Giving Thanks

That is a small sized picture compared to all the other works hung up on the wall. After walking around the museum several times, it attracted my attention. It’s a portrait of a small wooden house (or room). With one single bed on the left, a table in the middle and several people around, it’s a normal scene. But it has some attractions distinguished from the rest of the museum.

The use of colors is the first thing that captured my eyes: the mainstream is black, dark red, brown and white, repeatedly. But even with these mainly dark colors, my impression for it is still bright. The whiteness is conspicuous---it has a strong sense of presence. The painting is incompatible with the other ones on the same wall, the contrast of color brought up a brand-new feel, and even it’s an old art piece talking about time few decades ago. The whiteness draws clear outlines in this painting: the pillows, the plates, the apron of the woman, and in the texture of the carpet. However, the whiteness did not have a delightful feeling; it’s just neat, or even dazzling. The only color I like is the sky outside their door: pure blue, without even a piece of cloud or a glance of horizon. I wondered that this might be the painter’s expression of life: the pure beauty outside be the dream and the inside darkness is the reality. The sky is also the light source of the room because there’s no lights inside the room.

Flowing. Floating. Drifting. Orange and dark blue run by, through, into each other. Like the warm ocean current from the equator meets the cold one from Arctic, crushing, fusing, solving, dissolving, creating home for diverse beautiful oceanic creatures. A man in dark clothes stands still in the waves.

Barnes Foundation, with its modern, luxurious outlook, seemed just another museum to me. I expected the inside display to be one painting per wall, so that the artworks could be given sacred majesty and be enshrined and worshiped. On the contrary, paintings are placed close together, so close that, in order to keep them from fighting for space, they are separated by huge keys, carved fences, and spearheads. Now that the artworks exist in peace and harmony, they talk and dance with each other. Two pieces of the same painter share similarity or symmetry; a huge portrait of an elderly man surrounded by smaller portraits of children like an old man surrounded by his grandchildren; an ancient African painting looks like a 19th century work; a painting and a sculpture have astonishingly similar patterns.

            As I approached the chic new building that was created to hold the vast quantity of art pieces that Barnes had collected in his life, I was expecting the traditional layout of a museum, with artwork lining the walls with plaques underneath yielding descriptions of the works and their creators. However I was overwhelmed by the vast amount of artwork pieced together into a playful collage that led from room to room with hundreds of paintings, works of iron, sketches, and sculptures, all intentionally placed into a specific pattern, allowing for pieces of art to play off of one another, making each work better than it would be if it were displayed on its own. As I toured along the walls and walls of art, I kept finding myself drawn to the soft shades and strokes of the Pierre-Auguste Renoir pieces, I love the impressionist era, and Renoir pieces seemed to line the walls.

Henri Edmond Cross 1856-1910, Two Women by the Shore, Mediterranean 1896 Oil on Canvas

Perhaps missing the ocean drew me to Two Women by the Shore, by French artist Henri Edmond Cross. The painting is set on what looks like a cliff, with a bright turquoise ocean and pale purple sky as a background. There are blues and purples in the shadows, and yellows and pinks to accent the highlights, with some red, green, and orange mid tones. It is late morning or early afternoon; the colors are bright but the shadows are long. The horizon line is barely visible, and the ocean reflects the slightly purple clouds as if the sky and sea are one. The scrubby brush and deciduous trees remind me of the chaparral of California, but the shockingly saturated colors and lack of wind or fog in the painting suggest a more equatorial zone. Looking closer, I try and figure out what’s going on to draw me into the painting. 

            Walking amongst the collections of Barnes Foundation gave me such a sacred feeling about art work and the amount of attention and care we should always keep towards these treasures. Security guards in black suits everywhere kept reminding me that we should treat these works of art in awe. Those strict rules and restrictions, such as no crossing of the dark line and no drawing or sketching, built an invisible wall between the art collection and the visitors. However, the settings of each room and the arrangements were classic and even a little bit "homey".

            I sit down in front of a painting above the doorframe in Room 11. The relatively small painting in the inconspicuous corner of the room immediately grabbed my attention when I laid my eyes on it. It's called The Departure of the Six-Meter Boats (La Sortie des six mètres), by French artist Raoul Dufy in 1936.

I seldom came to somewhere to see pictures by foreign painters because I believed if I could not know those painters’ background, I would not understand the deep meaning of their works. So, I just treated those works respectfully in my heart and refused to see them. However, my experience today changes in some degree my mind. And I think although the background is un-known for me, it won’t influence my enjoyment.

