This is what the place looks like from the
outside.
Now we're headed in the front door
The grand hall. Look at the Matisse over
the French doors -- he called that piece "the rose window of the
Foundation."
Here's part of it. I've seen several
Matisse works similar to this -- one I remember from the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Matisse actually visited the
Foundation in the 1920's and it took him two years back in Paris
to produce a three-piece canvas that would fit the wall at the
Barnes. Dr. Barnes was unhappy about having to wait two
years, but he was very pleased with the result.
Just look at Dr. Barnes' carefully-planned
wall ensembles, each forming a pyramid of masterpieces of art
and absurdly twisted bits and pieces of iron.
"What on earth was he thinking," you ask?
Apparently he thought "art" could be understood objectively, and
he built his foundation to teach the proper method for
appreciating it.
Room after room filled with fuzzy nekkid fat
ladies. And pyramids of art and ironwork.
The painting at the top is called Models
and it's by Georges Seurat, who painted the famous A Sunday
on La Grande Jatte -- 1884. Notice the more well-known
painting (below) is hanging on the wall behind the nude models.
See? See the lady with the bustle on the
wall behind the model? You do understand this painting is
not at the Barnes, don't you? Just a painting of this
painting?
Crazy Dr. Barnes liked French impressionist
art and African art. See the long face in the Modigliani?
See how it resembles the long narrow faces of African masks?
Do you think there's a connection? Me, I dunno.
I could have bought a beautiful print of this
Van Gogh portrait of a postman, and I'd have hung it over my
dining room table where it could watch over my dinner parties.
Patty talked me out of it.
So I said I'd buy this beautiful Monet print to hang
over the dining room table, but Patty talked me out of this one
too. What's Patty got against fine art?
I'll leave you to contemplate Renoir's fuzzy
women and Dr. Barnes' funny twists of iron.
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