The fading art of elegant gallery dining

We live in times generally unfriendly to ritual, religious or civic. For 50 years at least, churches have stripped away once-glorious liturgical rituals in order, they say, to render themselves more accessible, even as pews have emptied. On the civic side, great art museums – some would say the cathedrals of our secular age – once invited visitors to a ritual that gave a rest to the feet and the eyes while enhancing the experience of being there in the first place. It was called having lunch.

Visual attentiveness requires energy even if, like me, you shy away from reading the labels. Energy requires calories. This may be why, circumstances permitting, I am a morning museum-goer. A good breakfast behind me, I like to be there when the doors open, at the pitch of alertness in anticipation of revisiting or seeing afresh portraits, peeled lemons, skies and landscapes and all the rest.