In April 2005 I wrote my Slate column about the projected move of the Barnes Foundation to downtown Philadelphia: “Why not treat the galleries of the Barnes as an artistically significant artifact, and simply move them to the new location, burlap-covered walls and all? The result would resemble the transplanted historical interiors exhibited in many large museums, such as the Ottoman room at the Metropolitan Museum.” Well, that’s what they did—sort of. I had avoided visiting the new Barnes since I was attached to the original, but last week I finally relented. The collection hung as before (following a judge’s ruling), but thanks to Williams & Tsien’s tinkering, the feeling of the place had changed. Although the room layout was more or less the same, moldings had disappeared or been altered, and a kind of fussy modernist slickness permeated Paul Cret’s architecture. The collection itself can be a little overwhelming, and I was drawn—as I have been before—to Toulouse-Lautrec’s “A Montrouge.” After all those chubby Renoir nudes it is a breath of fresh air.
