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The Animated Muse: An Interpretive Program for Creative Viewing
Author(s) -
Clarkson Austin,
Worts Douglas
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2005.tb00172.x
Subject(s) - creativity , visual arts , painting , visitor pattern , mandate , relevance (law) , art , creative writing , aesthetics , psychology , computer science , social psychology , political science , law , programming language
Explore a Painting in Depth, an experiment presented in the Canadian Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, consisted of a booth that offered seating for two visitors and, opposite them, The Beaver Dam , a 1919 landscape painting by the Canadian artist J. E. H. MacDonald. In a 12‐minute audio‐guided Exercise for Exploring, visitors were invited to engage in a creative process with the imagery of the painting. This paper sketches how the experiment evolved, presents the background of the Exercise for Exploring, and surveys the effects of the exhibit on a wide range of visitors. The question is raised: How can facilitating visitors' creative responses to artworks be part of the museum's educational mandate and its arsenal of interpretive resources? More broadly: Do strategies that foster and privilege visitor creativity, as well as honor the creativity of artists, affect the accessibility and relevance of the museum for the general public?