March 14, 2018 -- Barnes Collection

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Another cold and blustery day.  Looks good from here, but when you were out walking, it wasn't that nice.

Billy Penn, incandescent in the morning.  The tan building, second from left, is our hotel.

Enjoying the sky.  And the sort of plaid building at right.

Looking way down toward the art museum.

Closer crop of the above.  That long low tan building at the end of the road is the art museum.  In the summertime there is a shuttle that runs tourists to many interesting locations.  Including the art museum, and, with a transfer, to the zoo.  But the shuttle doesn't run in March..............   In July it's way too hot to want to be in Philadelphia, and in March it's not only cold and windy, but the shuttle doesn't run.............

We went to the Barnes Collection.  About which there is a TON of hype.  Mr. Barnes, however he made his money, spent a good deal of that money on buying stuff.  He had catholic tastes, and was all over "More is Better."

He had firm opinions, including an extremely high opinion of his own ability to discern what is worth keeping, collecting, and displaying.

Upon his demise, he left his collection with extremely tight restrictions.  It is my belief that for a long time the guardians of the collection fought in court to be allowed to build the collection a home outside his house (which, I guess?, was not well suited to hordes of visitors, and which was not conveniently located to downtown).  They were finally allowed to build a new home for the collection, but (as I understand it) everything has to be displayed EXACTLY as Mr. Barnes arranged it.

The collection is now viewable (for a good stiff fee) in a modern-from-the-outside building which contains rooms just like the rooms in the Barnes house, where the stuff is displayed exactly as he left it.

There is also space in the building for stuff that I presume was not in the house, like a restaurant, and a coat check (mandatory).  You have to walk around to the back of the museum to get in.  Then you have to go downstairs to check your coat and buy a ticket.  Not exactly user-friendly.

I have no idea what the area of refuge is.  I sort of wish I'd checked it out.  Just to see.

Not sure what makes the lighting so different between this image and the previous one.  I kind of like the light coming in through the back of the signs, leaving shadows on the ceiling........

You'll recall we saw "salon-style" display in one room at PAFA a few days ago.  Here we have it again.  Lots (and lots and lots) of paintings, some furniture, and lots of hardware.  Hinges, etc.

At PAFA the salon-style display had electronic tablets you could query to find out what was what.  At the Barnes collection, they have printed info for each room.  I expect this makes a lot more sense when you expect crowds........

Closer crop of the above, showing a bunch of explanatory info.

Paintings, blanket chest?, candlesticks, firedogs.......

That thing at the top looks like part of a weapon?  CB?  The thing under it is, I believe, something to do with a door.  Or a piece of furniture.  It might be a door knocker?  I don't know.  And that heavily carved bit at the bottom is another piece of furniture.

Closer crop of the above.

Mr. Barnes collected all kinds of media from all over the world.  Many many examples of everything.  And then arranged it all as he saw fit.

At some point, in one of the rooms, we saw a chunk of stone that was clearly meant to look Egyptian.  On March 13, we visited the Penn Museum.  In the Penn Museum, on March 13, we looked at real Egyptian things in a real museum.  Egyptian things that presumably have been vetted by experts (or removed by same from their original locations and taken to the museum with a provenance....).

I looked at the "Egyptian" object in the Barnes, and thought "nope, nope, nope, nope, nope."  (Quoting the Sesame Street Martians...........)  We found the explanatory info in the room, and discovered that what it said about that hunk of "Egyptian" stone was that it is thought to not be what it was originally thought to be.

I began to look, with a much more critical eye, at things that were displayed, and then at what the explanatory info said..........

A lot (most?) of the items have the sort of little metal labels you often see on picture frames in museums.  Without really trying, we found a number of things that said one thing on their little metal tags, and something else in the explanatory info.  (I did not look up this particular item; it just has a legible little metal tag.)

When I said he collected everything, I was not kidding.  Tole painting.  Which I rather like.

Parrot, made of who knows what, which I also rather like.

Figurine made from a crab claw.

The more I looked critically at all this stuff, the more likely I thought it is that a noticeable proportion of the collection is either fake, or very poor examples of whatever it's supposed to be.  The sketches Renoir did to warm up and then threw out?  (Only, in that case, would he not have painted over them, rather than waste money throwing them out?  I don't know.)

I started asking questions, as is my wont, and was told there were art experts there, to answer art questions.  I found one of those individuals, and asked "What percentage of the items here are authentic?"  The answer I got was that 100% of the items were chosen by Mr. Barnes.

Well then.  That's usually *my* definition of "authentic"...............  NOT.

