… is another man’s impressionist-stuffed museum. The man in question is Albert Barnes, a native Philadelphian who made a fortune with a drug you’ve never heard of (unless your baby had gonorrhea in the early 1900s or something like that) and turned it into a very personal collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art. He bought piles of the stuff, showed it off in his house, and bequeathed his collection to the city with only-rich-guys-think-like this stipulations. Long story short (for now, mwuahhaha), there’s a crazy museum about 4 minutes from where Lisa’s father lived, and on a rainy Sunday I took advantage of some down time to give it a whirl.
The thing about the Barnes, the defining story above and beyond anything else about the place, is its bizarre layout. Mr. Barnes left his art collection to the city of Philadelphia on the condition that it remain in exactly the state that he left it – display arrangement, building, wall colors… everything. He had some very firm beliefs on the best way to display art, beliefs that he executed in his own home. It’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before, but he was certain that his preferred method was the optimal way to experience art. Like so many rich men before him, he decided to enforce his will through militant benevolence, tying his bequest to his philosophy of curation.
What does that have to do with the museum I visited and it’s layout? So, excising a tale of red tape out, what you should know is that the specific language of the bequest meant that the collection couldn’t be moved, yet the house was in the middle of (relative) nowhere and (natch) succumbing to the passage of time. Huge expenditures of bureauticatrons (the god-particle of all bureaucracies) yielded a compromise wherein a new building would be constructed but, within it, exact replicas of the rooms of Barnes’ house would be created – size, color, ornaments, all of it. It makes for a queer experience, going into a beautiful, modern(-ish) museum in downtown Philadelphia, only to be presented with a labyrinthine recreation of a restored arboretum from the early 20th century. Compounding the strangeness of the experience is Barnes’ curation philosophy, which eschews any sort of signage except for the artist’s last name demurely placarded within the frame of the painting or display stand as appropriate. You are otherwise on your own.
Here’s the thing, though – for all of its opaque practices the Barnes is an absolute must-see if you are a fan of Impressionist or post-Impressionist art. Every luminary of the period is well-represented, as well as dozens of minor but notable figures. From Renoir to Monet, Van Gogh to Seurat and all points in between (har har) it is a truly astonishing collection gathered by an obsessive mind.
Honestly, even providing a representative sample is difficult – maybe my brain just isn’t programmed properly but I’ve been overwhelmed by the walls of paintings during both of my visits. It really is astounding how this tucked away little museum holds such vast treasure.
