But these were small shifts. More sweeping changes were limited by certain factors. For one, museums hadn’t considered the problem of storage when they were first built, which meant there was no place to put the art except the walls. Then there was the question of selection—who would be responsible for deciding which works remained hanging and which did not? Professional curators didn’t exist in the 19th century; in fact, it was this issue of overcrowding that led to the creation of the job in the early 20th century.

So, while these issues had been first aired in Europe, it fell to American museums at the turn of the century to put solutions into practice. In 1909, Boston’s Museum of Fine Art moved into a new Beaux Arts building that displayed only the most significant artworks, with lesser ones stored in the basement and accessible only to scholars. The galleries were well-lit and generously sized. While paintings were still stacked on top of one another in symmetrical arrangements, the MFA limited itself to two rows instead of floor-to-ceiling displays. Each work was given room to breathe, separated from the others by a strip of empty wall.

“In addition to being more selective in what works of art went on display, there was a lot of interesting discussion in the early 20th century about what conditions should prevail inside the museum to heighten appreciation,” said McClellan. “There was an interesting round of experimentation with lighting in particular, but also other configurations of pictures on walls to arrive at what was thought to be the most successful overall approach to display.”

This was epitomized by Benjamin Ives Gilman, the secretary of the Boston MFA from 1893 to 1925, who published the first empirical study of museum-going in 1918. He had a number of suggestions to combat what he termed “museum fatigue,” including changes in display that would keep visitors from crouching or bending over to see works clearly. Gilman also recommended avoiding the “perpetual variety of wall coloring, found in many newer museums” in favor of a uniform light gray-brown or dull yellow-gray.