Don's Top 20 tips for visiting VMFA

The current special exhibition at VMFA is "Tiffany: Color and Light." If you have $15 and you like windows and lamps made of colored glass, it's worth seeing. It's been open for a while, so the crowds now are not enormous. (Photo by Travis Fullerton, (c) VMFA)

At least a half-dozen people have asked me in the last few weeks if I have been to see the new VMFA building, which opened May 1. I retired a week before they threw the doors open, but I have been back -- twice.

You should go, too. And to make your visit more enjoyable, here are my Top 20 tips for novices who want to visit VMFA. (As you might imagine, they are NOT all endorsed by the museum.)

1: Block out some time. It'll take much longer than you think just to walk at a brisk pace through every gallery, even if you never spend time contemplating anything.

2: Keep walking until you see something you like. Then read the label. Then look at what's nearby by the same or similar artists. Do you like those things too? Why?

3: You don't have to know much to enjoy a VMFA visit. It's all about what you like, not what somebody else thinks is important. If you don't like a particular work, it's not important to you, and that's what counts.

4: If you see something you like, look at it. No, really look at it. What do you like about it. Subject? Theme? Style? Colors? What?

5: You might not like contemporary abstract art. I don't. That's okay. A lot of contemporary art strikes me as first-draft stuff. It's too much about process for my taste. Unless it's "pretty" (whatever that means), I usually skip it. When I write something, I don't pester people with my first and second and third drafts so they can see my process. As a writer, I would definitely be interested in seeing a first draft of "Hamlet." But most people are not writers. And most people are not artists. Artists, therefore, should not bore ordinary people with process. Saying "I don't get it" is more a comment on the artist than it is on you. (And this whole paragraph is more about me than about art.)

6: Don't touch the art with your greasy, sweaty fingers -- or with anything else for that matter.

7: Don't press your nose against the Plexiglas bonnets that cover small sculptures and decorative works. Do you have any idea how long it takes to clean off your nose smears?

8: Keep in mind that a lot of what you might like about the pristine, white splendor of ancient sculptures is not what the artist intended. Most were originally "polychromed." That's art-snob-speak for "painted many colors." Usually, the original paint that covered that clean white marble was gaudy. Think about what that means in terms of the way tastes change.

9: Go to the museum with a friend, so you can talk about what you're seeing. (Corollary: It's okay to talk in a normal tone of voice in a museum. It's not a church. But don't yell.)

10: Leave your umbrella at the coat-check desk. In fact, don't carry anything into the galleries with you. It makes the guards nervous. They're afraid you'll accidentally knock something over.

11: Take breaks. Eat lunch. If it's a nice day, go outside for a bit. Think about what you've just seen. When you're ready, go back inside and look for some more stuff you like.

12: Don't do it all in one day. There's too much to see. Even the permanent galleries change occasionally, so you'll probably find more stuff. And the curators are always buying something new to add to the collection. They do that four or five times a year.

13: Never go to a special exhibition that has just opened unless you want to see people more than you want to see art. It'll be too crowded. Most special shows stay for six weeks. Wait at least two weeks to let the crowds thin out. But don't wait until the last week. The crowds will thicken up again.

14: If there's a tour or an audio guide available, take advantage of it. You'll learn more that way.

15: If you like what you see in the Impressionism galleries, thank the person who invented those tubes that toothpaste comes in today. Putting paint in tubes like those made it easier for artists to paint outdoors, which the Impressionists thought was the only way to do it.

16: If you want to take an infant or toddler to the museum, that's great. Get your kids into the habit of looking at art. But if your kid starts to cry, leave the galleries immediately.

17: You can breastfeed your infant almost anyplace in the museum if you like. But don't breastfeed in the lavatory. Would you want to eat lunch in a bathroom?

18: Don't ask guards questions about art history. They know where the bathrooms are and what time the galleries close. They don't know why van Gogh cut off the lower part of his left ear lobe and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel. Stop by the library in the museum's lobby. Somebody there can answer your questions.

19: You can carry your handgun into the museum with you. Virginia law says it's okay. But don't do it. It tends to scare the other visitors. Besides, museum visitors are a rather gentle lot, so the handgun is probably just not necessary.

20: Come back again a few weeks later. See if you still like what you saw the first time. The more you see, the more your taste will develop.

Walter cited research (in a comment to this post) that cast doubt on my claim that we owe thanks to the guy who invented the toothpaste tube for making Impressionism possible. The fact seems to be that American portrait painter John Goffe Rand invented the collapsible tin tube in 1841. Colgate introduced its toothpaste in a tube similar to modern-day toothpaste tubes in the 1890s. I have reworded item 15 above, and I thank my friend Walter for his diligence, which exceeded mine.