t just visit museums,” Eric says. “We tap our deep connections to provide color from high-level perspectives, not just tour guides or docents. We often gain private access. We provide experiences one could typically not accomplish on one’s own.”

“And we visit the homes or studios of artists or artists’ heirs. We see private collections. And we sprinkle our trips with special experiences like private art shows. In fact, we arranged for the first private art show and sale in the history of the great Russian Academy. This is a VIP trip, after all, for those who expect special treatment, elegant meals, spectacular hotels, and wonderful memories.”

To learn more visit this website.

Or contact Streamline’s travel partner Gabriel Haigazian at [email protected] or 818-335-0133.