Why go to the Museum When you have the Internet?

Blog 4
Donna Hoang 

“Why go to the museum when you have the internet?”
When I explained to my friends that I had to meet Ashley at the Snite Museum, they posed this question
to me. Walking over to the museum seemed like a waste of time to my friends when I could simply look
up the painting on Google. It just didn't seem like an "efficient" usage of my time. I think this shows a
sad reality on campus. There is this attitude that assignments need to be done in the shortest amount of
time possible, and the quality needs to be good enough to receive an “A”. Therefore, if the professor is
not going to check if students actually visited the museum, then it is a waste of time to see the painting
in person.
The problem with this approach is the reliance on internet sources can create a situation in which students
miss details that can only be noticed by going to the Snite. The first thing I noticed when I visited the
Portrait of a Woman was that the museum placed it on a maroon colored wall. This background made the
blue background in the portrait pop out because of the sharp color contrast, heightening the mystical
feeling that the original painter wanted to express. Also, the lighting in the lower level of the Snite is
dimmer than the other floors, and this made me think about the solemnity of older churches and how it
could be relevant to this woman.
In addition, during one of my visits, I learned that the Portrait was moved from a side wall to the middle
pillar. Although the man didn’t give me an explanation to why this occurred, I think it shows that the
museum wanted people to notice this portrait before they left the lower level. Its old location was a place
that someone could easily walk by, but its new location is hard to miss, especially since it is the only
picture on that side of the pillar. I believe that all museums strategically place their items of art, and those
that stand out more than others are placed in those location purposefully. The museum might have wanted
its viewers to pay special attention to this portrait because of what this portrait means. Because this
woman looks very mysterious, the museum might have wanted people to question about her
background and where she came from. Through this questioning, people could learn about marriage
culture in Italy as well as the symbolism that artists include in their artwork. (These are all assumptions,
so it would be interesting to learn about the definite reason for the relocation).

A museum, just like a movie or TV show, has an intended audience and a message that they want to
portray based on thorough research. It is smart to take advantage of the hints that the Snite is giving
its students when approaching an art piece, and this critical piece of observation can only make the
research process stronger.

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