I’ve made the mistake in the past of putting off writing about an exhibition that I plan to go to in the hope of writing a first person account; and as a result wind up telling you about the show just as it’s about to close. I won’t do that this time.

National Geographic: The Art of Exploration, an exhibition of some of the amazing art collected by the magazine in its more than 100 year history, has already had a run at the Norman Rockwell Museum, where it originated and was curated. It is now a traveling exhibit and it opens at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania this Sunday, January 27, 2008, and runs through May 25.

National Geographic, a magazine noted for its stunning photography, also has a long history of hiring some of the nation’s best illustrators to portray what the camera cannot, whether peering into the mitochondria of a cell, reaching out into the depths of space, looking over the shoulders of participants in historic events or penetrating the mists of prehistory.

Some of the best examples of that art, over 100 works, have been selected from the thousands of pieces in the magazine’s archives and arranged in an exhibit that spans not only the history of National Geographic, but the history of civilization and history of the natural world; not to mention the history of 20th Century illustration.

The exhibit features work by artists like N.C Wyeth (above, top), Andrew Wyeth, Charles R. Knight, Tom Lovell (see yesterday’s post), Michael Parfit (above, middle left), Ned Seidler (above, bottom,left), Kinuko Y. Craft, John Gurche, John Sibbick, Jack Unruh, Jean-Leon Huens, Robert McCall, Pierre Mion, Paul Calle, Robert Addison, Vincent DiFate, Noel Siclkles, Burton Silverman, Thornton Oakley and many others. Some are pieces commissioned by the magazine and others are simply drawn from the magazine’s extensive collection.

Among the artists represented is James Gurney, the author/artist of the beautifully illustrated Dinotopia series (see my posts about Gurney here, here and here), who will be making a personal appearance at the Allentown Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibit on March 9 from 12-4pm.

Gurney has several pieces in the exhibition, including the dramatic portrayal of the Argentinian dinosaur Giganotosaurus shown above, bottom right, which accompanied the article Uncovering Patagonia’s Lost World for the December 1997 issue of the magazine.

Gurney is featuring a piece about the making of this painting today on his always-fascinating art blog Gurney Journey.

The Allentown Art Museum is at 31 North 5th Street in Allentown, PA. Allentown is about 35 miles Northwest of Philadelphia, and less than an hours drive from there via the PA Turnpike extension. Here is an article from the local paper about the show: Magazine’s images a feast for curious eyes, and another with a list of related events.

Also see Irene Gallo’s post on The Art Department.

Most small museums, and many major ones, started as the collection of a single individual. Most are strong in a particular area based on that collector’s preference for a genre, time or group of artists.

Some collections are more idiosyncratic than others, and The Barnes Fountation, a school and museum in Upper Merion, just outside of Philadelphia, falls firmly into that category.

Dr. Albert C. Barnes was a physician who made a fortune with the development of a patented antiseptic drug. In the early 20th century he began to dedicate himself to the collection of art, assisted initially by painter William Glackens. He traveled to Europe, visited Gertrude and Leo Stein and met artists like Picasso and Matisse. He had a taste for modern (at the time) painting and was in the right place at the right time to start his collection, picking up his first Picasso, for example, for under $100.

He acquired a remarkable collection of more than 1.000 works, with notable pieces by Monet, Modigliani, Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh and other Impressionists and post Impressionists. Barnes liked Cazanne, and collected 69 of his works, and was particularly enamored of Renoir, purchasing 180 of his paintings; leading to my short phrase description of the Barnes collection as “every bad Renoir ever painted”.

I didn’t realize how many bad Renoirs there were until I visited the Barnes. (Just my opinion, of course, your mileage may vary.) I do like Renior when he’s painting at his best, and the Barnes has a couple of those, though the best ones in the area are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Barnes expanded his reach into the past to works by masters like Daumier, Delacriox, Rubens, Lorrain, Tintoretto, Bosch, and even Titian, and there are some real gems sprinkled among the suffocating overload of Renoirs. My favorites are Monet’s “House Boat” (actually a boat rigged for painting excursions on the Seine, image above, bottom left), some beautiful small pieces by Corot and, in particular, a couple of great little still life paintings by Chardin that, for me, are worth the price of admission.

Barnes built a school and museum near his home in Upper Merion, on the grounds of an existing arboretum, to house his collection and make it available to the students of the school, which has classes in art, art appreciation and horticulture.

Dr. Barnes had some odd ideas about art, and arranged his collection in ways that defied all conventions for the display of collections of artwork. The paintings are arranged in a variation of Paris Salon style, i.e. wall to wall, floor to ceiling; but rather than being grouped according to time period and genre, as most collections logically are, the groupings in the Barnes are by odd criteria like the size and shape of the works and their frames, or predominant colors in the compositions, and are often displayed with objects like keys and door latches that Barnes felt contained “artistic” curves or lines, that were somehow related. Some of the groupings are arranged to form large ovals or other shapes, with the pieces chosen to accommodate their fit into the arrangement.

