On January 21, 2012, the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD) opened an exhibit, “Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes“, designed in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University Brain Science Institute to explore the implications of tactile perception for the enjoyment of sculpture. The exhibit provides museum visitors the rare opportunity to touch twenty-two (replica) statuettes. If we conservators were to be candid, wouldn’t a great many of us admit that one of the things that drew us to the field was the opportunity to touch and hold works of art?
The physical enjoyment of works of art
When people ask me what is fun about my job I often respond “I get to touch all the things that everyone else looks at behind glass!”.