Luc Travers, 2010
74 pp. $9.99 (ebook)

What if I told you that you could learn how to connect emotionally with paintings and sculptures, to the point that they move you to tears or laughter, without spending years studying art or art history? I used to think that was impossible. I had always wanted to understand and appreciate the visual arts, and I visited art museums in four countries in service of this goal. However, although I saw some pieces I liked, I never connected deeply with any of them. I assumed this was because I didn’t know enough about art or art history to properly value what I was seeing.

Then, I took a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston led by art and literature appreciation expert Luc Travers. We looked at only a few paintings, but I was riveted, moved by a painting as I never had been before. In front of one, a couple of others and I were in tears. In front of another, I was reminded of the deep love I have for my fiancé, and we held each other while contemplating the subject of the painting, a woman absorbed in watching her husband paint. Immediately after the tour, I bought Travers’s book, Touching the Art, so I could learn his approach and have those kinds of deeply spiritual experiences again and again with different artworks. I was not disappointed.

In an easy-to-read, seventy-four-page volume, Travers relays his approach to art appreciation, which was inspired in part by experiences with his young niece. As he explained in Boston, as their family was going through an art museum, she kept pointing at one painting and saying, “Aww.” When they drew closer to the painting (a pietà, in which the virgin Mary holds a dead Jesus after the crucifixion), the toddler said, “Boo-boo.” Travers realized that she wasn’t seeing the painting’s place in history (as he was), or the brushstrokes the painter used. Instead, she saw someone who had been hurt and whose mother was comforting him—an experience she understood and could relate to. These kinds of personal connections form the basis of Travers’s approach, which he explains in the book using clearly stated principles, engaging exercises, relatable comparisons, and personal stories.

Travers articulates a few key principles that underpin his method. For example: To connect with visual art, you must look at artworks as art, not as historical artifacts. Art museums, he observes, are often laid out to provide lessons in art history. Although gaining insight into a particular culture or historical period by considering its art has value, you don’t connect with an artwork by learning which period it’s from or who painted it. Rather, you connect with an artwork by immersing yourself in it and finding personal connections with its characters and themes.

Touching the Art doesn’t merely explain the principles, however; it provides exercises using four different artworks, prompting you to put the ideas into practice. For example, Travers presents a picture of a sculpture and suggests that you try to imagine what happened before and after the moment the artist captured. At the end of the book, he includes another painting and an outline of his approach, so you can practice the whole process on your own.

This interactive method is important, because, as Travers explains, “No matter how good of a storyteller [a] writer [describing an artwork] is, the first-hand experience of figuring out who the characters are and what moment is being depicted is essential to a personal enjoyment of the artwork” (20).

Travers uses comparisons any reader can relate to: He compares enjoying a painting or sculpture to watching a movie or reading a novel. Most of us connect to movies or books much more easily than we do with visual art, but it doesn’t need to be this way. For example, when you watch a movie, you don’t focus on the fact that you’re observing a fictional narrative; you accept the world depicted so you can immerse yourself in the story. This is called suspending disbelief, and you can do the same with paintings or sculptures, as long as they depict a scene you could imagine happening (of course, this approach doesn’t apply to nonrepresentational “art,” wherein no characters, stories, or values are depicted). The key is to play make-believe, to imagine what the characters would be thinking, saying, and doing if they were real.

Travers gives the book a personal touch by sharing stories about his own journey, from studying art history to teaching art and literature appreciation. My favorite was the story of how he used a painting of Belisarius—specifically, the character’s determination and courage in the face of a difficult situation—as inspiration. In his case, he needed to maintain composure and make decisions for a group of students lost in a foreign country without Wi-Fi or a tour guide.

Studying the examples in this book and using Travers’s approach, I felt determination, courage, excitement, and longing. I smiled, teared up, and reminisced.

Equipped with Travers’s method, you can transform your experience with art from feeling like a “cultural duty” that leaves you frustrated and bored to a soul-fueling experience that leaves you “feeling inspired, energized, and ready to face the world” (ix). Travers states that “the goal of this booklet is to eliminate the need for books when engaging with an artwork” (ii). He decidedly achieves this goal, teaching the reader to “touch the art” themselves—and to be touched by it.

If you enjoy his approach, keep an eye out for his next book, Stories in Paint: 50 Powerful Artworks from Museums Around the United States. Intended as a sequel to Touching the Art, it will feature fifty paintings with guiding questions, available in print and audio, to help you engage with each.

In “Touching the Art,” @LucTravers relays his approach to art appreciation, based on the idea that you connect with art by immersing yourself in it and finding personal connections with its characters and themes.
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