Philly: day One.

For starters, a lovely visit with a long-time friend from Austin days. Lansdowne made me think I'd stepped into a way-back machine! ha! I especially enjoyed the train station there, and trips into town were fast and on time.

On my first full day, the first museum I excitedly scurried off to was The Barnes collection. Sadly, no photos of the collection are allowed. And worse! Read on.

I dislike posts about museum visits when I have no visuals to show, but still, I feel compelled to explain my negative reaction to The Barnes. First, I could not disagree more with the man's presentation aesthetic. It is simply exhausting to make your way through that museum. And something in me feels that Mr. Barnes himself would not be happy with some aspects of it.

The first room after entering contains what are deemed the superstars of the collection. They are surprisingly dark--in terms of what might be expected of post-impressionist work--suggesting to me that they need a proper cleaning. The dark palette employed by Picasso--for instance--is not helped by the enormous windows flanking his large, vertical painting. My eyes dialed down immediately, amplifying the darkness of his color scheme.  I cannot provide an image of the painting in question--no photos allowed in the Barnes. (Which is doubly annoying, given that his mission was "educational", and photos of the works would have been tremendously appreciated by this painter, yours truly.)

Given that no photos are allowed, I began to sketch the offending gallery scheme and was immediately halted by the guard who informed me... "no sketching". R U kidding me? This is incredulous!!!  I'm fairly certain that Mr. Barnes would have been rolling over in his grave over that! All of this transpired in the first room, and it was downhill from there.

Also, in this first room, I was surprised about how blue (and dead looking) Renoir's flesh tones were. Has the blue come forward, over time? Did he perhaps use Alizarin crimson as well, which is a fugitive paint color (and so, leaving the blue visible)?

This collection makes you work your arse off. There are no wall tags to identify artist/title/etc. There is, instead, a little booklet for each room (which you have to put back; available for purchase in the store) that provides the I.D. info. If you are trying to follow the audio guide, the # in the booklet does not correspond to the audio # to punch in. Also, an audio # that you may think will apply to the painting adjacent to it--but no it does not!--it will apply to a grouping--or to the whole wall.That said, the audio--when occasionally provided--was the most helpful feature of the museum, in terms of understanding Barnes's thought processes regarding the collection's presentation. Whether or not one agrees with his premises, at least they are explained.

Sept. 21, 2015