BWW Reviews: Masterpiece After Masterpiece at Philadelphia's Barnes Collection

She looks straight at you, the girl with the piercing dark eyes and rosy cheeks. Maybe 5 or 6 years old, she smiles beguilingly, wearing a blue dress with white arms and neck, an orange necklace adorning her. Brown tresses are held back by a soft blue ribbon, complementing her frock. Her legs are clothed in blue and white stockings and she wears two-toned boots. Each hand holds the end of a jump rope. She looks poised to start jumping, maybe just as you turn your gaze away. This vivid oil painting, "The Girl With a Jump Rope (Portrait of Delphine Legrand)," a Renoir, is a familiar portrait for art lovers (or even art likers) and one of 178 Renoir works collected by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a wealthy art collector and educator, on view at the two-year-old Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

It's an art museum unlike any other, originally established in 1922 in a Main Line suburb, available to the public

only by reservation. Barnes' intention was "to promote the advance of education and appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture." Now his astonishing collection, which includes more than 800 paintings and is worth an estimated $25 billion, is available to the public Wednesday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Fridays until 9 p.m.). Barnes amassed one of the world's most celebrated collections of post-impressionist and early modern paintings, with scores of work by Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, and Renoir on display.

Barnes also gathered major works by van Gogh, Modigliani, Rousseau and Soutine, along with Old Master paintings, Pennsylvania German furniture, Native American ceramics, jewelry and textile, African sculpture, antiquities from the Mediterranean and Asia, and wrought iron objects from Europe and the United States.

The wall art is presented in what he labeled "ensembles," symmetrically arranged art topped by wrought iron work above two other art objects. Each wall contains many ensembles, and it's difficult to decide where to look first. Barnes' intention, according to documents, was to show the universality of the creative impulse and the expressive methods artists applied. Not content to let his ensembles remain in place, he constantly arranged and re-arranged groupings over the course of 26 years. The ensembles on view are those in place at his death in 1951.

The original site on the suburban Merion campus holds a 12-acre arboretum with more than 3,000 species of woody plants and trees. The horticultural program, herbarium, archives, library and special collections are also based in Merion.

The Philadelphia-based Barnes Foundation contains a separate 5,000-square-foot gallery for special exhibitions. The day we visited we saw a landmark exhibition of still-life paintings by the post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, "The World Is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne," ranging from early paintings to some of his very late works. Themes ranged from apples to skulls. This exhibition, the first Cézanne exhibition in the new space, complemented the 69 works by the artist on display in the permanent collection.

Prepare to spend at least three hours exploring the 23 rooms and hallways that teem with familiar and maybe less recognizable art. There's a snack bar and a restaurant along with a gift store. A free audio guide describes selected art, offering historical and artistic relevance. Vaulted ceilings and regulated sunlight add luster to the work and there are ample benches to sit and ponder the beauty all around you.

Barnes, who came from an impoverished background, earned a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and went on to study chemistry and pharmaceuticals. He made his fortune when he produced, in partnership with Herman Hille, Argyrol, an antiseptic silver protein compound that prevents eye infections and blindness in newborns. After selling his company right before the crash of 1929, he concentrated on his growing passion for art and education and dedicated his life to amassing the artwork on display. Barnes and his collaborator, the philosopher John Dewey, developed classes that are still taught today. Their goal is to guide students to understand light, line, color and space-tools used universally by artists and artisans.

Barnes' predilection for Renoir may best be explained in his own words. "Renoir has been to me the most all-satisfying of any man's work I know," he said. "Perhaps the thing that most interests me in Renoir, that most strikes a personal response is, what seems to me, his joy in painting the real life of red-blooded people, and his skill in conveying his sensations to my consciousness."

A state-of-the-art lighting system combines artificial and natural light, which heightens subtleties of the arts' form, color and texture. A roof-top light box filters out harmful UV rays and is illuminated at night. The building was awarded LEED Platinum Certification, the recognized standard for ensuring "green" construction and sustainability.

But it's the "Girl With a Jump Rope (Portrait of Delphine Legrand)" that stays with me still. She can be found in Room 9, along with five other Renoir works (four portraits and one landscape), Monet's "The Studio Boat," two Matisse seascapes and a Sisley.

The Barnes Foundation is at 2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, between North 20th and 21st Streets, Philadelphia. The arboretums and horticultural program are at 300 North Latchs Lane, Merion. For more information visit the website: barnesfundation.org.

Photographs courtesy of The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. © 2012 Tom Crane

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