The Best Art Museum in the World
They say the best camera is the one you have with you
Canajoharie.
I’ve been all over the world, but seldom have I found a name more fun to say.
Canajoharie.
Go ahead, say it out loud.
Canajoharie, New York, is best known as the home of Beech-Nut Foods, manufacturer of tiny jars of pureed carrots and such. For me, it’s the home of the Arkell Museum, my favorite in the world.
I was in Canajoharie as part of the Cycle the Erie Canal group ride—750 cyclists crossing New York State on the 400-mile Erie Canal towpath. On these big rides, the organizers supply everything you need, arrange for campsites, and transport your luggage from place to place and all the historic little towns roll out the red carpet for the riders, setting up little stands directing the visitors to their shops, restaurants, and historic sites. Canajoharie is one of the best of those towns, with a vibrant little village and lots of independent bars and shops.
There’s a commemorative plaque that says George Washington once slept there, and I like to imagine the father of our country saying, “Canajoharie.”
The Arkell Museum was founded with Beech-Nut money early in the 20th century. The smallish museum doesn’t have the heft of those multi-block institutions in New York City, but it has a fine collection with interesting works by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargeant, and a slew of pieces from the Hudson River School, as you’d expect from its location adjacent to the Hudson River.
The word “curation” lost its weight sometime around 2017 when marketers started applying it to everything from overpriced hotel rooms to exotic burger toppings, but it is precisely the word for how the art in the Arkell flows from gallery to gallery. Every piece matters, and even the small paintings deserve some time. And because the museum is small and focused, there is time for them.
That’s one of the things that struck me—the Arkell is just the right size. When you visit the Met or the British Museum, you can’t help but feel the lure of the next Renaissance Masterpiece in the next gallery. It keeps you moving and it shifts your focus away from what is in front of you.
As a novelist, my instinct is to always look for the narrative. And the big museums are always ready with the story behind a piece of work. Touring the Met with an audio guide can help you appreciate the art and its context in marvelous ways. But the mind latches onto the story, and the story directs the eye and determines how the picture will be framed in your memory.
With no expectations and no tour guide, I found myself focusing on the works that caught my attention, sitting on a bench, sipping my wine, and taking in a piece I never heard of, by an artist I wasn’t familiar with.
The greatest compliment you can give an artist is to give your attention fully to the art, to set aside your other concerns and to focus and to be absorbed by it. To be present.
And I’ll tell you this—It is damned near impossible to be present for a Van Gogh in the Rijksmuseum. People jostle and talk, you worry that your timed ticket won’t allow you enough time to see the next masterpiece, and you focus on the story of the artist and his story. If you’re lucky, you’ll see everything about the painting you’re supposed to and nothing more.
But if you wait your turn, you can still get your selfie with good ol’ One-Ear.
That evening at the Arkell was different. I did not know what the next gallery held. I didn’t have a list of works that I needed to see. I didn’t feel like my time with a piece was taking away from the next person’s time. In the Arkell, I could sit and let a landscape envelop me. I didn’t know if the painter had grown up poor in London or rich in New Haven. Whether that gathering of picnickers in the lower corner on the left were patrons that supported him or the family that he’d lost in a tragic fire, I could just experience the painting.
When I think of the best kind of travel, I think of my time in that museum. It was discovery and revelation and pleasure. I chase that experience every day.
I’ll go back to the Arkell someday. Canajoharie isn’t so far off the beaten path, and I plan to ride the Canal Trail again eventually.
Of course, you can’t go home again. And the next time I go to the Arkell, it will disappoint. My anticipation and my memory will poison the experience. Not fatally, of course. And I’ll make a point of taking a selfie while I’m there.
Song of the Week
“I’d like to go back to the Louvre Museum, get a good running start and hurl myself against the wall, because I’d rather feel bad than feel nothing at all.”
Warren Zevon has been on my mind a lot lately, and Ain’t That Pretty At All felt like the obvious song for this post. I was going to post the studio version, which I adore, but this 1982 performance came up, and I love it. I saw Zevon many times, but never in this form. Of course, I only saw him after he cleaned up, and it’s possible this show was fueled by some rather self-destructive behavior.
So long, Norman.
Terrific piece, Daren. And I somewhat agree with Levon about the Louvre!
I’ll put that on my list! Thanks!