Commentary Concerning Musuems

In the latest Gilbert! Magazine, Fr. James Schall, S.J. has an excellent article on the modern institution of the musuem. Apparently, Chesterton disliked musuems. The article left me wondering why I do like them, and whether my liking is a good thing.

But first, Gilbert's reasons for dislike.

Chesterton classifies two types of sightseers. First is the accidental sight-seer, who sees a sight while going about his daily business, and the sight surprises him with what he did not know before and was not expecting to learn. This is a good sort of sight-seer because the sight effects him in a good way by way of surprise. Second is the type of sightseer called a pilgrim, the sort of person who goes to a place of pilgrimage with the deliberate purpose of seeing what they know to be there. This sort of person is good because they become holier and/or satisfy a good human desire. But a musuem, says Chesterton/Fr. Schall, is not for either of these sorts of people. Rather, this overstuffed institution is for specialists and for people who go there to learn philosophically disconnected bits of more or less useless and unedifying information.

Frankly, I was troubled. I LOVE going to musuems. Is something wrong with me? Chesterton says that when we dislike something, we ought to investigate our reasons for the dislike; that is what he does in the essay Fr. Shcall refers to. After reading Fr. Schall's essay, however, I am wondering whether I ought to investigate the reasons I like something. Antifreeze tastes good just like sugar, you know.

One thing was quite cosoling to me. I do not go to musuems as a specialist. When I was in Dallas, I went to a musuem of Oriental art, not because I am a specialist in Oriental art (though I daresay I might know more than many other Americans), but because I like it. And I daresay that I have never gone to a musuem just to learn about something about which I already knew a great deal; I always went because I wanted to.

But neither have I gone and been philosophically disconnected. Although the musuems may not provide the connections, in a way, it is appropriate that they do not. By the very fact that the connections are not provided, one is much freer to MUSE upon those very connections or lack thereof, provided they are even aware that the notion of philosophical connectedness exists. In the very hell-heart of philosophical disconnectedness, a Modern Art musuem, the muse is at work, forcing us to ponder what we can guess about the philosophical beliefs (or again, the lack thereof) of the artist. If all else fails, one can say "Ultimately, God made that, and that, and that and that and..." and come away better than they went in. Going to a musuem to contemplate...that sounds just like a pilgrim.

But in fact, I think that my personal style of purposefully also includes the method of the surprised traveller. In no place other than a musuem (and this is brought out wonderfully in "Night in the Musuem") can you EXPECT A SURPRISE. One goes to a musuem expecting to learn an "I know not what," whether it be that Catholic Priests appear in Mideval Japanese art, or that Evolution is a good story, regardless of whether or not it is true, or that the Musuem of Modern Art in DC serves the best ice cream in the world.

Let us not lament the existence of musuems; let us lament those who use them improperly.