London's Off-the-Beaten-Track Masterpieces

Laughing Cavalier - Frans Hals - 1924

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère - Eduard Manet - 1882

Do these painting look familiar? I hope so. Do you know where to see them in person? You have to travel to London. But they won't be found in top-of-the-line art museums such as the Tate or the National Gallery. They're in places a notch below the "must see if you're in town for only three days" list. Take heed: they're surrounded by other notable works of art.

The Hals painting is in the Wallace Collection, somewhat off the usual tourist track. The Wallace is a short ways east of Baker Street in the zone between Oxford Street on the south and Madame Tussaud's and the Sherlock Holmes Museum to the north. And there's no Underground stop nearby, so you'll have to blow some pounds for a cab or else hoof it.

The Manet is in the Courtauld Gallery, a smallish museum occupying part of a wing of Somerset House on the Strand. It's south of the Covent Garden area and the Strand itself is probably the route one might take from Trafalgar Square to the City and St. Paul's Cathedral. The nearest Underground station is several blocks away at Temple, on the Embankment (Circle and District lines).

Vieux Montmartre

I took the above photo during a heavy squall just after leaving the main building of the Musée de Montmartre last month. The background structure houses exhibits and was the former home of artists such as Suzanne Valadon and her dysfunctional son Maurice Utrillo. The museum's Web site is here and a brief history here.

Montmartre was the center of Paris' bohemian-artistic crowd during the final decades of the 19th century and first few decades of the twentieth, when Montparnasse gradually usurped the avant-garde crown.

Although I've visited Montmartre perhaps half a dozen times over the years, I never bothered to visit its museum. Perhaps I figured it would be some kind of tourist trap. Too bad for me. I finally toured it in June and found that it was entirely legit and had several items of exceptional interest. Let me add that it helps if a visitor has more than passing knowledge of Parisian arts and culture of the era featured in the exhibits.

In the center of one room was an encased model of the district with small flags indicating where well known artists, writers and other notables lived. On a nearby wall I found...

Parce Domine - Adolphe Willette, c.1884
This large painting once decorated a wall at the famous Montmartre hangout Le Chat Noir.

Another item of interest was what supposedly was the only known nude photograph of Valadon. She got her start as a model for artists including Renoir before becoming a painter herself. The image was certainly impressive, though I wasn't completely convinced that it was really of Suzanne. Her lower face has a pinched look that became progressively more distinct as she aged. I found this hard to detect in the photo, though it's possible the look was less prominent when she was, say, 20 years old.

A good reason for you to journey to Montmartre to see for yourself.

The d'Orsay Adjusts to a Renovation

Paris' Musée d'Orsay, with its magnificent collection of (mostly French) art for the period 1850 to 1900 or a little later, is undergoing some renovation. The top floor or two are closed while work proceeds.

So what about the visitor spending mega-shekels to get to Paris to view all those goodies in person? Will he be disappointed? Feel cheated?

Probably not.

I entered the d'Orsay last Tuesday wondering about those matters, but a quick walk-around revealed that most of the important works were still on display even though a subset had been sent off to San Francisco for the duration.

Here's how they pulled it off. Galleries on the level above the main floor that usually are devoted to special exhibits were used to display paintings formerly found in the galleries on the highest floors. And it's possible that some paintings were re-hung closer together than previously in some other galleries (though a number of galleries seemed the same as they were last May when I paid my previous visit).

So, if you have tickets to Paris this summer or fall and want a good d'Orsay experience, you will find one.

[Cross-posted at 2 Blowhards.]

Death of a Directive

The Weekly Standard is a journal of politics and political opinion, though it does retain space for art and book reviews. The current (31 May 2010) issue veers off-character in that it contains an unusually long (for the magazine) article about the Barnes collection that's on its way from Merion, PA to downtown Philadelphia. It's "No Museum Left Behind" by Lance Esplund, and a link is here.

I'm puzzled why the article even appeared in The Weekly Standard, given that's it's neither a political piece nor a book review. But it got published and it's worthy of comment.

Being long, it manages to touch on several themes. One deals with Albert Barnes and his take on art, especially the progression of traditional painting to modernism via French Impressionism. He tended to consider all of this part of a greater whole rather than distinct aspects, according to the article. This is why he mixed paintings of different vintages on the walls of his museum.

Esplund also discusses Impressionist and modernist artists -- Cézanne, Matisse and Renoir especially -- at some length.

Then he reacts in horror to the moving of the collection from the suburbs to Franklin Parkway -- this in total contradiction to Barnes' wishes and directives. To me, this is a regrettable fate suffered by most charitable foundations -- a conservative or traditionalist sets aside money that eventually funds projects that would totally repel him (think Ford Foundation, Pew, etc.).

Finally, Esplund riffs on what he considers the self-destruction of art museums in their seeming goal of maximizing attendance.

So many themes are touched on, I find it hard to comment. I'll note that I lived in the Philadelphia area for the better part of three years while at Dear Old Penn and knew of the Barnes collection. At the time (late 60s) it was difficult for people to view the collection; limited numbers allowed in, red tape of other sorts perhaps -- I forget. In any case, I had dropped my interest in art to the level that visiting the Merion facility seemed more trouble than worth, and I never went there.

I do think that putting the collection near downtown Philly makes the art far more accessible than it was. On the other hand, I don't like the business of contradicting the intent of the benefactor. So, on balance, I think the move is a mistake though I'm not as upset about it as Esplund seems to be.

The world is filled with ambiguous situations, isn't it?

[Cross-posted at 2 Blowhards]