While amusing at first, and sometimes presenting interesting and unexpected juxtapositions, Barnes’ arrangements can stymie anyone who is actually trying to find particular works or paintings that are related.

There has been talk at times of breaking up the arrangements into something more conventional, but preservation of the arrangements is stipulated in Barnes’ will; as are a number of other issues that have been controversial over the years and are becoming news again in a city still not recovered from the disgraceful Thomas Jeffereson University Thomas Eakins debacle.

Barnes established the foundation as a school, not as a museum, and dictated that his collection remain in the building he built for it in Merion, not be loaned out or toured and that public and scholarly access be severely limited, intending that the collection existed for the benefit of the students, not the general public or the “art establishment”, which he despised. Renowned art historians and many other interested parties were turned away, sometimes with rejection letters signed by Barnes’ dog.

The collection is open to the public, but access is still limited; you need to make a reservation in advance and the galleries are only open on certain days of the week. It’s definitely worth a visit, however, if you are in the Philadelphia area.

Limited access became, and is now, the center of controversy, involving lawsuits, countersuits and even legislation. In the early 1990’s, the Barnes Foundation’s board, claiming that limited funds prohibited needed repair to the building, got a judgment breaking some of the terms of Barnes will and arranged a world tour of Impressionist works. Despite the the tour, the foundation neared bankruptcy amid allegations of missing funds.

In the meanwhile residents of the upper-crusty suburban neighborhood in which the foundation is located were up in arms about plans to increase the severely restricted admissions policy, fighting it tooth and nail with a “not in my back yard” fervor. The foundation’s board recently got a judicial ruling permitting them to move ahead with plans to move the collection to a new home on the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum, and make it publicly accessible among the city’s other great museums.

Many of those same “not in my back yard” neighbors are now up in arms again and have mounted a campaign called “Friends of the Barnes Foundation” to “save the Barnes” and keep it in it’s current home (with slight increases in access). One of the local legislators, hoping to butter his bread among these active and influential constituents, has even proposed legislation to tax away any funds raised to move the collection form its current home. On the other side, it was discovered that there was a $100 million state appropriation for construction of a new building that existed two years prior to the court ruling that would have permitted it.

As I’ve said before, you can take the art out of politics, but you can’t take the politics out of art.

[Image above: photo of a Barnes Foundation gallery by Commonwealth Media Services, from Visit PA, bottom row: Monet, Seurat, Cezanne]

For background on this post, please see my previous post: Eakins’ The Gross Clinic - Held for Ransom?.

It looked as if the potentially tragic loss to Philadelphia of the Thomas Eakins materspiece by clandestine sale to Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, for her artificial island of culture in Arkansas, The Crystal Bridges Museum, was going to be avoided. Prompted by outrage among the local art community, city leaders and the ranks of their own students, teachers and alumni, Thomas Jefferson University’s board of directors agreed to delay their “get-capital-quick” scheme for long enough for other city institutions to cough up their ransom demands and raise $68 million to purchase the painting and keep it here in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and my old alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Eakins studied and taught (see my post on Thomas Eakins), sponsored a joint fund-raising campaign to allow The Gross Clinic to stay in the city and be jointly owned by the PMA and the Academy’s Museum of American Art.

Unfortunately, there is further fallout and the attempt to keep one great painting in the city has resulted the loss of another.

In order to meet the Jefferson board’s deadline, the museums arranged a loan through Wachovia bank to secure the painting. The fundraising campaign has fallen short, however, and has lost its momentum. The Academy may have stepped in a little over its head on this one, and has just announced the hasty and unfortunate sale of another great Eakins work, The Cello Player, to an unnamed private individual to help cover their share of the debt.

The Cello Player can be considered a “lesser work” than The Gross Clinic, which is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of American art, but it is a beautiful painting and is certainly the finest of the Academy’s three finished Eakins paintings. The purchaser has apparently promised to loan the painting back to the Academy for display to some degree, but there is no disclosure of who has bought the painting or where it will eventually go.

Herbert Riband, the vice chair of the board of the Academy has promised that the buyer is not Alice “I wanna buy me sum Kulture” Walton [my words, not his], but he also states the the Academy doesn’t know the identity of the purchaser and is making that statement on the word of an intermediary who is evidently brokering the sale.

