How do you museum?
Thinking about different styles of engaging with museums/art galleries (though I think the concept is extensible in other directions).
Start at the first gallery (worked flints) and proceed onwards?
Decide in advance that what you really, really want to see is their collection of C19th samplers and ignore everything else?
Have things you do really want to see and spend quality time with, but walk briskly yet observantly scanning through the other galleries in case there's something of interest.
I think my own practice tends to differ and the size of the museum or gallery will play into this. While there are artefacts in the Gulbenkian in Lisbon which do not fall into the category of things I normally go out of my way to look at, it's such a relatively small and personal collection and so exceedingly choice with the things he did collect that everything probably deserves a short pause of appreciation.
However, in larger and more miscellaneous collections I try and strategise (and on the whole, you can keep your collections of arms and armour, and I will probably be taking your Annunaciations and Nativities at a gallop). I do not want to be woozy with Stendhal syndrome, or just plain exhaustion, by the time I get to the Ruysdaels or the Monets or the Hepworths.
And sometimes it is surprising what a somewhat dutiful visit to some collection that is not a thing one's usually much bothered about can reveal.
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