> Back to the art: I found that it became
overwhelming to try to look at *all* the art, so
after a while I decided to just concentrate in
detail just on one or two pictures in each
gallery--sometimes the one that most
grabbed my eye when I walked in, and
sometimes the one that least did. This
seemed much more satisfying. Anyone else
do this?

I don't get out to art museums very frequently,
so when I do, I think I tend to try to take
everything in instead of carefully studying one
or two works. As a result, it's more of a cursory
looking and appreciating rather than really
absorbing anything.

The one time this wasn't true was when I went
to the Norman Rockwell Museum in
Stockbridge, MA. I went there to specifically
see the works of a particular artist, and it
wasn't the museum's namesake, believe it or
not. They had a collection of the works of J.C.
Leyendecker (who was Rockwell's
predecessor and mentor at the Saturday
Evening Post), and although I did take
advantage of the trip to see the entire
museum, I spent more time looking at the
Leyendecker exhibit. The thing I remember
feeling the most was just plain amazement
that I was so close to *original* works of art;
close enough to reach out and touch (not that I
would) the actual canvasses that the artist
himself had labored over.