Barnes Storming

A reader offered a quick comment to my post about museums recombining work from their permanent collections. What he said, in its entirety, was: "Sounds like a trip to the Barnes Foundation is in your future..." Two responses from me:

1 - Weirdly, there is a trip to the Barnes in my future. I'm awaiting confirmation on a March 2 reservation request. Look soon for my separate comment folder for psychic readers.

2 - I was aware when I did my earlier post that the Barnes mixes everything. Where else can you see a Seurat in the same room as a Matisse lunette and a whole lot of Pennsylvania Dutch hardware? But the Barnes is sui generis. It's not a place that occasionally departs from the general run of museum practices. It's one that disregards them to begin with. Idiosyncrasy was built in to the Barnes philosophy. I didn't want to drag a short post down that long line of digression, but point taken.

I'll have more to say on Barnes-style eclecticism, and on the Foundation's impending move to Philadelphia, when I get back from there. Psychic readers are invited to predict my reactions.