The Lowe Art Museum is located just outside the main entrance of the University of Miami on Stanford Drive. The museum had several visitors visiting it the day I visited, but as you move away from the main atrium, the building becomes almost silent. The only conversations you hear are whispers and the movement of the security guard through the rooms about every two minutes. The absence of sound allows you to fully grasp the beauty of the work of art. While walking through the different galleries, I came across the "Sheldon and Myrna Palley Gallery" which houses European art. Unlike the other rooms that are separated only by an entrance through the wall, this gallery is closed off by glass doors and has a different feel than the rest of the Lowe Art Museum. The rooms are relatively dark as the small lights on the ceiling only point up the walls towards the paintings. The walls are painted a dark magenta color which contributes to the lack of light in the room. Immediately after entering this gallery, however, a distinct scent hit me. The smell is difficult to describe, but it is that of old wood and dust, perhaps coming from frames and paintings dating back to the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. When you enter the room, you can't help but feel pulled into each one. each painting. The knowledge that the artwork hanging on the walls was created hundreds of years ago and still exists in pristine order makes these artworks relics to me. Observing the still and almost silent gallery, I couldn't help but think that each of these paintings is a window into the past. In his essay Ways of Seeing, John Berger states that “An image became a record of how X had seen Y” (136). At the time the paintings in this gallery were painted… medium on paper… according to their market value, it became the substitute for what the paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible” (146). Confirming Berger's thesis, when I saw this work of art, I was amazed. He invited me in and I spent a long period of time looking at it and learning more about it. While the museum environment enriched my experience of viewing the artwork, if the original painting had appeared as vibrant and colorful as the reproduction, the painting would have been even more intriguing. If I had seen the reproduction first, I know I would not have been invested in this work of art. Art must be appreciated, appreciated and respected. Works of art speak to everyone differently, and when asked the right questions, they can yield great answers. In an age where cameras and images are dominant, original works of art must be cared for and appreciated.