I 'd say, "by kneeling in front of it."
You might think, "Well, I understand the fact that each artwork is sacred, in a way, but that sounds too much like the religious devotion and not necessary appropriate for the appreciation of art, or does it???"
I agree, and what I mean by "kneeling" has a bit different connotation.
It is one of the many ways to examine how artist may have applied the paints to the given ground.
We are used to looking at the painting dead on. Certainly, we can do that. It is good to appreciate the size of the painting if it is very large instead of looking at the print reproductions or an image printed in the books. It is also good to try to study the colors of each artwork by examining the actual work.
However, we may not know the true color unless you know what kind of light (lamps) each room of the museum uses. The lights we use, for instance, can be the traditional tungsten light bulbs and/or the florescent ones. In the museums, the situation may be quite different. They know that excessive illumination can cause damages to the artworks, so some museums may not use the ordinary light bulbs. Depending on the quality of the light source, the colors may appear quite differently. You may have an experience comparing several books showing the same artwork with the different colors.
On one reproduction the color on some area may appear more orange-like, for example, and from the other reproduction the same area may appear more reddish. To help seeing the true color, one can bring a color chart, too.
The composition can be studied off the printed materials such as any post cards and/or the images reproduced in the books.
Unless one obtain a special permission from the given museum, the close examination of each artwork is not possible. If you are too close to the artwork, it will likely trigger a security alarm.
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| A section from a painting by Bronzino (photo by Hikaru) |
To study how much paints(with or without the emulsion) are applied in which
sections/areas, for example, can be done by kneeling down and looking up at the painting in a certain angle where the painted surface starts to shine by reflecting the light. If the paints are applied thickly, it will certainly reflect the light differently than the areas painted thinly and smoothly. At the same time, one can guess how much emulsion (i.e oil) is added to the paints by examining the reflection of the surface.
The image above is a section from Bronzino's work at Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna which I photographed during the recent visit to the museum.
