"According to a study by Rome's Institute of Psychology and Psychoanalysts, museums are aphrodisiacs. Apparently something in the dust, the smell of old canvas, and the artwork itself stimulates Eros. The institute polled 2000 Italians, and 20% of them admitted to having an "erotic" experience inside a museum. The phenomenon has been dubbed the "Rubens Syndrome". A junior Italian culture minister, who admitted to making love inside a museum, explains, "People who like to go to museums feel love. Love for art and love for eroticism are, therefore, completely compatible and transferable." The institute ranked Italy's sexiest museums, and the Uffizi came in fourth, after Genova's Palazzo del Principe Doria, Milan's Pinacotec di Brera, and Turin's Galleria d'Arte Moderna." -- In Love in Italy, Monica Larner
For more information on the Uffizi - www.uffizi.firenze.it
Interesting topic! I agree, but I think the aphrodisiac is: people who share one's interest in art; people who are intelligent; people who are attractive and often sexy in an artsy way; being open to art and random encounters. I almost always like the people watching much better than the stuff on the walls. I've tried the audio headphones bit the last 2x at LACMA, but feel it cuts one off from people, conversations, encounters...and the narration was vapid anyway.
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