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You fight your way through the crowd in the Louvre, phones raised all around you, and finally you see her. And the first thought of many visitors is: oh. She's small.
The Mona Lisa measures 77 by 53 centimeters, about the size of a large poster. Behind thick glass and a wide barrier, she can look even smaller. Meanwhile, on the opposite wall of the same room, hangs one of the largest paintings in the museum: Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, almost seven meters high and ten meters wide. Most people turn their backs to it.
Paintings that are smaller than you imagine
- Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker (Louvre): about 24 by 21 centimeters, barely bigger than a sheet of paper. - Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (Museum of Modern Art, New York): about 24 by 33 centimeters. The melting clocks you know from posters fit on a small notebook. - Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (Mauritshuis, The Hague): under half a meter tall.
Paintings that are bigger than you imagine
- Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (Louvre): roughly five by seven meters. The figures are life-sized; you feel you could step onto the raft. - Claude Monet, Water Lilies (Musée de l'Orangerie): panels that wrap around two oval rooms, made to surround you completely. - Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (Art Institute of Chicago): about two by three meters, built from thousands of tiny dots.
Why size changes everything
A reproduction on a screen makes every painting the same size: yours. But painters chose the scale on purpose. A tiny painting asks you to come close, almost to whisper. A huge one asks you to step back and be swallowed. Feeling that difference in your body is one of the great pleasures of seeing art in person.
Look with your body
Next time you're in a museum, before reading the label, notice how far you naturally stand from a painting. Then try another distance: much closer, much farther. Watch how the painting changes, and how you do.
Museums worth the trip
The Digital subscription brings recommendations on museums, exhibitions, opera, ballet and books, at least one video each month, photo stories and the digital edition of "(meditating) On Art". For those who'd rather see it in person.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi