BWW Reviews: The Barnes in Philadelphia - A Prescription to be Taken Often From the Pad of the Good Doctor

Dr Albert C. Barnes by Giorgio de Chirico 1926

As I prepared to go to the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia for the first time I was eager. Eager to see how Dr. Barnes mixed art and object, to see brilliant Cezannes, Van Goghs, Matisses, Renoirs, Picassos- you know the heavy weights of the old avante-garde that laid the road to modernism for all the good and bad turns to come by drivers like Duchamp, Pollack, and Warhol.

Typical room at the Barnes

What I found was that and more. El Greco, Hals, Soutine, Daumier, DeChirico, Prendergast and others hang with Japanese prints, African sculpture, Pueblo Pottery, pewter pots, furniture, tapestries, hinges, key ways and plenty of golden religious works all mixed up. The Barnes almost feels like the MET hung by a mad man. When you look closely, you begin to see the unwritten history of art as told through diverse works done in different times by a rare genius collector with a brilliant eye and the mind to ask a friend or two for their input; we could use more Dr. Barnes' today.

My eagerness was well rewarded. The experience of the building on its first birthday was an architectural delight in itself. The mix of the best of modern architecture with water, stone, textures and trees that feel both in and out, leaves you with a serene and thoughtful feeling throughout the experience. MOMA should look for it's next redo here.

Two and a half hours was a small price to pay for one of my most memorable museum going experiences. I was amazed as soon as I stepped into the first gallery and got that tingling feeling running down my spine when I see old sports clips of McCovey hitting a home run or Jim Ryan falling down.

Salon style hangs, balanced symmetrically with art and objects

Though a large museum, most of the spaces feel small and intimate much as the one above. Here we see Renaissance like triangular compositional cores in both Seurat's work and the Cezanne a few inches below. The woman with the extended bottom in Seurat's post-impressionistic pointillist style painting within a painting-the famous 'La Grande Jatte', lines up compositionally with the figure in the Cezanne watching the card game below: They both offset the triangle in the same way, at a similar point. Reclining nudes flank the paintings. This is more than the art of the hang. Each artwork engages it's neighboring work of art. Dr. Barnes spent hours arranging and re-arranging how his art was displayed. Wall signs were abhorred. You were supposed to look at the art and not the information about it- a visual story will unfold.

Picassos The Ascetic of 1903 and Modigliani's 1919 painting of Jeanne Hebuterne reveal the two artists similar use of El Greco like elongated figures with extended arms and pale tonation to reveal the interior, the psyche of the sitter.

The forms, shapes and curves of the 17th Century French Steeple c*ckwork compliments Matisse and plays with the same formalistic tools. Museums chronological chain of command for expositions has shackled Museums to uncreative exhibits that focus myopically on a small movement in art history and limits our ability to see the link, to see the line that binds all art together.

The Barnes Foundation's history, the fight to keep the art in his original home 30 minutes out of the Philadelphia art loop, is typical of political bull and the power of money to move homes. Is it a lesser Museum for it? Would you drive to nowhere to see it in it's old home?

Renoir's portrait of the Henriot Family 1875

Was the Doctor a bit too Renoir focused. At times it felt like so. But when I saw a unique Renoir next to a Van Gogh I saw a link no one would dare make- Renoir and Van Gogh are connected. I was shocked.

I enjoy asking docents, 'step away from the black line' protectors of the art and the gift store workers their thoughts. After all they live with the work daily. The staff was exceptionally friendly. One guard even offered her opinion when I prodded her for her favorite piece and she directed us toward it. It was a little claw I would not have wanted to miss it and easily could have.

The gentleman in the gift shop explained how Dr. Barnes started collecting. I am always fascinated for the impetus to collect for the genesis of thought and for your own Raison D'Etre.

Glacken's The Bathing Hour 1910

It's a great story....the patient-less non practicing doctor who made his dough in pharmaceuticals gave Glackens, a high school buddy and in house artists for a Philadelphia paper, $10,000 to go to Paris and buy, because well, that was where it was all happening. Later, Barnes aligned with a few of the great art dealers of the day, Ambroise Vollard and Paul Guillaume and learned a thing or two from Gertrude Stein. The rest is Art History.

You know you could have gone just a short walk from the subway to Leo Castelli's gallery downtown and done as well in the 1960's and 1970's. The Occasional mailmen did this and front loaded his retirement with good long-term investments.

Honore Daumier "The Ribaudes" 1848-1849 and El Greco's "Apparition of the Virgin and child" 1605-1610 have similar palettes and use foreshortening and hands to reveal more than proportions can. Many of the works in the Doctors collection move your eye around with hand gestures and pointed figures.

I was happy to see Daumier well represented. Like Glackens he was a successful commercial artist of his day and got pigeonholed by art history as a cartoonist. There are none of his cartoons here. Instead you see the romantic, moving, sfumatto filled airy paintings that properly set Daumier as one of the great painters of all time. Another great artist often overshadowed by his graphic success, Toulouse-Lautrec shines bright in the Barnes packed walls. Rousseau's paintings look like they should be the first to be decessioned if they ever need to raise cash.

Prendergast 'Idyl' 1912-1915 Van Gogh 'The postman' 1889

The Van Gogh's are brilliant but that is easy to do with Vincent. He was so driven, so focused and so in touch with nature and seeing that it was hard for Vincent not to create a pure and beautiful work from 1880-1890. However, Prendergast shows up often in many of the galleries. Now Prendergast is not a biggie and you could probably do your major in art history and not come across his name. The good Doctors choice makes sense. You see Prendergast's link to Van Gogh and the impressionist and similarities to Cezanne's figures.

Dr. Barnes was in close contact with John Dewey through letters. The dynamic pairing of Dewey, the social conscious philosopher and author of "Art As Experience," and the quick to learn Doctor made for one of those marriages made in art heaven.

In short, Dewey thrust the responsibility onto the viewer and the common man. Art is not a passive hand it to you, eat this cheeseburger, drive on through thing. It is something you must digest through mind and soul. A Platonic like ideal social good is the goal and art is the tool. This is art as hand for social change and personal growth and enlightenment for all and not just the wealthy.

Who makes Museums possible? Today the trend in the art world is for the wealthy to open their own Museum for their own collection. Museum directors and curators hate this attitude of museum as mausoleum for a Broad range of wealthy money-makers not dead yet. They feel the keys have been bought, stolen and handed off to the wrong folks and that they are the guardians of art and aesthetics. Often they complain they can't afford to compete with todays zillionaires that have made one apple by Cezanne worth $5 Million as Sotheby's bags groupings of eight for over $40 Million.

Cezanne "Les Pommes" 1889-1890. How about them apples for over $41 Million?

Without just such sole efforts by the wealthy there would be no museums in the world. Alphabetically, just in the FR grouping the Freer Museum in DC, Part of the Smithsonian and the Frick on 5th avenue would not be possible. Not only are the wealthy responsibly for founding museums but also they are the ones responsible for donating and contributing to keep these frail vulnerable and venerable institutions alive. Annenberg's name shined brightly on the walls of the Barnes as it often does in the homes of other great collections like the MET.

I love the MET on 5th avenue. It is the best Museum in the world. However you do not get a cohesive sense once inside. Often I like to say there are 15 museums inside the MET. At the Barnes there is one and art is one. Links you would never see are presented. It is a non-linear history of a non-verbal language through many cultures and times that cannot be conveyed in words but that you can go see at the Barnes, a unique and exceptional museum worth a drive or a train ride.

The Barnes has rotating exhibits that are worthy in their own right but somehow are dwarfed by the larger shadow of the Doctor.

Bonus: I think you should see The Rodin Museum next door; it does not offer the jet lag you'd get to see the other one in Paris. Real Phili Cheese steaks abound everywhere in town: I won't go into the cheese in a spray can versus sliced American debate.

A great Cuban restaurant, Alma De Cuba was a real find and I relaxed with my friend and held fast to memories I did not want to let slip into the oblivion of the past.

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