Alain De Botton discusses the failings and potential of museums on BBC Radio 4's A Point of View... listen to full version here

museums are "incabable of adequately linking these objects to the needs of our souls"

"..they present them to us in bland and academic ways that fail to engage in the real potential of art, which is, I argue, to change us for the better"

"why don't they use pretty things to try and change us..?"

"what if art had a specific purpose? to make us good and kind"

"what if we gave up on neutral bland captions and had specific and direct instructions like look at this picture and remember to be patient - art not just for art sake, so unambitious"

"why can't art be explicitly FOR something..?"

I Thought this was interesting when thinking about the 'experience' people have when faced with a piece of art and also, when thinking about the intention of the artist - how much information is enough or too much?Does it have to be intuitive? about how we feel or the artist feels? is there a place for art that demands us to '"change for the better" so explicitly? Why do I still feel that the experience is more precious? Maybe because making explicit demands is dictating and reducing the viewers participation to the bare minimum, maybe there's value in working and engaging with art, maybe it's something to do with intimacy and reaching far deeper than anything "pretty that informs us on how to be better" . but maybe I'm doing the same, maybe we are all doing the same by trying to direct our viewer or 'participant'...blah..

Quotes are not completely accurate!