I kept pushing, and he agreed that there are many things in the building that are not what they purport to be.  He mentioned some things that are supposed to be 9th century French, "which are neither 9th century, nor French."  He went on to say "But Mr. Barnes knew that, and he liked them anyway."

Hmmm.  That's nice, I'm sure.  The young art expert went on to say that Mr. Barnes' point was "art pedagogy."  Whatever that may mean when it's at home.........  Kind of sure it has to do with what Mr. B. decided to put next to what, but.........................

And.  Putting your collection out there in the world as a wonderful place to appreciate and learn about art, when X% of it is "art" as much as figurines made from crab claws are "art"??  And when the discussion is NOT about "is this art" in the first place???????????????

At this point I'm biting my tongue to not be yelling "NAKED!"....................

The more stuff I looked at, the more annoyed I became.  Why is this art "any" more than my collections of plastic animals or Fisher Price people?  I like my things, and stand by my arrangements of things, but do I advertise myself as being a diva of "art pedagogy"??  No.  I do not...........

To my way of thinking, it's dishonest to put all this stuff out there as though it were art, rather than putting it out there as "isn't this stuff cool?"  When you start having special tours to help everyone appreciate all the "Renoirs" in the collection, without having made a serious attempt to ensure that those works are actual Renoirs, well, I think you've stepped firmly over the line.  This is dishonest.

On the other hand -- of all the dishonesty there is in the world, it probably matters less than almost all of it.  Fleecing people who can afford to plonk down a small wad of cash to view a bunch of random stuff  -- much better than trashing the environment, or cheating on your taxes, or colluding with the Russians to sell them our elections..........................

But I still don't like it.  'Tain't right.............................



So we'll just look at a few more things that I thought were interesting.  That top part sort of looks like a shrimp, but I don't think that's what's going on.

One end is what I think is a tiny dragon.

The other end is a guy hanging down in a way that's only possible because his foot is permanently attached to ... whatever is above him..........

This item described in the ID info..................

Oil lamp?  Ok.............  Not seeing where there's something that burns. 

Whatever.

And .................... this is a pretty wide area that it might be from.  And no date.  Pretty sure this is modern fake whatchamacallit..........



When I saw this, I thought it was a counting niddy-noddy.

After you spin yarn, you often want to turn your yarn into a skein for washing (and/or dyeing, and/or for sale).  (And to free your bobbins to accept the next bunch of spinning.....).  To make your skein, you might wind your yarn onto a niddy-noddy, which often was a specific distance around.  A yard, maybe, or two yards.  You might have to count as you wound, or, if you had enough money, you could buy a fancy device that would count for you.  There really existed counting niddy-noddies.

I believe the part of the object below at right which sort of looks like two two-headed croquet mallets was meant for wrapping/measuring yarn.  Maybe one trip all the way around the outsides of the "mallets" would be two yards?  I can believe that it is.  So every time you turned it, you wound two yards of yarn onto it. 

Looking at this after the fact, I think all the parts of this item were not made at the same time.  The part at right looks like one color and style.  The bottom part that's holding it all up is another color and style.  And I wonder if the horizontal cylinder that connects the other two parts is yet another style and age.....

I'm not seeing anything here that would actually do any counting.  It looks like it would go round and round, but what part is keeping track?

It looks cool, but is it what I think it's purporting to be?  I'm not ready to say it is.........



I wonder what this is supposed to be.  The tag above it says "Spain XVI century".....  It looks a lot like the parts of that "oil lamp" above, I think.............

I know what this is supposed to be.  It looks pretty wobbly, but I suspect it's just what it claims to be, as to function.  I won't speak as to materials..........

We walked out with a bad taste in our mouths.  For all the hype about the place, I felt it was pretty much of a scam.  Sort of how you feel after eat at the hot new place in town that turns out to be so hoity-toity they won't give you a cracker to go with your salad, because the crackers are to go with another dish, not the one you chose.......

At least (just like the pretentious restaurant I'm thinking of) it was expensive...............

We haven't gone back to the restaurant I'm talking about, and we won't go back to the Barnes, either.  Too bad.  I was looking forward to it.  It's supposed to be so special...................................

Humph.


We walked back toward town, and found a place to eat lunch.  Then we headed toward the Franklin Institute, because Drexel's Natural History museum is right by it.

This little street is residential on one side, and commercial on the other.  The left side of the street may even be a parking structure.  I can't remember.

Closer look at the residential.  I believe there is exactly one parking place (behind fencing) on this street.  I wonder where everyone else parks.............

This really cool sculpture (or whatever you call it!) is directly behind where I stood to take the pic above.

It is on the side of the Franklin Institute, and may be the very coolest thing the Franklin Institute has.

So cool.  Almost like watching clouds, or water....... 

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