Is Traveling The New Museum Going?

Museums are empty. People moved from the inner halls of local art galleries to the streets of foreign places.

Hi, friends!

I am back with a new opinion piece about the connection between art and travel. This idea came to me during one of my recent trips to Italy. Since then, I’ve researched museum attendance trends and other stats about art consumption. While I would have liked to find more info on the time spent on each work of art, I think the idea stands: travel is an alternative way to experience art. Read more below.

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Photo by Evy Jacobs on Unsplash

I took a seat on a remote boulder, at the far end of the beach, waiting for my taxi boat to arrive. The rugged hill behind me was dotted with colored houses, sprinkles on a chocolate ice cream cone. Turquoise waters splashed at the shore below. The beachfront promenade was lined with lemon trees, the fruits hanging low, right above the heads of strolling tourists. Somewhere close by, there were signs of life. Forks and knives clinking on plates, servers gathering up leftovers from the tables at a trattoria. To complete the real-life painting, the evening sun shone at the perfect angle. Close to touching the sea, it filtered through the lemon branches and landed all the way down on the beach pebbles. It was painfully beautiful. 

I had spent the day roaming the narrow streets of this Amalfi hilltop village, determined to see every inch of it, to soak in every beautiful corner. Only at the end of the day, when I had to wait for the taxi boat, did I really slow down the pace and do nothing but observe.

I realized, the faster we walk, the less we see. 

We plan our days obsessively optimizing our time. We want to make the most of each minute, especially when we travel. If there are blank spaces between activities, we call them ‘dead time’. It’s like trying to write a paragraph without spaces between the words. But those moments of a breather, those unproductive minutes are the opportunity to do less and see more.  

Resting on that boulder at the end of the day in Amalfi and observing the surroundings, felt as if I were in a museum. Sitting on a bench in front of a large-scale painting by Guido Borelli would have done the same for me.  

Traveling is the modern way to consume art

When we travel, we notice more.

Ceramic square tiles painted with ornate numbers next to front doors in Mediterranean towns. Oaks, cypresses or palm trees, lining roads like green soldiers on guard duty. Think Tuscany and that overused image of a winding road going uphill, boarded by tall, slim cypress trees. A visual work of art. An aesthetic image made to please not just the eye, but to move something inside us. 

Old neighborhoods in southern towns where the locals seemed to have held a Color Council and decided on a shade for each homeowner. The result: a colorful mosaic of squares and cubes, a bouquet of houses. A cubist image right out of a Picasso museum. 

Then there are the buildings that merge with the nature surrounding them. Sparing a lush hill of too much concrete. Sparing the eye of high-rise constructions, allowing space for the top of the hill to be seen. Integrating our civilization into the natural habitat is also a form of art. Like tiptoeing through the woods. We still want to explore the woods and make a home in it, but we’re not stomping the ground, dislocating a bunch of species. Building a bridge without disturbing the lily pond below. Monet would be proud. 

Talking of impressionist painters, the way the sun fell over objects was one of their favorite elements to play with. And it’s also the sunlight that adds magic to the places we visit. The way the light shines on certain rooftops, filters through old oak trees or shaves the ground with golden blades at sunset. The sunlight makes what would have been a good work of art great. The same happens with a place we visit. 

And there is more that blurs the line between art and travel. Landscaping parks and hanging gardens. Colorful mosaics of tiles in Moorish patterns. Architecture imitating nature - think Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia. Giant outdoor sculptures. Musical buildings with exterior pipes that “sing” when rain water falls through the maze. 

Museums are empty.

We might deplore the state of culture and the supremacy of consumerism. But no matter how much stuff we buy, the soul still longs for that elusive feeling of connection with something higher. The soul longs for beauty. 

Museums are empty. But planes are full.

People moved from the inner halls of local art galleries to faraway lands, to experience art on the streets of unknown towns. We stepped into the paintings, we are living art from within. The only condition: to pay attention to it. 

Art and travel: they are judged by the same yardstick 

And just like with a piece of art, people judge the value of places by how difficult it was to make them.

Looking at these impossibly steep hills in Amalfi and how people worked to build not just shacks for shelter, but charming buildings embellished with art. Bridges uniting two dangerously steep rocks. It's the same as looking at an elaborate painting. The painstaking work, the attention to detail. The vision. The courage to go where no one went. The hard work. The layering of foundations and then embellishments, expressing human creativity. 

We judge both a piece of art and a place we visit by the same criteria. We look at both with the same part of our brain - searching for beauty, for a detail that speaks to our soul. And because of this, they both serve the same function for us. Historically, the rise in popularity of travel came fairly synchronized with the decrease in museum visits. Coincidence? 

And just like with art, in order to be truly moved by the places we visit, we need to slow down. To take in the entire view with our naked eye, not through the lens of our phones. To stop and allow the feeling to sink within us. To enjoy how we feel as we experience a piece of art. Either out on the streets or hanging on a museum wall.

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Still have the brain space for another piece? If so, here it is below:

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