Have you ever been to an art museum? If not, would you like to go to one?
If you have, tell us about what your experience was like. Did you enjoy it? Did you find any aspect challenging? For example, do you remember feeling distracted, bored or tired at any point?
What was the best thing you saw? How much time do you think you spent with that piece? Ten seconds, a minute, five minutes? If someone challenged you to look at that artwork for three hours, do you think you could do it? Would you want to?
Scott Reyburn, a journalist who reports on art and artists, recently chose to take on such a challenge, spending three uninterrupted hours with a painting by Diego Velázquez that hangs in a museum in Spain. “The Three-Hour Challenge: 180 Minutes with ‘Las Meninas’” is his account of the experience, including how he became curious about the assignment in the first place:
“Everyone is distracted. All of the time,” said Justin Rosenstein, a tech entrepreneur who was a member of the team that invented Facebook’s “like” button, in an interview in The Guardian in 2017. Two years earlier, a study from Microsoft had concluded that the average human attention span had contracted to eight seconds.
No wonder that the Harvard professor Jennifer Roberts created a bit of a stir by insisting that her students look at a single artwork of their choice for three hours.
This exercise in what she calls immersive attention has remained a core element of Roberts’s art history teaching for more than a decade, despite the ever-increasing amount of distractive pressures that smartphones, social media and now A.I. heap on students’ minds.
“There’s a little bit more terror in their eyes when I say they should look at a work of art for three hours,” said Roberts in an interview.
“They can’t even fathom that they’ll be able to pay attention for that length of time. It means the rewards of the exercise are all the more vivid to them,” added Roberts, who helped The New York Times devise its 10-Minute Challenge. The interactive digital feature encourages readers to spend 10 uninterrupted minutes looking at a painting, allows them to click around and explore, and, finally, shares deep context on the work.
But could the rewards of immersive attention be enjoyed by people who aren’t studying history of art at Harvard? What happens if someone who is not a student looks at a painting for three hours? Is it even possible to do, given that, according to one of the most authoritative studies on the subject, conducted in 2001, the median time people spend viewing a great artwork in a museum was just 17 seconds — and that was before the advent of the smartphone?
Keen to tackle this 180-Minute Challenge, I flew to Madrid to spend some time with “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez at the Prado museum. This elaborate self-portrait of the great 17th century artist in his studio beside a young princess and her courtly retinue is one of the most complex, written about and famously enigmatic paintings in the world. This should give me plenty to think about.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
- Do you think you could spend three hours looking at one piece of art? If a teacher were to give you such an assignment, how would you react? Would you embrace the challenge, or would it fill you with dread? Why?
- What is your reaction to Mr. Reyburn’s account of sitting in front of “Las Meninas” for three hours? What stood out to you or surprised you about his experience? Did it make you want to try the challenge yourself?
- If you were to try the three-hour challenge (or even the 10-minute version), what work of art would you choose to look at, and why? Is there a famous painting, drawing, sculpture or photograph that has always intrigued you? Is there some artwork in your own home or local area, or a piece that you or someone you know made, that interests you?
- The article begins with a quote from Justin Rosenstein, a tech entrepreneur: “Everyone is distracted. All of the time.” Does that ring true for you? How much of an issue is distraction in your own life? What strategies do you have for staying present and focused?
- Challenge: Try looking at “Las Meninas” — or an artwork of your choice — for as long as you can. You might start with a goal of 10 minutes, but if you really want to commit, go for the full three-hour assignment. You can use Prof. Jennifer Roberts’s worksheet to help. What did you learn about the piece from looking closely at it? What did you learn about yourself?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
The post Could You Spend Three Hours Looking at Just One Work of Art? appeared first on New York Times.