For more interesting detail on the matter, see Lee Rosenbaum’s post on on the subject on her CultureGrrl blog (part of the Arts Journal site). Rosenbaum was on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane this morning on WHYY, the Public Radio affiliate here in Philadelphia (when you follow the link, filter for February 5, 2007, it’s in Hour 2). If you’re at all interested in the issue of the “de-acquisition” of works by museums and other public institutions, or this instance specifically, this program makes a fascinating listen. There are three guests, but Rosenbaum in particular is articulate and fascinating (makes me kind of wish she had her own radio show or podcast).

As Rosenbaum points out, this incident raises all kind of disturbing questions about who has the right to make these decisions about important works that are part of the cultural heritage of institutions and cities. Yes, museums “own” their works, except those on loan, and, barring stipulations made on gifts and bequests, can legally sell them; but these institutions exist partially on the basis of tax breaks and operating subsidies paid for with our tax dollars, (as well as our contributions) so in a real, as well as cultural sense, the public also “owns” these works.

To my mind, that’s one of the reasons we support our museums; so great paintings like The Gross Clinic and The Cello Player can be displayed in the cities where they have been a part of the cultural legacy for hundreds of years, and their fate is not left to the egotistical whims of priveledged megalomaniacs who need to make themselves feel cultured by robbing the treasures of other cities, or self-serving members of institutional boards (I’m talking about Jefferson’s board here, not the Academy’s) who treat those treasures like grist for expedient garage sales, simply because they’re too lazy to do actual work of fund raising.

Finally! After 3 years of being off the map, one of the foremost collections and exhibition spaces for works on paper in the US is back. The newly renamed Morgan Library and Museum (formerly The Pierpont Morgan Library) is set to reopen this Saturday, April 29, 2006.

I’ve been to number of exhibitions of master drawings at the Morgan over the years and they have all been memorable. The Library itself, developed from the private library of financier and all-around-rich-guy Pierpont Morgan, has a terrific collection of old master drawings, as well as historic manuscripts, books, bindings, music notation, Near Eastern scrolls, tablets and other art objects.

The museum, which is located on Madison Ave. at 36th Street in New York (entrance on 36th), has undergone its most extensive renovation ever with new gallery space, four story court, cafe and auditorium, as well as an unfortunately inappropriate new Bauhausian entrance structure, but that’s a minor quibble.

The Library and Museum will debut its dramatically expanded exhibition space with a show of treasures from its own holdings: Masterworks from the Morgan, which runs from April 29 to July 2, 2006. And treasures they are. Old Pierpont had pretty good taste in master drawings (image above, clockwise from top-left: Rembrandt, Delacroix, Watteau, Goya, Rubens).

The Morgan also has a renovated web site which allows you to look through some of the drawings and other artifacts and, like the same feature on the Met’s site, zoom way in on them.

Link via Artnet News.

I’ve had this exhibition listed in the Exhibitions list on the lines and colors sidebar for months now, and I’ve been looking forward to it for just as long. I was hoping to have a personal report for you by this time, but my schedule just isn’t letting me get to NY (or anywhere else) at the moment, so I want to at least mention the exhibition while it’s early in the run.

The Dahesh Museum in New York has a rare mission; it’s dedicated to 19th century salon and academic art, a branch of art that has been aggressively ignored by the art establishment from the mid 20th Century until just recently, and it’s worth a visit for that alone.

The museum’s current exhibition, however, is particularly appealing; it features selections from a remarkable collection of illustration, with a bounty of masters from the “golden age” of American illustration (roughly 1880-1930).

The works extracted (out of 90 in the show) and highlighted in a gallery on the museum’s site read like a who’s who of the great American illustrators: Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, J.C. Leyendecker, Joseph Clement Coll, Franklin Booth, Dean Cornwell, Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, Charles Dana Gibson, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Harrison Cady, James Montgomery Flagg and several others! Wow!

To my knowledge, the collection is not normally on view unless loaned out, and the exhibition doesn’t seem to be slated to travel. So if you’re in reach of NYC, this my be your only opportunity to see these particular works. I’ve sampled a few of the highlights in the image above. (Clockwise from top left: Franklin Booth, J.C. Leyendecker, Joseph Clement Coll, N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish.)

The exhibition runs to May 21, 2006. If you want to see some fine work by the greatest American illustrators, run to this exhibition.

Addendum: David Apatoff wrote in to say that he has seen the show (see comments on this post) and has posted more (and larger) images on his Illustration Art blog.

2006 marks the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth, so you’re likely to hear a lot about him this year, from me and others. As part of Holland’s celebration of Rembrandt’s 400th, two of the major museums in Amsterdam, the Rijksmusem and the Van Gogh Museum are having a fascinating exhibit (at the latter space) celebrating and comparing the work of home-boy Rembrandt with bad-boy Caravaggio in what promises to the the chiaroscuro smack-down of the ages.

The Rembrandt - Caravaggio exhibit (which also has its own site here), will compare the work of the two great painters by hanging their paintings side by side, giving visitors the chance to compare their technique, subject matter and emotional impact.

