Freer Than You'll Ever Be

I am currently in the middle of a long vacation that has involved spending a lot of time in art museums. This is not, to be honest, my natural habitat, but I am not averse to spending time surrounded by beautiful things. My problem with art museums has to do with things like getting there, fighting the crowds, and the sheer mental and physical exhaustion that comes with trying to absorb so much in such a short time.

I always feel that what I’d really like to do is take the art gallery home with me and be able to contemplate it at my leisure. This fellow, whom I saw at the National Gallery in Washington D.C., had an interesting approach to the problem:

But creating your own copies of the paintings to take home is not practical for all of us. We have our cameras, of course—and I’ve been surprised at just how many museums let you snap away as you please—but that’s never quite satisfying. It always feels distancing to be spending your time recording the art rather than appreciating it. Plus when everyone is trying to take their pictures, you end up with scenes like this:

(That blurry thing in the middle is Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” which is physically located at the Chicago Art Institute.)

So I got to thinking that in this day and age, there ought to be a way to create your own virtual art gallery, and avoid all the tiresome traipsing around to various world capitals. Sure enough, it turns out one of the galleries I visited in D.C., the Freer Gallery of Art, offers a nifty feature that allows you to play curator by browsing through the collection and adding anything you want to your personal gallery. You can see mine—which I’m calling the “Even Freer Gallery of Art”—here.

Then maybe you’d like to take a spin through the museum’s collections and create your own virtual gallery. I’m not saying it’s a substitute for seeing the stuff in person—the brushwork, the size, the physical reality matter too—but it’s sure a lot easier on the feet. The next time you’re in D.C., you can go see your gallery in person.

And why stop there? Once you’ve got a little creative momentum going, why not attack whatever project is next on your list? To paraphrase George Clinton, free your mind and your art will follow.