Taking your time with art

Did you know, the average person spends just 27 seconds looking at a work of art? On April 4, the world participated in Slow Art Day a little differently than previous years, viewing art online and/or from their personal collections at home. The setting may have been different but you were still invited to slow down, reflect and connect with art.  And even though the day has passed, we challenge you to make every day Slow Art Day.

Start by picking five works of art and looking at them for 10 minutes each - that’s it! There’s no wrong way to view art and you don’t need to be an expert to enjoy it. The goal is to focus on the art and the art of viewing it!

In the spirit of slowing down and connecting with art, we chose a work from the AGO Collection, looked at it for 10 minutes and recorded some thoughts on what we saw. Read on to see how it went.

The work we visited is Interior with Four Etchings (1904) by Vilhelm Hammershøi, who is known for having drawn inspiration from his own home, with this work representing his Copenhagen apartment.

0:00:00 to 0:02:00 - Very subdued and even melancholy. Grey appears to be the dominant colour, but on closer look, there are hues of blues, greens and browns. There’s a table, a chair, several objects and a woman. What’s unique is that the subject has her back completely turned to the viewer. (Accompanying text says that she is the artist’s wife, Ida).

0:02:00 to 0:03:00 - Her head inclines to the left, looking slightly downward. Is she unhappy? Her hands are held at chest-level. What is she holding? Or are they clasped in a rigid pose? Was she eager to participate, or was her involvement at her husband’s whim? Her hair is held back in a loose bun, yet there’s a certain rigidity to her posture. A satin ribbon cinches her waist.

0:03:00 to 0:08:00 - It’s time to really appreciate Hammershøi’s fantastic representations of light and shadow and the gradients in the painting. Sunlight spills in from the left, implying a window shielded by the green curtain. The artist masterfully dabs white on reflective surfaces. Everything has depth. There’s not much to explain here - it needs to be seen.

0:08:00 to 0:09:00 - As we engage more with the work, our focus shifts on the objects in the painting - a plate, a bowl, a jug. It gets a little meta at this point as we consider the small frames. Who or what is depicted in them? 

0:09:00 to 0:10:00 - We round up by viewing the more minor elements - the artist’s signature, and the bronze frame holding the painting. The overall feeling we get from the painting? Tension, and a little bit of sadness.

We hope you enjoy discovering what happens when you take your time, and experience the joy of looking at and loving art. And if you need more inspiration, check out our vast online Collection and of course, all the wonderful art featured on #AGOfromHome.