Art not directly accessible to the public creates a guarded, separated atmosphere, and places art psychologically apart from life and people. We do not want this. Art is life, and alive, and must intermingle. We need to experience it directly. I cannot state clearly my disappointment upon finding the Mona Lisa at the Louvre behind bullet-proof glass. It’s a kind of necessary obscenity, I believe. I’d love to be among the privileged who get to see it directly.
Once, while touring Biltmore at Christmas, we wandered upstairs and I glanced over at a far, somewhat shadowed corner. A small painting stood there, on a tripod. I was drawn to it, and sure enough, it proved to be a Monet. A real one. Just sitting there at a public gathering. Not even a guard beside it. I could have picked it up and run. Instead of course I went to fetch my family and show them, and we marvelled. It was a privileged moment. And a lovely gift.
Another time, on a tour of Schoß Mespelbrunn, I spotted three small drawings, framed but not under glass, halfway up a spiral staircase. Everyone else had walked by. I stopped, stunned. They were three original Albrecht Dürer sketches, ones I’d never seen catalogued. I stood there studying them until someone came and fetched me. I said, “Are these…?” and the guide nodded and said, “Oh yes, but we don’t bother trying to explain to our American tours who he is any longer.” How immensely sad.
