When we’re tourists, are we spending too little time looking at works of art?
Are we checking things off the list too quickly?
The director of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery wants to change this habit by modifying ticket prices to reward repeat visits, including in the early mornings and off season, and punish people who “come in for a selfie in front of Botticelli’s Venus”, discouraging “hit-and-run tourism”.
Jonathan Jones at The Guardian writes, “‘Slow tourism’ starts if we simply step away from the throng, let it pass by, and look a little longer. Literally slow down. Give the art a bit of time to work on you. Imagine you are watching a film: relax, stand back (or up close), and allow your eyes to wander over the surface of, say, Leonardo da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi, feeling the mystery of its shadows, the hook of its imagery, the depth of its space.”