I have been very sceptical about the value of the DVDs that seem to be increasingly widely available, offering to provide a tour of one major museum or another. Seeing a great picture on the computer screen is, I’m convinced, no substitute for being in the presence of the object itself. Somebody else has, in the first instance, selected the work they regard as worthy of the viewer’s attention, and directs your attention in viewing it.
Often, by way of contrast, it is that surprising encounter with some work you have not previously known that can be one of the most rewarding parts of a museum tour. Then, for me at least, another enjoyable aspect of a museum visit is the chance to make all kinds of comparisons between works, and some of them possibly considered to be too minor to feature in an official DVD.
There is also the enjoyment of visiting what might be considered to be too insignificant an event, measured either by the status of the museum or of the artist whose work is on display. I had a great time in the last such visit I made, to the civic museum in Eastbourne. We had gone to the town for a funeral, and it was quite by accident that I came a cross an exhibition of the work of Eric Ravillious. Nobody would ever have made a DVD of that. I had to seize the accidental moment and visit the display.
The DVD market stratifies the institutions deemed worthy of a visit, and then the works to which the viewer is invited to pay attention. If the guided tour is conducted by a presenter (usually with “celebrity” status) the medium become an opportunity to convey their views about art rather than a vehicle through which we can come to make our own judgements.
So it was with some scepticism that I received, from a good friend, the loan of a DVD he had bought, introducing the National Gallery in London. I had half a mind not to bother with it, but then for his sake I decided to give it a go. It was nothing like the experience I had expected, concentrating not on providing us with a selective tour of “great works” but on explaining to us the work of the museum as an institution. I had never before appreciated the extent of the educational work it undertakes, and had only the vaguest idea about some of the policy decisions that lie behind different aspects of its operation. The sleeve note describes the DVD as “a portrait of the place, its way of working and relations with the world, its staff and public, and its paintings.” (The presenter, by the way, is Frederick Wiseman.) That is a fair description, I guess. Not all DVDs are the same, it seems.
You might well deduce from the fact that I have time to look at an art DVD that I’m not currently painting. Actually, I’m rebuilding the compost buns in the garden. Despite the care I am putting into the choice of materials and composition, nobody will ever regard this as a work of art. The ones that these replace lasted a good fifteen years and I am sure that the ones I am making will see me out. They won’t end up in a museum, I can tell you that.