Museum Education and the Aesthetic Experience

Abstract

I recall my first visit to an art museum vividly. When I was a fourth grader on a school tour, our bus passed Johns Hopkins University (a name I recognized), then stopped at an imposing building. I clearly remember the docent halting our group on the stairs and saying, Now we're going to see what you really came here to see-the mummy! (I was relieved to learn that the trip had a purpose.) The mummy was OK; but then the docent began explaining an ancient floor mosaic which had been mounted on the wall. I remember being enthralled as she explained the mosaic. As I look back, I can't remember what it depicted, but I was intrigued by the idea that someone carefully made this picture out of tiny stones, that someone had such a beautiful handmade floor in his house so long ago, and that it had been saved for me to see. Part of my came from the warm sunlight that streamed across the muted colors of stones and the particular mood of looking for fun the tour had inspired. At around the same age, I recall being powerfully impressed by a plate of sliced plums in our kitchen at home-purple skins with green centers and red skins with orange and yellow centers. I remember the same kind of feeling, a combination of interest and pleasure and curiosity, that to me defines the experience. The moment is one of heightened attention to perception, which is what makes it both meaningful and memorable. These are the qualities that foster subsequent worthwhile reflection and, as Marcia Eaton explains in her essay, one crucial element of artistic activity is thinking about it.1 Within the discipline of aesthetics, the aesthetic experience is an inherently controversial notion, and my conception of it is but one of many. Even if any particular definition of this concept is less than certain, we can be certain that we all have experiences, and that these experiences can play an enormously important role in our lives. The articulation of these