“I am a museum pedestrian”

What motivated you to write this “travel diary” of French museums?

For my job as well as for my passion, I have been a real museum pedestrian for years. I wander around, I observe their works, the rooms, the visitors and I take notes. I wanted to show that you can admire masterpieces everywhere in France and not just at the Louvre. They are often the simplest and most direct access to culture. As a child, in Caen (Calvados), I myself began to become interested in art thanks to workshops at the museum on Wednesdays. We made medieval-style noodle necklaces, or we were introduced to ancient engraving… This book is an invitation to discover them.

For you, museums are alive…

Very alive! I disagree with this cliché which endures hard, even at the highest level of those responsible for culture: museums are not dusty! On the contrary. A great movement of renovation and innovation has awakened them. It began with museums of civilization and archeology in the 1990s and over the past fifteen years those which exhibit fine arts have also been transformed.

According to what directions?

In my book, I make fun of initiatives such as “doing yoga at the museum” which seem anecdotal to me… But I admire the dynamism of our curators who experiment with all kinds of ideas to make their museum less intimidating. We must also pay tribute to the work of the mediators, the teachers who accompany the groups and lead workshops. I remember that already, in the 1980s, my high school mathematics teacher had us calculate perspective from the columns of a temple… in front of a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Perugino! We can thus help children identify the animals in a painting, identify the flowers on a sculpture… there are multiple entrances to access art and the history of our civilizations. I would add that many municipalities have chosen to make permanent collections free in order to encourage attendance. And it works!

Isn’t the hanging of the works also important?

This is essential. We are coming out of a “minimalist” period where we needed white walls with a single canvas in the center and labels that said nothing. Fortunately, today, many museums highlight the architecture of the place – often heritage – in which they present the works, while creating more intimate and welcoming atmospheres, with walls painted in strong colors. They are again exhibiting more works per room and giving more explanations. Personally, I have a particular attachment to the Condé museum at the Château de Chantilly, in Oise, created by the Duke of Aumale in 1886. The latter imposed on the Institut de France*, its legatee, do not modify its museography. So much so that you feel like you’re going back in time. Not only does this create an attraction for the visitor who discovers how works were presented a century and a half ago, but he also feels like he is visiting a collector’s apartment. It’s a real experience and that’s what today’s visitors demand.

* This brings together the five Academies, including the French Academy and that of Fine Arts.