What does happen when museums forbid their visitors from taking pictures?

The pics in our gallery are deadly blurred because they have been stolen, as thousands of other similar pictures you will find on-line. At Palazzo Pitti’s Galleria Palatina, in Florence, as in many other Italian museums, visitors are not allowed to take photos; even if they don’t use flash, or if they ask to photograph only the caption of the artwork. Is it a right policy? We don’t think so. Considering how much money the Italian government has invested during the years to catalogue its artistic heritage, without any success, and considering also the lack of communication that the poor Italian museums lament today, it is crazy not to let visitors – who pay a ticket by the way – to share their experience with whom they like. Even a always packed museum such as the Louvre in Paris knows that its visitors are its best promoters. The Getty, in Los Angeles, gives free access to the digital images, in high resolution, of its collection. The masterpieces of the Galleria degli Uffizi are already available on the Google Art Project (Andrea del Sarto’s iconic Madonna of the Harpies included). So, what is the sense, today, of prohibiting to take a snap? Why preventing such masterpieces to jump into the present through the perception of their admirers? And of course no web site is available to complain.

August 6, 2015