[Start Here] What is Cool Stories About Art ? đ¤
An introduction to the newsletter that makes art history fun.
Have you ever had that strange feeling in a museum?
That sense of being surrounded by masterpieces, yet feeling like a bit of an outsider, like youâre missing the main point.
Eleven seconds.
Thatâs the average time a person spends looking at a work of art. The number seemed strangely short to me at first. Then, as I watched visitorsâmyself includedâI realized that figure is often even more fleeting. A furtive glance for a piece that sometimes required years of work, survived centuries, endured fires, looting, wars, thefts, bombs, and the whims of fashion.
During my visits, I realized that, like many, I only understood a tiny fraction of what I was seeing. The unreadable plaques under the paintings donât provide the necessary explanations, and the audio guides are often long and boring, stating the obvious without shedding light on the hidden truths.
I started by buying big art books to learn. The result? I felt like Chrysale in Molièreâs The Learned Ladies:
âOne seeks what he means after he has spoken.â
Finding the Magic
The real breakthrough came with my daughter. Taking her to the museum had become a chore; she would grumble and get bored. I then turned our visits into a treasure hunt: telling anecdotes about the paintersâ lives, searching for hidden details in the paintings. And suddenly, the magic happened. Art became an adventure, and she started to love it.
A Little About Me đš
I am not an art historian. My name is Julien, Iâm a father, and I work in communications in Paris. After seeing the Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam, I decided on a whim to create an Instagram account to share this approach: to make art funny, entertaining, and astonishing. The success confirmed my intuition. Today, there are more than 250,000 of us who want to learn, as long as we are told the right stories.
This newsletter is the next step in that mission.
What You Should Expect from Cool Stories About Art
This project is your shortcut. If you want to learn about art, discover artists, and understand the incredible stories behind the works without spending hours on it, I do the research for you.
You Should Expect:
To dive into incredible stories that youâll binge-read like a Netflix series. Botticelli is a man haunted by an impossible love. Rembrandt, a widower crushed by debt. Rubens, a diplomat. Tintoretto, an ambitious man. Behind every work, there are lives, dramas, and passions.
To discover hidden gems, incredible artists who will brighten your day. I unearth underrated talents, from yesterday and today, for you.
To learn anecdotes and hidden secrets in the lives of painters and in their paintings. Enough to see the works from a new angle and to shine at your next dinner party.
What You Shouldnât Expect:
Academic Jargon. Weâre here to have fun and learn, not to take an exam.
Boring Analysis. We get straight to the point: the emotion, the story, the surprise.
Me to Know Everything. I am a passionate enthusiast who learns and discovers every day, just like you.
Do you like art? History? Good stories? Me too.
This space is for you. For those who love art but are short on time. For those who want to learn while having fun. For those who want to discover new stories and incredible artists.
With these keys, you no longer spend just eleven seconds on a piece of art. You stop. You observe. You linger. You smile.
You no longer just see, you finally begin to look.
Letâs have fun here.
Julien
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Thanks for sharing your story â especially the moment with your daughter and the âtreasure hunt.â It captures that quiet turning point when art stops being something distant and starts belonging to us again.
That âeleven secondsâ insight also stayed with me. I once came across Professor James Cuttingâs Masterpiece Effect study â his findings were so close to what you describe. In this study conducted in 2001, he revealed interesting patterns about how long people gaze at art in museums. I ended up writing about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/elenamostovova/p/art-in-numbers-15-seconds-to-see?r=389ywd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I love this a lot.