It’s Museum Day today, for which participating museums across the country are opening their doors for free to anyone presenting a Museum Day Ticket. Get in on the culture crush people: it looks like there are places pushing for our attendance all across the States. If you do decide to make for a museum, just be aware that the very way you mosey around that museum will reveal rather a lot about the kind of person you are. Oh yes. Our cultural habits (whether that’s reading, watching TV or a film at the cinema, even the way we store our DVDs) throws a lot of light on our characters and personalities. So for example, if you turn down the corner of the page in a book, you’re one part rebellious and two parts possessive. If on the other hand you keep the spine of said book unbroken, that shows you seek approval from others and are disappointed when they don’t behave in the way you’d like. And if you’re one to totally trash a book you’re reading (by dropping it inadvertently in the bath, let’s say), then your life is focussed around your needs.
OK. This is getting good. You know the popcorn-eaters at the cinema? Well apparently they are healthy but naughty, with fun outgoing personalities and who can be all things to all people. Wow! Here I was thinking the only thing popcorn-eating revealed about a person was how annoying they are as they chomp audibly throughout a film.
Worse would be a pick ‘n’ mix muncher though: that’d mean you’re constantly caught off-guard by life and never learning from mistakes. If I’ve just blighted your snacking plans for weekend cinema trip, I’m sorry. But at least I spared you the nachos analysis.
UK body language expert Judi James is behind these excellent insights, as well as these ones on art. Here, we fall into one of three categories, which we’ll work through with the help of an NGA picture.
1. Do you read a label before looking at art? Then you’re a logical type who thinks before committing. Your liaisons with others tend to be long-term. In this case, as well as boosting your relationship record, you’d have gathered the bare-bones of this painting: Vase of Flowers (1660), oil on canvas, by the Dutch artist Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684).
2. If you stop and stare, that means other things: you respect authority and for you, pleasure is all about intensity and prolonging things. Which makes you an adept lover. Blimey. I suppose we’ll all be stopping and staring a little longer next time. Here with de Heem it buys you the time to peruse the realistic depiction of tulip petals, bent reeds of wheat, minute animals (including butterflies, ants, snails, caterpillars) and reflections on the glass vase. You might even spot that the “good bugs” are near the top and the “bad bugs” closer to the bottom, and see a cross made by some of the tendrils in the bunch…
3. The last class of museum visitor is the one who zooms around, with zero attention span. You see, you get, you move on. And you can, I’m sure, imagine what kind of disaster this spells for your relationship tendencies. But being a commitment-phobe need not be a problem in a museum, the way I see it: if you can soak up all you need from a rapid once-over, then more power to you. You and de Heem can just have a quick fling, and leave it at that.
Oh no – two immediate ticks for me in your analysis…i turn down corner pages in books and love pick and mix in the cinema (surely thats the best part of going?).
Should I risk that I also turn down the corners in books from a previous posessor who dropped it in the bath? OH DEAR.
Lovely, insightful entry Aleid. Thank you.
And what does it say about the person who has been away (from the daily blog)a long time and picks up the blog again and frantically catches up on all the unread blogs ?
Love to be back again.
Many thanks Aleid for always (at least this year) being there, like a trusted friend.
Rutger D.
Hello Rutger Dutch… not sure what the speed-reading says about you, other than that your head must be spinning right now! Pleased to have you back on Art 2010 board and happy to be a trusted friend!
that’s me, the person that drops a book in the bath. I have been known to lend a book to others with mould growing in it….so: my life is focussed around my needs? That could be a good thing (take on what I can manage etc…) or a bad thing (selfish tantrums and the like). Or is it somewhere in the middle? What do you reckon?
Hmm… depends on whether you buy the original owner of the dropped-in-the-bath book a new (limited edition, more expensive) copy. That would put you firmly in the former camp (i.e. not the selfish tantrums type).