Museums

I had never thought about how art is displayed to us could affect our view of it, it seems like a basic idea but is a very interesting one. O’Doherty makes the point that what we are viewing in museums is in fact something that has been editorialized, just like a magazine, by a curator. Many choices have to be made in displaying a exhibition, the art pieces have to be displayed in an organized fashion in order to make a coherent point and to educate the average viewer, how much space does each painting have for itself. The environment in which you view art is important and definitely impacts your view of the art.

This can be exemplified by examining different environments. The one I am most familiar with is the contemporary design used in museums today, this is the design in which I viewed the titian Exhibit and the Dali Exhibit. The contemporary designs main objective is to reduce distraction and let the viewer focus solely on the art and its message. Many art pieces reside in places of worship such as cathedrals, here every architectural detail is tweaked to emphasize grandeur. Grand arches outline murals, creating windows into important religious events. Murals are placed on huge domed ceilings often lined with gold paint. Here we can clearly see that the environment influences our view of the art.