Here's an article to get your hair standing on end.

[enlightenment]

It's got a little of everything: an attack on the humanities; an attack on atheists; an attack on rational thought and critical thinking. Nice that he feels he only has to convince 'half an audience' - I assume it's the half that already agrees with him, because I don't think the other half is going to be the least bit convinced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12308952

Museums should help us to live better lives, but they are little more than dead libraries for the creations of the past, says Alain de Botton in his weekly column.

The other week, I made the suggestion that university departments teaching the humanities are not quite doing their job right and should take a leaf from religion in offering people guidance, rather than just the tools for critical thinking.

The idea generated a lot of heat. I've rarely received as many emails, roughly split between those who thought I was onto something and those who preferred to have me locked up. But my overall thesis about our need for guidance still strikes me as valid and worth exploring in terms of its repercussions in other areas. So today, with only half an audience to convince, I want to look at museums.

One of the things that even committed atheists tend to agree with religious people about is that religions do have some really great art, but militant atheists tend not to get too sentimental or nostalgic about this. If you love art but have no time for God, they tell you, remember that secular societies have developed their own, highly effective means of satisfying the artistic appetites once fed by the faiths - museums.
<snip>

[cleanhippie]

1. His use of the term "militant atheists" leads me to believe he is an asshole

so i stopped reading after that.

[enlightenment]

2. It gets worse - though he shifts focus from atheist and humanities

bashing to 'musuems are boring and should be telling people how to feel' for the rest of the article.

The comments are amusing; most people are dismissive of his position (rightly so) - but a sprinkling of 'artists' applaud the idea. Apparently, they want the museums to make sure people understand that their stick figure/ink blot/recycled newspaper installation piece is a masterpiece of incredible emotional depth.

[onager]

3. The usual dopery - "Everyone should agree with my personal feelings."

Jebus, what a load of subjective, religion-toadying crap. Getting inspired is my job, not the job of the museum staff. Their job is simply to show me the stuff and let me make up my own mind. At least I always thought that was the whole point of the humanities.

As a commenter noted - anyone who visits the Louvre and is NOT inspired...well, they're probably just uninspirable.

Egypt has two of the worst organized and most chaotic museums in the world - the Egyptian Musuem in Cairo (Tut's home) and the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria. That doesn't stop thousands of tourists from flocking to them.

I really loved the Graeco-Roman Museum. A religious-like theme? The G-R Museum had that in spades! One minute you're looking at a massive statue of Marcus Aurelius, vandalized by an early Xian. The Roman imperial eagle had been hacked off his belt buckle, replaced with a cross chiseled in by some amateur religious art critic. But they didn't touch the big Medusa on his breast-plate.

Turn a corner and you're in the presence of a truly awe-inspiring piece of religious art - a huge mummified crocodile, honoring Sobek the crocodile god.

Turn another corner, and there's a statue of Cleopatra (they think), dressed as the goddess Isis and dancing in a religious ceremony. I sure hope that's Cleopatra. Because she's wearing a cryptic Mona-Lisa like smile that seems to say: "I don't really believe I'm Isis for a second, but the religious dunderheads expect me to do this sort of thing, so I'll play along to keep the peace."

And this...

In this revamping we might look for inspiration to a great Christian church, let's take the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice...The building throws together sculptures, paintings, metalwork and window traceries from across centuries and regions because it is more interested in the coherence of art's impact on our souls than in the coherence of the origins and stylistic inclinations of the people who produced the art.

ALL of Venice is like that. In most places, it looks like the Veneitans just jammed stuff in wherever they had room. Which is most likely exactly what happened. He also doesn't mention that much of the "sculptures, paintings, metalwork and window traceries" were looted from other countries. Including churches.

Playing Amateur Art Critic Myself: I notice he didn't mention the most famous "planned" artwork in Venice, the Doge's Palace. It features huge murals on just about every ceiling and wall, some painted by famous artists. But of course, it's a purely secular building and didn't fit into his propaganda theme.