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Kwame Nana-Atoo Dr. Barnes had the eye, passion, quality and taste for art and collecting with an exuberating faith about art. When a person has all this to his and yet has the urge to make others aware of it, that makes him one of the greatest and most important figures in the history of art collecting and collectors in America. It's the embodiment of the aesthetic qualities of art. The Barnes foundation was built to promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts. The arts in has faced a lot of down grading proposal and I think that it was for this reason that Barnes wanted to promote the awareness and its important. One thing I admire about Barnes was his courage to face the people who were trying to take from him. He by no means stood down to what he had purposed his collections for. After all, it was is own art and he had to choice to do what he wanted to do it. I believe that Barnes would have opened the gallery to the general public had there not been evil intensions from the rich and people in power who wanted nothing but to take from people and add to their riches and power. It was for this purpose that he gave the foundation to Lincoln University. It was to show to political and power hungry folks that he stood for what was right and wasn't ready to give it to people who were going to selfishly attain what he has worked for and damn his vision. All through the movie, what hurt the most, was that he didn't have any children to have gained control over the foundation. Nonetheless, Ms. Violette De Mazia did a great job following the exact same steps as Mr. Barnes. As we have read and discussed in the previous days, status of an artists name plays a very important role in the value of a work and even more if the work is a great one. I personally believe that not all Picasso, Cezanne, Renoir etc. is great, but if a number of what they have done has been mind-blowingly amazing, it is just human nature to associate all works by the artist to a good ones they have done as the same. With this I believe that if Cezanne's "Card Players" amongst other famous work of art were not part of Dr Barnes collection, it would not hold the same value, but it might have the same significance it has today "Historically". I say this because one thing that makes Dr. Barnes and his foundation stand out is his passion for the art as well as the desire to educate people who were willing to learn about it. Such attributes to a collectors goal makes the foundation very significant, it might not have the best works, but it had some good intentions and to most of humanity, good intentions surpasses wealth and value. In the case of Dr. Barnes, he had them both and that is what called for the attention all over. In this circumstance, it is clear that the context of Barnes collections has contributed the valuation of the art. My observation is that Barnes must have known that the best way to use the art works was to preserve them and in preserving them for people to fully connect to the authenticity of the works is to have them at their original place and not only that but also to have them in the way they have been arranged and put together, that way, it is preserved in the midst of potentially dangerous outside influences. I can't say much that gallery owners and patrons of art can contribute to the valuation of artworks, I believe that it's the viewers. When they see a works of art and have many positive reviews after the show, my thinking is that that is when the patron and gallery owners put value on the works, now this is if they are new works by new people. I think Dr. Barnes support for the African American art, was one highlight of his character, he was someone who did right, and feared no one in implementing what he thought and knew was right. I think what he did was to get back at the people in government during a racially heated period in America. He stood for unity and putting things together that seemed right, and harmonious, this reflected in the way he group his collection- ways that people will never do, putting different famous artist together but having meaningful message. It was the same thing he tried to do, to give the African American community a voice. It is quite unfortunate that Lincoln University fell for the money, and became the minority in the foundation. In all honesty, the political chaos that happened or is happening in this issue, was a surprise to me not because I don't know that people are selfish and will do that, but it was the knowledge that this is happening in the 21st century, and this time when we boast of being more civilized than ever. The greed for money and power and the desire to take, amidst all forgery and lies is being overlooked by the people who can put this right. I don't believe that the judge was coaxed into allowing them to be moved, he might have know very well what is going on. To contradict my self and comments though, I would really love to see these collections, however, the manner and their ideology behind the moving is what is wrong. In this case it might have the value, but the significance might be worthless. I believe that if Dr. Barnes were around, he would have granted access to the public, but stayed in it's home in Montgomery. Dr. Albert C. Barnes will and wish should have been followed and respected because whatever the case, the collection was still in America and it is one of the best art collections of impressionist art. It is quite sad and interesting that when Walter Annenberg died and left his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York, he said that it should never be moved, sold or loaned. |
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June Shin There is not doubt that Barnes was one of the most extraordinary art collector and educator whose clear vision was unprecedented. The breadth of the works in the Barnes collection is astonishing, but Dr. Barnes didn't buy all paintings he himself enjoyed. Camp tells us that Barnes loved Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings but didn't buy them because they did not fit with the rest of his collection. That is, O'Keeffe's works did not suit his purpose. It is evident that Dr. Barnes had a clear idea as to what he wanted to achieve with his collection. In Camp's words, "he was not building a private collection; he was building a teaching collection." (Barnes). He believed that artists had a special gift of perception and wanted people to learn how to perceive like artists, which he thought would help them sculpt a better democracy (Barnes). However, appalled by the failure of Philadelphia to appreciate and learn from the astounding collection he had put together and disgusted by those who exploited art to use merely as a backdrop to their social and political agenda, he dramatically restricted the public's access to his collection. He chose "quality experience" over "mass experience" (The Art of Steal) There was not the slightest hint of anything commercial in what Dr. Barnes did with his art collection. Dr. Barnes arranged the artworks not according to subject matter, style or period but in such a way that the works communicated with each other. Something that left me a lasting impression from The Art of Steal was one of the Friends of the Barnes Foundation's statement that art is life. It seems to me that Dr. Barnes' arrangement of his art may be closer to the way in which we experience life than any of the traditional "museum" methods. According to Kimberly Camp, Dr. Barnes chose certain characteristic(s), whether it be color, form, subject matter, etc., around which the ensembles of artworks were put together to create different experiences of art (Barnes). I believe that his manner of presentation of his art was an art in itself. But then again, that