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sometimes so concerned with processing all the
information that I didn’t actually see much.” That
changed when she started to only pay attention to
the small things that she noticed and liked about a
painting. She started photographing them—initially just
to remember them. But as time went by, she collected
an archive full of beautiful, remarkable and curious
details. “Every time I looked at those photos, I’d have
new thoughts about them and make new associations,”
she says. “Then I realized: In an era where so many
visual stimuli are coming at us, it might be nice to just
look at the details when viewing art. Because little
things often have a hidden meaning, particularly in
the older paintings. It would be much nicer if we
abandoned the idea that we have to see everything
when we visit a museum. You simply can’t take in
everything that’s there. Your brain can’t handle that,
so it’s better to accept it.”
Van Zeil advises people to decide how many rooms
they want to visit before going to a museum, then to cut
that number in half and select one painting per room,
and to look at that painting for as long as they would
have normally taken to walk around the entire room.DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION
“If you consciously focus on some details, you will see
much more than if you just look around a bit,” says
Dutch professor of cognitive psychology, Stefan van
der Stigchel. He also carries out research into attention
processes, and wrote the book How Attention Works:
Finding Your Way in a World Full of Distraction. “Our
brain can’t process all the information we’re getting, so
we always have to filter it,” he explains. “And then you
have two choices: You can let your attention be guided
by everything that’s going on around you—for example,
when someone enters a room, your attention goes
there. Or when a painting in a museum has a lot of
bright colors, it attracts your attention. But you can also
direct your attention yourself by focusing on somethingWhen Dutch art historian and journalist Wieteke van Zeil
passes through the park, she always pays attention to the
birds—especially to swallows. Her interest in this specific
bird is new. She saw a beautiful medieval painting of
Madonna and Child in the Bonnefantenmuseum in
Maastricht, the Netherlands, some time ago, and she
was intrigued by the swallow on the child’s little hand.
It piqued her curiosity. “Details like this are never
included in a painting without reason,” she says. “I
started looking online to find out the swallow’s specific
symbolism. It turns out that, because these birds
disappear in the winter and return around Easter, they
came to symbolize the resurrection—new life—in the
Middle Ages. Now, thanks to that painting, I’m always
noticing swallows, and have become very fond of these
little birds.”CURIOUS DETAILS
“Developing an eye for detail helps you to see art
better,” Van Zeil says. Many people feel a bit
overwhelmed by the great number of paintings in a
museum. They don’t know where to start, which Van
Zeil can understand. “I also sometimes used to be
quite overcome by the plethora of art in a museum,”
she says. “When I went to an exhibition, I was‘Little things often
have a hidden
meaning, particularly
in the older paintings’