Meeting Mr. Christiansen

In a favorite book I serendipitously found at the Bright Leaf Book Store (Museum by Danny Danzinger 2007), one of its vignettes resonated timely for me. As a new docent in a historic house that also served as an art museum, I found myself distressed that I seemed to lack both interest and ability to interpret a painting aesthetically. I only wanted to explore its historic perspective. Then from within this chapter supplied by Keith Christiansen, now chairman of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum, he quotes art historian Ernst Gombrich: “There is no bad way of looking at a work of art; there are different ways.” Christiansen estimates most visitors will fall somewhere between wanting a historical perspective and wanting an aesthetic perspective. But, he says, “in the end, the viewer has somehow to find a way to connect personally with the work….” All the curator, the interpreter, the docent can do is give those who do connect the most enrichment we have available.

That doesn’t free me from trying to point out aesthetic characteristics, but it does soothe me to realize that the end product of the visitor’s experience is quite their responsibility as well. We can’t force-feed meaning, context or beauty that it may be to our eyes and not allow the visitor to connect personally (or not) in his or her own way.

I decided to see if I could find out a little more about Keith Christiansen today as this book was published in 2007. Turns out he is now 73 and plans to retire in June of this year. And, as his thoughts and opinions soothed me a few years ago, I came across an interesting blog post by Lee Rosenbaum defending him from “the thought police” whose hackles were raised over an Instagram post he made on his personal account a few months ago. He innocently expressed some admiration of Alexandre Lenoir for defending artistic and historic artifacts from zealots of the French Revolution bent on their destruction in 1791.

I found myself siding with him again. I wish him well in his retirement and now follow Ms. Rosenbaum on Twitter. One road leads to another.

###