Art tourism: I came, I saw, I Facebooked

As an regular and enthusiastic museum visitor, I have had a lot of time to study great works of art and architecture in detail. This, you would agree, is the minimum one should expect of an Art History undergraduate. Galleries and museums are the institutions of my subject. Thousands flock to museums all over the world every year, travelling thousands of miles to see priceless and revered works of art and architecture face to face. Every European capital throughout the summer months is saturated by eager and enthusiastic travellers keen to soak up some culture, to which few of us are immune. We’ve all been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

The reason I bring this into question is not necessarily because it’s innately bad as such. I fervently believe in the democratisation of the art world. Art should be for everyone, without a doubt. My problem resides in the fact that through the expansion of the tourism industry, the historical value of art has been misplaced. A first-hand experience of a foreign culture has become less about understanding it and more about simply saying one has done it.

A weekend in Florence is my most recent experience of this loss of common understanding of what ‘art’ is and why it’s important. Florence is definitely past its heyday of the Renaissance, and is now the setting of a bustling tourist industry. Thousands travel every year to see Michelangelo’s David, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, and Santa Maria del Fiore.

> They have reached that stage of fame where they no longer need to validate their status as works of art. They’re famous simply because they’re famous

But these works of art, popularised by mass media, have become detached from their origins. They have reached that stage of fame where they no longer need to validate their status as works of art. They’re famous simply because they’re famous.

In the minds of the average tourist, seeing these sights is just another item to tick off the standard itinery of travelling around a European nation. One must see the necessary and relevant artworks and heritage sites within a particular location in order to have had, by definition, a complete experience of the place in question.

But why? It seems that, increasingly, cultural tourism has become a valueless leisure activity which we are obliged to do to feel complete and fulfilled. As one friend of mine remarked, other countries have become mere backdrops for our own pseudo-spiritual journeys and semi-conscious nights out.

I commend people for taking an interest in culture, but I have a far greater respect for those who are willing to go out of their way to understand why such things are considered to be so valuable. Cultural tourism has become diluted with an ignorance of its own origins. The history of works of art is what gives them their cultural significance; it is what imbues them with an innate meaning and importance that so many of us gravitate towards.

Popular culture has emancipated high art from its own history, and turned it into a hollow spectacle to be consumed en masse. It has lost its substance in favour of world fame. It has ‘sold out’, if you will.

Maybe I should calm down a little. The fact that works of art, literature and music have, throughout history, fascinated and inspired generations of people to travel thousands of miles should really provide comfort to a beleaguered arts student such as myself. Tourists may get my goat when I’m in a hurry, but I cannot pass judgement on them.

I’m no exception to having been somewhere just to slap the photos on Facebook. I’m prone to being rather elitist, approaching the world of art tourism from an art historian’s perspective. My tirade against such blatant neglect of the substance of culture is therefore quite likely to be fundamentally flawed.

People may not know why great wonders of the world really are ‘great’, or why masterpieces really are ‘masterpieces’; yet they are, nevertheless, willing to fly thousands of miles to see
them. There something rather comforting in this, as a testament to the enduring power of art.