he chose a different organization than that of a museum should not be so surprising because the Barnes was not museum. Dr. Barnes could not have been clearer about that. When I saw that one room in which African sculptures and portraits of white sitters were shown together in complete harmony with each other, I thought, this is a room that tells a story. A story so genuine and so original that I had to pause the film just to stare. It was life that I felt at that moment---a life that only the specific works chosen to be shown where they were shown could create. They were displayed with the same importance and dignity, and I couldn't help but wish that I were a student at the Barnes when Dr. Barnes was alive. However, I do think that his dream was perhaps too good to be realized. In today's world where so many people are driven by money and power, keeping such expensive gallery solely for educational purposes was probably an impossible dream to begin with. Beautiful, but impossible. Watching the film The Art of Steal infuriated me at times and saddened me at others. In it, someone said that "culture is an industry" (The Art of Steal). And we all know that art is one of the biggest parts that form culture. Whether we want to accept it, art too is inevitably an industry. I think that an important question here worthy of consideration is whether Dr. Barnes' wish to keep such a stunning collection of significant artworks hidden away from the public a wise decision. It was certainly a wish that deserved to be kept, but since it's now stripped away, let's face it: Regardless of how noble his dream was, was it really a better idea than to make it available for more people? Do the people who will get something out of his collection when moved to Philadelphia outweigh the cost of art being used as a social and political tool by people who have nothing else than pretension and money? It is a difficult question to answer but an important one for the future. Camp said that Dr. Barnes was always questioning and reassessing his assumptions and values. In modern times where discoveries and changes happen so quickly, this kind of flexible thinking, open-mindedness, and self-assessment are in dire need to achieve progress. Dr. Barnes seems to have strayed from this as he came to be adamantly rigid with regards to what is to be done with his art toward the end of his life, but his lifelong battle against Philadelphia's alienists and those tried to bring him and his foundation down, his struggle to keep modern art alive, and his effort to educate turned his life into a work of art in itself, and it is his spirit and passion that we should continue to preserve and combine with some flexibility of mind. Works Cited The Art of Steal. Dir. Don Argott. 9.14 Pictures, 2010. Philadelphia, PA. Web. 7 Jan. 2012. <http://www.videolinks4u.net/video/videos/166989/
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McKenzie Sullivan In 1912, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who derived his fortune from his development of the antiseptic drug, began to dedicate himself to the pursuit of the arts. While in Paris, Barnes visited the home Gertrude Stein where he became familiar with the work of such Modernist artists as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. In the 1920s, he became acquainted with the work of Amedeo Modigliani and Giorgio de Chirico. In 1922, after acquiring huge amounts of Impressionist and Modernist masters works, Barnes transformed his collection into a cultural institution. In 1922 he chartered the Barnes Foundation as an educational institution in the state of Pennsylvania. The mission of the Barnes Foundation is "the promotion of the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts." Barnes was able to appreciate the skill and beauty in these Modern works of art. Barnes recognized that many wealthy people simply bough art as upholstery for their homes and were not true patrons of the arts. Barnes rejected this upper class approach to art as a social symbol. He used his wealth to buy great works of art before the artists became internationally recognized. He did this in an effort to protect the art from the exploitation of the materialistic upper class. Dr. Barnes' conviction was that the study of art must be rooted in the forms that compose the works themselves, and the traditions of the medium in which they are expressed. Barnes wanted his art students to avoid preoccupation with biographical details about the artists or the social and political climate that surrounded the artist. He set up the foundation as an intimate setting for some of the greatest masterpieces of art, with multiple paintings, furniture and other fixtures on each wall. He wanted his collection to forever be a place where people could best appreciate the art. Barnes was so adamant that his collection not be turned to socially conscious collectors or those who exploited art for money and status that he drew up his will to ban any sale or loan of art from his collection. A line in his will states: "The Democratic nature of this institution shall be preserved at all times"- Barnes. Dr. Barnes recognized that art is as universal as human nature, that art of all periods and places share broad human values and aesthetic qualities. The paintings in the art gallery of the Barnes Foundation are hung to illustrate aesthetic principles, and not according to historical periods or by schools of painting as in many Museums. Hung in groups, the paintings allow the viewer to compare the balanced units as to qualities, traditions, and meanings. In his unique display of the collection Dr. Barnes's intended to demonstrate that aesthetic attributes can be appreciated wherever they are found: the qualities that make paintings meaningful are the same qualities that make everyday objects, and life itself, meaningful. The inclusion of the "hardware" and other artifacts like door handles and hinges etc., emphasizes this principle. The artifacts are hung to dramatize or underline some aspect of the paintings in their proximity: the keys on the wall next to the Cezanne Card Players are in line with the pipes on the wall in the painting and the metal ornaments surrounding the Seurat Poseuses aline with its synthetic drawing. Every room, object, artifact and painting at the Barnes Foundation is fundamental to the design of its art display, teaching people to see. Barnes' collection was envied by many of the largest and most prestigious art institutions worldwide. His pieces have been assigned astronomical value due to the international recognition of the artists, the aesthetic quality of the paintings in his possession and the exclusivity of his collection that was closed off from the traditional art world. What I believe really contributes to the value of Barnes' collection was also Barnes' own love and passion for his collection and his socially conscious agenda to teach students about art. The exclusivity of Barnes collection was seen as selfish and he developed a public image as a terrible grumpy old man; however, the structure of his foundation was actually quite altruistic. Barnes assembled his collection in a way that could cultivate a learning environment. He wasn't interested in a mass experience he was interested in a quality experience. Dr. Barnes created a realization about a set of ideas. Barnes believed in the emotional connect between the art and the observer not the segregation of works based on differences. He put all artworks equal to each other, disregarding how famous or successful an artist had been. By doing this Barnes was saying something about humans that we are all the same. The Barnes foundation became the single most important American cultural monument of the first half of the 20th century. |
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