This is a Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing exercise about looking slowly. But before we get to the actual exercise, I’m going to give you another story.

I originally did this exercise back in late September/early October. I scheduled the post ahead of time, with the body of the post being five pictures and a note to myself to check my notes. This would have been fine if I had actually put the correct pictures in the body of the post. However, I put in the pictures from the post I did last week of the basement panel covers…

So when I went to write this post I sort of scratched my head and had to take a moment to think about what I had done. Would you call that irony for a post that is supposed to highlight how to look at things slowly?

I had to retrace my steps. Figure out which of my idea notebooks my notes were in (when I go someplace to take notes I do it the old fashioned pen and paper route) When I found my notes, (which I didn’t label by the way- I was lucky to notice how I phrased something) I could figure out the approximate date and I went back to the pictures that I had in my WordPress media account from around that date, and luckily I found the pictures that corresponded to my notes. (I actually had two sets of the pictures in the media file, so apparently that was a particularly busy time for me) FYI- I don’t keep a lot of the photos that I take- I delete everything except the things I really love, so there’s no way I would have found these on my phone.

Way too much work for a Sunday morning…

But now I present to you the actual exercise, which was to look at an item for TEN minutes (FYI- the Met did a story and apparently the average person spends 17 seconds looking at a work) Personally, I only really look at the things that I like or that interest me, and even then I know I don’t look for more than five, unless I’m REALLY intrigued.

Couple Drinking Chocolate
Writing Desk/Table
Snuff Box
Sofa
Cabinet

I spent ten minutes with each of these works.

What did I find?

I noticed little details that I think I would have missed if I spent 17 seconds looking at them. My favorite observations:

  1. Couple – I thought is this what love looks like, or is it flirtation? I wondered about this couple, who they were, what their relationship was. When I really looked at this I imagined their story more than I looked at the craftsmanship, though I was intrigued by the artist’s color choices.
  2. Desk/Table- After I quickly admired the craftsmanship, I began to imagine who actually used this. It looked short, so I imagined this was something a woman used instead of a man. I wondered if it was used to write love letters, because there was a draw that could be locked. Would it make a good vanity? I thought about who would use it and why, and immediately made up stories in my head about the “owner” of the piece.
  3. Snuff Box- I admired the craftsmanship of this piece, and wondered what it would feel like to hold it- would it be rough as I imagined or smooth- would it be heavy or light? It looked large to be a snuff box, so I immediately wondered about who would own it and how they would use it. I can’t seem to get past making up stories about imaginary owners of things.
  4. Sofa-After observing the details, the scrolling, the color, the braiding, the first thing I noted was how someone would sit on this. If a woman was wearing the fashion of the day it would have been a large dress- did she only put part of her body on the sofa? How small were people’s butts anyway. Then I immediately thought of the who would use it and what they would say to one another.
  5. Cabinet- This was incredibly intricate, and from a distance it was too hard to take in all the intricacies. With this object I wondered more about the craftsman/artist who made the piece. How did they do it? It’s so intricate and detailed and there are so many layers to this. This was the only object that I didn’t make up a story in my head to go along with it.

This was a very interesting exercise. Have you ever tried to look at one thing for ten minutes?

71 thoughts on “Look Slowly”

  1. I admire your patience. I maybe stay about a minute or 2. Now when I go to the zoo I can spend 20 minutes just looking at the animals there. Each animal that is. I love animals and I love to watch them in there man made habitat.

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    2. I get that! There was one section in the Met that I really loved and I once went to the museum with a friend. We entered together and set a meeting place in an hour. He came back saying he was done, I got through half a room I loved. It doesn’t apply to every art for, there are some I can’t jog by fast enough 🏃‍♀️ 😁

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  3. I love your deep observations/reflections about how the desk was used…and the sofa…and by whom…and what they looked like. What a fantastic exercise to challenge your visual senses…and then your imagination. Love, love, love it! 🥰

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  4. I can’t imagine approaching an entire museum in this way! What an eye-opener though, just looking and letting your thoughts go where they want. What a fantastic way to spark the creative process but I think no matter what you’re observing it would have to be confined to 1 or 2 things in a day and then how do you choose- or do you let the item put itself out there and choose for you?

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    1. Normally, when I’m doing my museum rooms in order, I walk around the room, and the object that holds my interest the most I go and look at for about two minutes, and I try not to do more than seven galleries in a day. Doing five items for ten minutes was really hard. However, I did one up with some fun thoughts

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  5. As an aside – I believe the sofa was a ‘wooing couch’. The young couple would need chaperones who would sit on the individual corner seats, offering the couple ‘privacy’, while making sure nothing improper was going on.

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  6. I think I spent about 10-15 minutes staring at da Vinci’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ at the National Gallery in London because it was just so perfect. I noticed how da Vinci doesn’t use space the same way as other Renaissance artists, and his weird backgrounds, and his unique shading and the expressions on the women’s faces. I’ll usually spend at least a few minutes looking at pieces that I enjoy, and there have been plenty at the local art museum that I’ll go back to over and over again (when they’re being displayed, anyway).

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      2. I circle the specific gallery/room and settle in one thing to look at. Big, special exhibits at the Met I might see multiple times. When I travel I admit I look at website first and decide what things I want to see, otherwise my brain goes into overload.

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      3. Yeah, I hit a wall when it came to museums in London. There were just too many and so much stuff to look at, which is a shame because I ended up breezing through the Tate Britain and skipping the Tate Modern altogether. Which just means I need to go back to London to see them, I guess

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  7. It’s easy to spend 10 minutes looking into the forest behind our house while sitting on our deck. 17 seconds per piece of art? Now that’s ridiculous. Why bother going to the museum to begin with?