Rembrandt and Caravaggio (actually Michelangelo Merisi from Caravaggio, Italy) were the two greatest masters of the Baroque period, and two of the greatest painters ever. Both were revolutionary in their way, both reached heights of success and depths of personal tragedy, both painted scenes of violence (usually biblical) as well as calmer subjects, and both developed their own powerful style and acquired painting skills in the rarified heights of supreme virtuosity.

Rembrandt was influenced by Caravaggio; he learned of the other master through Dutch artists like Honthorst and Van Baburen who traveled to Italy and carried the Italian master’s influence in their own work. It’s unlikely the influence traveled in the other direction.

Both painters were masters of chiaroscuro, the use of dramatic contrasts of light and shadow to describe form. (Chiaroscuro is Italian for “lightdark”.) You can see the technique, as well as some of the power, drama and superb skill of both painters in the images I’ve posted above: Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Samson and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes.

Since we can’t all go to Amasterdam for the exhibit (sigh), here are some links to resources and galleries for the two artists on the web so we can do our own smack-down. Unfortunately, there’s nothing for Caravaggio like Jonathan Janson’s amazing site devoted to Rembrandt: life , paintings, etchings, drawings and self protraits. (See my post about this site and Rembrandt’s drawings.) The other major web galleries are represented in my list for both artists:

Art Renewal Center: Rembrandt
Art Renewal Center: Caravaggio

Webmuseum: Rembrandt
Webmuseum: Caravaggio

Web Gallery of Art: Rembrandt
Web Gallery of Art: Caravaggio

Olga’s Gallery: Rembrandt (contains ads)
Olga’s Gallery: Caravaggio (contains ads)

Artchive: Caravaggio (contains ads)
Artchive: Rembrandt (contains ads)

On canvas, my money would be on Rembrandt, if only because I feel a more human connection to his work than to the turbulent emotions of Caravaggio. In the ring, however, smart money would be on Caravaggio, who had a history of violent conflicts, arrests and imprisonments for assaults, and killed a man in a dispute over a game of court tennis. (He spent a couple of years on the run, during which time he did some of his finest work, and was eventually pardoned by the Pope.)

In either case we come out the winners. It’s hard to overstate the importance and influence of these two heavyweights of painting virtuosity and artistic vision.

I had a chance to see Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings at the Met (see my previous post). It’s a great exhibit that continues to the end of December. Unlike many polished master drawings that seem to spring from the artist’s hand fully realized, you can really see Van Gogh working and learning in his drawings. Even after he had mastered some aspects of drawing, deftly executing complex perspective problems in large drawings of fields and farm buildings, you can still see him struggling with other challenges, like human proportions and placement of features on a face. It’s a fascinating and enlightening exhibit for anyone engaged in the ongoing process of learning to draw.

The Met has created another learning experience - an online Flash interactive called How Van Gogh Made His Mark. It’s ostensibly aimed at children, but worth a look for anyone interested in drawing. The interactive uses several Van Gogh drawings to explore some basic principles of drawing as well as investigating Van Gogh’s own process and history. It features reproductions of drawings that can be zoomed in on and dragged around within the interface. It investigates the artist’s tools, methods and learning experience and features a “sketchbook” where you can draw onscreen with a virtual reed pen.

In my development as an artist, it’s taken me a long time to get over being intimidated by the great masters. Over the years, I’ve caught Raphael and Michelangelo making mistakes in proportion, Prud’hon cheating to fit a figure on a sheet of paper, even Rembrandt missing the mark. I eventually realized that the masters may have been great, but they were still only human.

I’m not so sure about Vermeer.

There is something extraordinary about Vermeer’s work that lifts his skills out of the realm of even great art into some weird kind of other-worldly ability to capture and crystalize a moment in time. Like a human holography camera, he seems to grab a sheet of the light coming from his subjects, filter it through his remarkable eye, hold it still for a few hundred years and then release it again when you’re standing in front of his paintings.

It’s only fitting that there be an extraordinary web site devoted to this extraordinary artist and Essential Vermeer is just that. The site is sweepingly comprehensive, exhaustively researched and endlessly fascinating. It covers the artist’s life, work, technique, clients, subjects, influences and much more. I don’t have room here to describe all of the nifty features of this 400 page(!) site. I wish there was a site like this for all the great masters.

The paintings are arranged in a number of ways, the most straightforward is the Complete Catalog.

Just remember that, as amazing as they can look in reproductions, you haven’t seen a Vermeer until you stand in front of the real thing. If you have a chance, try to see some of them in person. There are 12 in the US, mostly in New York and DC. The site includes a terrific feature on the geographical distribution of Vermeer’s paintings.