Does Seeing Art in a Museum Make Us Sensual?

On a number of occasions, and there have been plenty, while giving tours at my local museum, I’ve noticed that sometimes a couple may show a lovely display of affection while I’m speaking to them about the art they’re looking at. As a docent, I find this quite exciting because if there’s an objective I have while giving a tour, it is to invite people to dwell inside the art as deeply as possible, to help them spend more time than the average ten seconds that visitors look at art in any museum. And so, yesterday afternoon, a middle-aged couple began to get quite affectionate upon entering the first gallery. This was prior to my long introduction of the museum and some of the architectural spaces that I like to introduce. I often quote the Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa, who says that the world is infinite and so architecture, in many ways, grounds us into a more intimate space. As my tour progressed, the affection between the couple continued. In fact, it only grew. Because I’ve…