What Museum Guards See

When my daughter was young, we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City attempting to work out the contorted spatial dynamics of El Greco’s Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1605–10). But we were stumped. Thankfully, a guard passing by gently interjected himself into our tête-à-tête and clarified everything. Who else could have worked it out? He had spent so many hours over who knows how many years in this very room, eyes on El Greco. By now, I can’t remember exactly what that man told us, but only because since then I just see the painting the way he taught us to see it.