Ying Zhang

Review of Barnes Foundation

The collection is GREAT! Since it was a private co...

The collection is GREAT! Since it was a private collection by Mr.Barnes, he certainly had his personal taste imprinted in the collections as well as the style they were displayed, i.e. the sharp contrast of colors in red and blue. The collection is mostly impressionism, and some abstraction-ism. There are a lot of Renoir's, from some of you can actually see Renoir painted the human faces (mostly babies) in a slightly different style (their shining eyes) from his usual "impression" of human faces (mostly young girls) being red, round and harmony. But the paintings that strike me most are the Matisses's. Certainly,Matisse painted a lot of women. But those nearly perfect figures under his brush are not just expressed as women. They are human spirits adopted into certain forms for us to recognize more easily. Matisses had to condescend to our eyes. For example, he would paint a woman with beautiful face, hair, shoulder but a complete but very simple, sometimes sketchy torso and legs. (which made his work more adorable than Picasso's, to some people, I mean myself.)

Well, there are just too many things to see in one day, and too many things for me to name, waiting for you to explore.

Other than the pluses, there are a few things about my experience that I'd like to point out:

1. Even if you reserved your ticket about a specific hour, like 3pm, days ago, on the day of your visit you still have to wait in a line at 3pm. (unless you are a member then you do not need to wait in lines.) I did not know that when I was coming in, and thought those people in line were waiting for some special tours, until reality hits me..

I understand that even in the new location people would like to keep the original style that Mr.Barnes had kept those paintings, (as moving from the old location in suburban Merion to center Philly already offended a lot people), the rooms are still too small to hold a large number of visitors. The gallery is crowded.

2. If you bring your iphone you can borrow a pair of headphones from the counter for free. If you do not have a smart phone to broadcast for you there is a fee to use their machines. But, under each of the paintings there is at most just the painter's name. You can not expect there is any legend, or explanation of the painting hanging on the wall, as in the case of the public museums. The walls are densely covered by paintings alone.

3. Like most public museums in Canada (unlike US), it is not allowed to take pictures in the gallery. But you can check bags at the lower floor for free.

4. Perhaps they did not notice this. While their guards are trying very hard to politely keep the visitors from becoming too close to the pictures, they sometimes become too close themselves, (well, at least in the case of a guard with a big hair), lol

Overall, those being said, it is still one of the best art experience I've so far encountered in America.