Why Do Museum Patrons Hurt the Ones They Love?

In a letter responding to Anthony M. Amore’s editorial “No ‘Thomas Crown Affair’” in The New York Times about the recent robbery at the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Georgia Museum of Art guard Ed Tant acknowledged the very real threat posed by thieves, but fingered a very different, less publicized, but more insidiously silent danger to art in museums—museum patrons. After 12 years on the job, Tant describes his primary everyday task as “protecting the art from the art lovers.” From intentional vandalism to accidental encounters with masterpieces, why do museum patrons hurt the ones they love? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why Do Museum Patrons Hurt the Ones They Love?"