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Mar. 28th, 2008
As far as visiting the old Paris temple of art and artifacts – better known as Le Musée du Louvre – goes, it's not important for its cultural value, but for its show-off-percentage. Standing in the napoleontic quarters, we are overtaken by a group of what we believe are Russian tourists. Their guide speaks an incomprehensible language that sounds Eastern European and he rushes the group forward. This is the nocturnal Louvre. There isn't much time to see everything.
Most group members don't take time to see either. They point cameras at furniture and ceilings. Snapping picture after picture to show to the ones that were left at home. Today we don't need darkened rooms to show our neighbours boring slideshows of our traveling adventures. Hall after hall I notice cameras pointed this or that way and snapshots taken from poseurs in front of famous paintings. The crowd in front of Michelangelo's Gioconda simply moves ahead, takes a picture and leaves the room again. The digital camera caused the common tourist to forget how to look using their eyes. Every gaze upon a work of art was a mediated gaze, whether it be through the lens of their camera, or on the screen of the same camera to check whether the photograph was any good. Then they move on: next painting, next picture.
But not everyone who points and shoots, is in the wrong. When I notice a young girl pointing her picture-phone at the ceiling, I look up at a beautifully painted work of art. She must have used her eyes to find this piece of beauty and is now using her camera to capture the moment.
She's not the only one getting struck by vastness of some works of art. I hear an American excitingly talk about "This guy," he checks the painting for the name tag, "Eugene. This guy who painted this painting. See, he painted himself right there in the tophat. So the guy carrying the gun is actualy the painter of the painting." He was talking about Eugène Delacroix and his La liberté guidant le peuple. I don't know if he was right. You could go and have a look for yourself. He sounded sincere though.
Most group members don't take time to see either. They point cameras at furniture and ceilings. Snapping picture after picture to show to the ones that were left at home. Today we don't need darkened rooms to show our neighbours boring slideshows of our traveling adventures. Hall after hall I notice cameras pointed this or that way and snapshots taken from poseurs in front of famous paintings. The crowd in front of Michelangelo's Gioconda simply moves ahead, takes a picture and leaves the room again. The digital camera caused the common tourist to forget how to look using their eyes. Every gaze upon a work of art was a mediated gaze, whether it be through the lens of their camera, or on the screen of the same camera to check whether the photograph was any good. Then they move on: next painting, next picture.
But not everyone who points and shoots, is in the wrong. When I notice a young girl pointing her picture-phone at the ceiling, I look up at a beautifully painted work of art. She must have used her eyes to find this piece of beauty and is now using her camera to capture the moment.
She's not the only one getting struck by vastness of some works of art. I hear an American excitingly talk about "This guy," he checks the painting for the name tag, "Eugene. This guy who painted this painting. See, he painted himself right there in the tophat. So the guy carrying the gun is actualy the painter of the painting." He was talking about Eugène Delacroix and his La liberté guidant le peuple. I don't know if he was right. You could go and have a look for yourself. He sounded sincere though.
