I find that I am seldom in the mood for viewing art merely because I am in the position to visit a gallery at a particular time. I think any picture, like a piece of music, needs repeated attention to properly appreciate. Visits to an art icon are thus largely procedural. I think curators and the like should take whatever pragmatic steps they feel necessary to manage their charges.

Henry Percy, London, UK

We visited The Louvre last August at the height of the summer tourist season. Yes the area around the Mona Lisa was crowded but quite orderly. One very good thing, the stewards ushered children to the front of the crowds so that they could all see the painting easily. My family and I thought that was a very special thing to do as my grandchildren live in Canada and aren't often in Paris.

Angela, Ashford,

These attractions are often overcrowded because of the state bureaucracy administering them. They only open during office hours (plus the odd evening and weekend) and charge everybody the same ticket price. Of course there are unpleasant crowds at the busiest times.

The market solution would be to open 24 hours a day, only allow a certain number of people in per hour, and auction the tickets. Then nobody would be in unpleasant crowds, those who were prepared to go in the middle of the night would get in for next to nothing, and those who want to go in the middle of a summer's day would pay dearly for the privilege.

Sadly, the state bureaucracies in charge much prefer short working hours and easily-administered fixed ticket prices, so there is no chance that this solution could be tried.

Dr. Keith Anderson, Durham, England

Simple supply and demand problem:

1. Jack up the price.

2. Subsidize or give away tickets to university art departments and tours of worthy interested parties who don't otherwise have the means to pay the higher price.

3. Digitize the art at high resolution (in 3d for statues and buildings) and put it online for free.

#3 is the real test of faith for the curators since it has the potential to really reduce their income, and yet helps the most with preservation.

J, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

I'm inclined to agree with you. It is well known that flash photography releases bursts of damaging ultraviolet and fades the paintings. There are ample signs in the Louvre and d'Orsay stating this in several languages, and yet the hoardes continue to walk up to a vivid Van Gough and grab a snap.

I don't understand it - you can buy a lovely print taken by a professional photographer in the gift shop that will be higher resolution and impeccably lit and focused, but they do it anyhow. I found it apalling.

Todd Blanchard, Bainbridge Island, WA

Tracy Roth, you do not know what you are on about. It is not just paintings and the like that are at risk. Landscapes and buildings suffer from footfall. There is a kind of failure brought on by success. I have seen more than one venture destroyed in that way. But perhaps you are just one the US Amrican women. or descendant thereof, who ruined my visit to the Louver and the Mona Lisa. I was twelve and it was forty-two years ago. I went to be in the presence of Beauty and Greatness. I found myself in the presence of Ignorance and Crassness. Ignorance is forgivable, but to express it as derision is Crass. Let people go where they want to and not where they think they ought to.

Corin Keiler-Lloyd, Wolverhampton, UK

That's funny...the original residents of the Louvre felt just the same way about the teeming masses that queued outside for bread...and assigned equally snobbish and elitist opinions upon them.

Tracey Roth, Danbury, Connecticut, USA

As you might expect, Spanish guides have created a more mature method for dealing with monument tourists than the French or Italians. Visitors to the Alhambra for example are limited to 7000 each day. If you fail to purchase a timed ticket at least a day before, you are free to join the daily queue for one at the entrance which begins to form around 6.30am.
Organised groups take precedence at all times as they must employ a guide. Groups of over 30 require 2 guides. Their rate is a negotiated 150-180 Euros per guide per group. (each extra language 15-20 Euros) Many manage 3 tours each day, some 7 days a week.

seamus, spain,

The idea of replicating the most important works of art is intriguing, but what do you do with Venica? Do you replicate the whole lagoon? Anyhow, if you go during the dead season, you can still see the museums (and Venice) without fiighting the hordes of tourists.

renato baserga, Philadelphia,PA, USA

This is a hideously elitist argument, but I'm afraid you are right. Umberto Eco suggested a few years ago building replicas of Italy's most important "sights" for mass visits.
I'm very pleased to have known most of the great museums in the 1970s, when I used to show art history students around the Uffizi and other European museums in the summer and thus have good memories of the paintings. Now I avoid the Uffizi, but fortunately in Rome, Florence and Paris (to cite just the cities you mention) there are plenty of "unknown" galleries with enough paintings to satisfy us and still today few visitors.
Or you can move to China, as I have, and begin your aesthetic life from scratch. Better than Giaconda and Primavera under plastic!

william dunn, Beijing, China

'Virtual galleries' need to be further developed. The technology exists, but work has been half-hearted, and most gallery sites remain primitive. It is true that nothing beats the experience of looking at a masterpiece 'in the flesh', so to speak, but I too have visited the Louvre many times, and the reality is of peering at the thing (or bits of it) through a surging human tide for a few moments - before the tide sweeps me onwards. I and doubtless many others would settle for virtual reality as an excellent second best (or a best?)

Andrew May, De Panne, Belgium

Celia, the answer is as you say... replicate... clone, copy or whatever... Who can tell the difference? Sir Joshua Reynold's Mona Lisa in the Dulwich Gallery is in a much better state of preservation than the real one in the Louvre; moreover, recently I stood alone squarely in front of this copy [Reynold's thought HE owned the original ]!
Modern tools can create magnificent replicas of everything from the Marbles to La Primavera. Let Art copy Life and replicate!

Derek Lamport, Lewes, UK

I don't know how I feel about this strike. And I can understand what Ms. Brayfield is saying, but I don't know if I sympathize with her views, either.<br><br>I suppose that I have been to the Louvre a dozen times. I never tried to get near the Mona Lisa - she was always one of the things left over for next time - but I have spent some of the important moments of my life looking at another of the cultural icons, the Venus of Milo, or whatever you want to call her. I saw and understood things which I had never noticed in hours spent looking at dozens of photographs, and I'm glad I was there. It was important to me. The same is true of Renoir's spotted Girl in the Sun in the Musée d'Orsay, and several other icons of the sort. And now Ms. Brayfield is telling me from the heights of her superiority that I'm some kind of low animal, and my presence only damages the artworks, so that they should only be left visible to superior creatures like her. She's no doubt right.

David, Petach Tikva,

Celia,Celia,Celia...You a member of the 4th estate,strikes again for ,what else can I say...the 4th estate...!!!...Of course a visa debit....Only those of the Arts to see and marvel...How perfect an answer...Remove the 4th estate and all of the 'hot air' will disappear....

timothy mccarthy, san marcosca, US of A