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  8. Observation is beautiful and interesting exercise. I love going on solo coffee dates just to observe human behaviour and habits. There is a story in the way people look at each other.

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  9. I wonder how the people could talk to each other on that couch since the side seats seem to indicate the person’s back would be to the one sitting on the main couch. I just got the Art of Noticing book from Barnes and Nobel over the weekend because of your posts about it. Looking forward to doing the exercises myself.

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  10. I love museums, but I think this is a difficult exercise mainly because of attention span in this microwave generation. Two things that make it harder is that I am usually with someone and feel somewhat obligated to adjust to their pace and there is so much to see and a limited time to do it in. I understand that it was not an easy exercise for you either, but your way of going to the museum alone and limiting the number of galleries you visit would be helpful. I think I will try it sometime with a painting in my home and see what happens, but honestly it makes me a little anxious to even think about it. I can pursue an activity for hours, but even the idea of meditation is hard for me and I think this would be akin to that. Is that just who I am or have I unintentionally trained myself to be that way? Your post topics tend to bring up other topics!

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  11. Very impressive! Just think how long it takes to create a masterpiece and then people barely glance at it . 😬 Observation, listening , doing on thing at a time, waiting : all endangered species.

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  13. Wow – what an interesting exercise. 10 minutes is a long time and I love what you noticed when you spent the time.

    But I’m still hung up that you regularly delete things from your phone camera roll. Impressive! Reminds me of a post from year quite a while ago about your very clean drafts folder on WP. Also impressive!

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  15. I can watch ocean waves for a lot longer than 10 minutes but staring at an object, that is a challenge. Impressive though the details you came up. Pictures do get your imagination going! Love how you think of stories as well. I was doing that when I looked at your pictures. “How small were people’s butts anyway?” LOL! 🙂
    Next time I am in a museum or looking at an object I will try to take more time and see what happens.
    Now off the subject but having to do with pictures … I am reaching the max limit for my pictures in my media library on WP. I can delete pics one by one, but please tellme that there is an easier way to delete. Thanks!

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    1. Alas I delete from my camera roll but not so much from WordPress. I’m guessing you can hold for multiple photos though in media. Though with this jet pack thing I don’t know anything. I successfully migrated on my iPad. Hoping it’s a no brained on my phone

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      1. Yes its a huge amount of storage considering that I use pics just about every day and just now getting maxed out. Will let you know what I find out or I may get tired of looking and just start deleting one by one as I drink some tea. LOL!

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  16. I honestly can’t say I ever looked at something for a full 10 minutes. But I have been aware of what was present around me, I sat outside while waiting for a restaurant to open and observed, by using my senses, the surroundings outside on a fall day. I heard the wind blowing the dried fall leaves and the limbs of the trees as they creaked. There so many things that I learned to use my senses better and to be still and observe. I love your idea and actually went to an art museum and was awed by the details of each painting. But I wish now I had wondered about everything by its effects on me and made up stories about what I saw. I will try to do that sometime soon! Thanks for a delightful observational post. (Loved the size of the butts that could fit on the couch.)

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  17. I like this idea of taking time to look. I’ll need to try that the next time I’m out somewhere. I have to say that with the writing table, once I got past its appearance and that I loved the floor – I started to imagine what it would be like to use the desk. What I’d store in the drawers … I was setting it up as my new desk – I am looking for a new desk 😁

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  18. Can’t say I ever had. Now on the other hand, I have been to museums that have a lot to look at like The Strong Museum of Toys in Rochester or The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland..you can’t help but spend minutes looking in order to absorb everything, but one solitary piece ? Probably never.

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  19. I just spent 7 hours in chemotherapy today. So ten min observing a work of art is easy Peasy compared to endless hours getting blasted with chemo. I came home fell asleep for two hours and then woke and read your blog.

    I Love the observation challenge! And looking at something for ten minutes is not unusual for me. I take my my time when observing. I’ve always taken my time when looking at works of art. I enjoy critiquing paintings and other types of visual art. I try to imagine what was in the artist’s mind while he or she created their work. If it’s a sculpture I observe every curve. If it’s a painting I look at the colors, the brush strokes, all that the artist revealed. I go Gaga over beautiful wood work on furniture of yesteryear. The hand made perfection of a time when craftsmanship was important is a thing of beauty! .
    Ten minutes would pass quickly. I remember a few years back The Henry Flagler museum had an exhibit on the top floor of the mansion filled with hand made lace and linen summer dresses . The handmade linen was exquisite and I spent hours looking at the group of items. Each dress was a work of art. The lace was simply gorgeous and delicate. As if fairies had woven …I could visualize the women who wore these dresses and petticoats.
    So yes, I love to look at fine handiwork and a variety of artwork in paintings and woodwork or sculptures etc.
    After sitting for hours getting pumped with chemo, a trip to a museum would be a beautiful escape into the minds and creations of talented people from the past. How inspirational! What a lovely day you had! ❤️
    Lovely post LA.

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  20. That’s a long time to look. I just recently visited a couple of major museums, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t spend more that a couple of minutes – or fewer – on most pieces. Some, maybe three minutes. I have to say that if there was someone looking at a piece that I wanted to see and they stood there for ten minutes, I may have been arrested for assault. Move on, why don’t you? 🙂

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  24. Rob,

    I did the same exercise you did last week, and I had to retrace my steps because I had forgotten which of my notebooks my notes were in when I took them to that spot to take notes. I think that’s irony for you. I like how you think about things.

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