There are thousands of art works in front of me. Some are made by very famous painters such as Van Gogh or Monet, and others are made by unfamiliar names. I walk from one room to another, those works on the wall look at me silently, and I try to choose one work that shocks me or causes my interest. Some works are very beautiful because of their harmonious colors that are used to depict natural views. However, I cannot find the story that the painter wants to tell in such works. For me, it is important to tell the story in the work and in such works, the painter seems to just record the beautiful view in their eyes. Time is passing and I feel tired. When I enter in a new room, I decide to sit for a break. Then, when I notice the picture on the wall, I know, the one I need is here.

Jessica Bernal

ESEM- Play in The City

In the Garden of Eden

      It’s quiet and rigid; I’m walking in an architect’s wet dream. This isn’t a place for the people to learn about art, it’s a showcase for the pompous and wealthy to wander and critique at their leisure. I feel like I’m invading someone’s space, someone’s dream. It doesn’t feel right, I don’t feel welcomed and the clack clack clack noise my boots make gets louder and louder as I walk further inside The Barnes Foudation.

      The superfluous smell of oil pastels pull me in, I feel like a tracking dog searching all over the place for more of that intriguing sweet smell. It’s what pulls me in to a room full of paintings, antique furniture, and jewelry of the best caliber because rather than being adorned with diamonds or gold, they’re embellished with a rich story, each piece bringing culture together.

      I’m walking in complete admiration once I’ve entered the halls filled with the paintings. In the first room, I can’t stop staring at Matisse’s Dancing piece and the only reason why I’ve decided to keep looking around the room to the other paintings is because my neck started to hurt. The paintings surrounding me are definitely nothing like what I’ve seen else where, but they still feel wrong, out of place.

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Red Blouses and Tulips

I am sitting on the floor in front of her. She looks mildly accusing; although she is being ladylike, she fixes you with her stare and her mouth is set. Her head is ever so slightly cocked.

She’s a William James Glackens painting, a white woman, middle to upper class, wearing a dress with a red skirt over ordinary sized hips and a multicolored, but predominantly red, bodice over comparatively massive bosoms. She wears dangly earrings, a red flowered hat, and makeup.

She sits—on what, the viewer can’t see. The floor or lower wall behind her is pink and flowered, and the upper wall is light pink or white. Yellow curtains above her head frame shapeless greenness. It could be a window showing a hill, or a green tinted window, or merely an expanse of green paint on the wall. A table with physically insufficient legs for standing holds a vase of four roses, in red, yellow, pink, and white. She rests her elbow on it, although by the laws of perspective it ought to be too tall for that. Her left sleeve is significantly darker than anything else in the painting. I am not sure why. The light appears to be essentially equal throughout the painting elsewhere.

I like this painting. When I saw it, I was instantly drawn to it, even more than I was drawn to the Van Gogh in one of the next rooms that looked, from a distance, like a naked woman on a bed giving a “come hither” look, and upon further inspection was a naked woman on a bed whose face looked like Rowan Atkinson’s, as if someone had crudely photoshopped Mr. Bean’s head onto the body of a Post-Impressionist woman.

The colors are striking, I respect the amount of effort that went into making this, and I'm in awe of the skill.

I really, really like this painting. I connect to it. That’s all that matters. I don't need to analyze every inch of it to know that.

The photo doesn't do the painting justice.

Photo: http://www.barnesfoundation.org/assets/collectionImgResize/b/bf/529_600_bf262_i3r.jpg

“No, am I crazy? Have we seen that one before? I think we’ve seen that one before.”

“I don’t know. I mean, they’re all Renoir, and they’re all naked ladies viewed from behind and kind of to the side, so maybe?”

“We’ve seen that one before. Definitely”

The light and airy women seem to glance sidelong at us out of their gilded frames. No, there were no repeat paintings, although judging by the shapes of the women and fruit Renoir painted, the man certainly had a type. His delicate but broad brushstrokes, typical of an impressionist, are at least present in almost every room and prevalent in many. The colors are bright and go well with the gold of the frames and walls, which make the rooms of the gallery look warm and invite the viewer in to wander as they please.

However, amidst a sea of soft colors and forms, there is an island of dark tones and well-defined shapes that starkly contrasts against the colorful lines surrounding it. Beset on all sides by small impressionist paintings, all save two by Renoir himself, Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Man Holding a Watch sticks out almost as much as the iron hinges, doorknockers, and other metal accessories adorning the walls of the Barnes.

Take a step back. The man doesn’t belong. His practically photorealistic quality stands out as a statement of differing styles against the impressionist color blocks and sense of light. He looms on the wall, sucking the light from the room.