(Metropolitan Museum of Art, Medieval Art Collection. Notes of May 24, 2013, 6:30 PM)

(^ Saint Peter as the First Pope. ca. before 1348. Spain. Pine partially covered with canvas, gesso, paint. 79 x 22.5 x 13″. Rogers Fund, 1926/ Accession Number: 27.18.2)                             

I watch as one person after another takes pictures of this or that artwork with their tablet or cell phone and walk away --- just walk away. There is no attempt to reckon with the actual thing in front of them. They may as well have stayed home and browsed the collection online. To stand before a 14th-century polychromed Christian sculpture of Saint Peter is to see the physical work of someone who lived and thought and created 700 years ago ---  the grain of the wood, the way the features are carved by hand and gessoed, the way the paint was applied. You see it from the side and their lack of understanding about anatomy and the depth of their faith are all there. That is not something that is recorded in a quick snapshot on a cell phone. But no one cares.

We no longer consider the reproduction to be something to refer to when the original is not available to see. The reproduction is now an acceptable, maybe even preferable, substitute for the original. Why bother standing in front of the physical object itself when you can look at a photo of it (if the photo is ever looked at)? Who cares about the one-on-one interaction that is only possible with the actual thing? Maybe the comment about this, made to me by someone recently, that these pictures are probably just to post on Facebook to appear "cool", is accurate.