A list of Elkins that works for museum visits as well as life in general and that I want to embrace more faithfully in my daily encounters:
1. Go to museums alone. Seeing takes concentration and calm.
2. Don’t try to see everything. Pick a few rooms and choose one painting.
3. Minimize distractions. Pick an uncrowded room and work in good light.
4. Take your time. Sit, relax, get up, come back, expect that it may take a long time for a painting to speak to you.
5. Pay full attention. Give the work what Fried called, ‘absorption.’
6. Do your own thinking. Read, study, but when it comes to looking, just look and make up your own mind.
7. Be on the lookout for people who are really looking, not simply
browsing and checking labels. Observe them without disturbing them. If
you can talk to them without disturbing them, do so.
8. Be faithful. Return to paintings you’ve spent time with.
— James Elkins, Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings.
