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Reviewing Philadelphia Museums: 2, 5 & 4 Stars — Fourth Quarter Begins pg268
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
The new Barnes Museum opened. I carved out three days to visit art museums in Philadelphia, and returned with seventy sketches as raw material for new originals. — From Chapter 15
2012
Philadelphia is a dragon’s lair of art history’s masterpieces. I got on a long waiting list and planned my trip to see the recently opened Barnes Foundation collection in its slick new building in the historic district — a collection that had previously been hidden from everyone except a few tenacious scholars who managed to get past the cave’s well-guarded entrance in a moldering private estate. I had planned a full day to study the art, but this museum’s policies were so oppressive I only lasted a couple of hours.
The floor plan was designed to mirror the old Albert Barnes mansion, so galleries were numerous, but small. That would have been fine had they not extended the viewing range two feet further from the art than any other museum. Thick lines on the floors restricted everyone to small squares in the center of each room. Guards were quick to admonish toes over the lines. My entrance time was when they opened, so I had the medieval room to myself, and began sketching from paintings that had been…
