October 16, 2016 - 17:00
What the Barnes Foundation offered in terms of artwork could be described as sensory overload. Room after room of enrapturing beauty, or death, or solitude, or comfort. I needed to take a break at one point to stop the rushing from room to room, and appreciate the gallery one room, one wall, one painting at a time.
She looks straight at you, the girl with the piercing dark eyes and rosy cheeks. She is 5 or 6 years old, she is smiling and wearing a blue dress with white arms and neck, an orange necklace adorning her. Her legs are clothed in blue and white stockings and she wears boots. Each hand holds the end of a jump rope. She looks poised to start jumping, maybe just as one looks away. This vivid oil painting is "The Girl With a Jump Rope (Portrait of Delphine Legrand)," by Renoir.
Symmetry, and color were Barnes main focuses, and while some walls seemed cluttered at first glance, they quickly made sense upon gaining insight into his intention and mindset. I was interested in Barnes’ carefully composed "ensembles" that illustrated certain formal themes or concepts. For example, a painting of bodacious nude breasts are displayed next to a still life of curvy round fruit next to a round teapot that looked vaguely breast-like. An African sculpture wearing a pointy head-dress was displayed next to a European painting of Christ's crown of thorns next to some metallic tool emanating with pointy things.
Barnes' intention, according to documents, was to show the universality creativity and the expressive methods artists applied.
The Barnes Foundation was one of the first permanent installations in the United States to present objects from Africa as fine art. Indeed, the African collection is central to understanding Barnes’s socially progressive vision for his foundation. There are 123 objects, including reliquary figures, masks, and utensils, most of which originated in France’s African colonies—Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, and the Congo—as well as in Sierra Leone, Republic of Benin, and Nigeria. Yet, the quality or authenticity of some of the objects is questionable.