Though the spread of good reproduction(复制品)of works of art can be culturally valuable, museums continue to promote the special status of original work and highlight the authenticity(真实)of its exhibits. Unfortunately, this seems to place severe limitations on the kind of experience offered to visitors.
One limitation is related to the way the museum presents its exhibits. Art museums are often called "treasure houses". We are reminded of this even before we view a collection by the presence of security guards who keep us away from the exhibits. In addition, a major collection like that of London's National Gallery is housed in numerous rooms, where a single piece of work is likely to be worth more than all the average visitor possesses. In a society that judges the personal status of the individual so much by their material worth, it is therefore difficult not to be impressed by one's own relative "worthlessness" in such an environment.
Furthermore, consideration of the "value" of the original work in its treasure house setting impresses upon the viewer that since these works were originally produced, they have been assigned a huge value in terms of money by some person or institution more powerful than themselves. Evidently, nothing the viewer thinks about the work is going to alter that value, and so today's viewer is discouraged from trying to extend that spontaneous, immediate, self-reliant kind of interpretation which would originally have met the work.
The visitor may then be struck by the strangeness of seeing such a variety of paintings, drawings and sculptures brought together in an environment for which they were not originally created. This "displacement effect" is further heightened by the huge volume of exhibits. In the case of a major collection, there are probably more works on display than we could realistically view in weeks or even months.
This is particularly distressing because time seems to be a vital factor in the appreciation of all art forms. A fundamental difference between paintings and other art forms is that there is no prescribed time over which a painting is viewed. Operas, novels and poems are read in a prescribed time sequence, whereas a picture has no clear place at which to start viewing, or at which to finish. Thus art works themselves encourage us to view them superficially, without appreciating the richness of detail and labor that is involved.
Consequently, the dominant critical approach becomes that of the art historian, a specialized academic approach devoted to "discovering the meaning" of art within the cultural context of its time. This is in harmony with the museum's function, since the approach is dedicated to seeking out and conserving "authentic", "original" readings of the exhibits.
