The Pennsylvania Art Educator

Volume 2 - Fall 1993-- Edited for the Web

The Barnes Foundation:
Its Collection, Its Purpose, Its Philosophy of Art
Barbara P. Suplee

Since 1922, Pennsylvania has been the home of the Barnes Foundation, an institution dedicated to art that is without equal anywhere in this country or in the world. For the last four decades it has, more or less, maintained a low profile and enjoyed a relatively quiet existence, but lately has found itself embroiled in controversy and thrust into the public's eye. This paper will address common misconceptions surrounding the Barnes Foundation insofar as its collection, its purpose, and its philosophy of art. (1)

 

The Barnes Foundation's Collection:

 The Barnes Foundation located in Merion, Pennsylvania, a western suburb of Philadelphia, is the repository of what is acknowledged as one of the world's great collections of 19th- and 20th-century European Art. It is said that the Barnes collection, which includes 7 Van Goghs, 57 Cezannes, 54 Matisses, 19 Picassos, 17 Rousseaus, and 11 Modiglianis, contains "three works that Joseph Rishel, curator of 1 9th-century European painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, ranks among the 10 most influential paintings of the 20th century-Cezanne's monumental Bathers, his Cardplayers, and Seurat's Les Poseurs" (Fleeson, 1990, p. 26). (2) Moreover, the Barnes' holdings are not only limited to 19thand 20th-century European Art.

 According to a brochure published by the Barnes Foundation:

 Its more than one thousand paintings include works by Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Degas, Seurat, Rousseau, Picasso, Matisse, and other modern painters down to S outine, Modigliani, Pascin, Demuth, Glackens, Charles and Maurice Prendergast, Pippin, Klee, Miro, Rouault, Afro, etc. Among the old masters are paintings by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, El Greco, Claude Le Lorrain, Chardin, Daumier, Delacroix, Courbet and Corot, and also the work of Dutch artists, and of Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Flemish primitives, and representative examples of Chinese and Persian art. Included, too, are important pieces of Greek, Egyptian, Hindu and American Indian art, and a well-rounded collection of primitive African sculpture of unusually high quality.

Clearly, the quality and quantity of the art in the Barnes Foundation's collection places the institution in the company of world-class art museums —but, contrary to a common misperception, the Barnes Foundation is not an art museum, nor has it ever been an art museum. The Barnes Foundation is a school, a school with a distinct mission, goals, and objectives.

 

The Barnes Foundation's Laboratory

As chartered by Albert C. Barnes in 1922, the Barnes Foundation is an educational institution established "to promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts," and its collection is a working laboratory for the institution's educational program (By-laws, Article 2). Thus, the Barnes Foundation is unique in that an extraordinary collection was developed and maintained by its founder specifically as a laboratory for learning, and unique in that it is the repository of the largest teaching collection of art in the world.

The Barnes' extraordinary collection is used instrumentally to teach specific, educational objectives; it is the primary resource—a working laboratory— for the students in the Foundation's educational program, and it exists solely for that purpose (Barnes Foundation Indenture of Trust). No other school maintains a working laboratory or has the resources (the collection) for its students quite like the Barnes Foundation.

First time visitors to the Barnes Foundation's gallery, those who are familiar with the traditional presentation of art in art museums, are confronted with a seemingly unorthodox display of art at this institution. For not only are the art and artifacts at the Barnes without any signage or wall text—other than a small plate with the artist's name, or if that is not known, the place of origin—the art is not arranged or segregated according to artist or era, nor is it given exclusive space as a thing in itself, in the traditional manner favored by most museums. In contrast, the paintings, ironworks, and furniture in the Barnes' teaching laboratory are exhibited in ways that demonstrate, highlight, emphasize, or contrast particular motifs, traditions, and principles. (3) The idea of the teaching laboratory, along with the assembly and arrangement of the collection for that purpose, is the handiwork of Albert C. Barnes, the founder of the institution. (4) The laboratory is used extensively by the Barnes students four days a week in the Foundation's educational program, but three days a week—when classes are not in session—the laboratory is open to the public. (5) In essence, the school with its concomitant educational activities is responsible for the public's limited access to the collection.

Ironically, before the Barnes' recent ascendancy into national and international prominence, few people outside of the art world were even aware of its existence, and those who were— neighbors, art lovers, art educators, museum professionals, and art critics, etc.—perceived it as an art museum, an unfriendly, art museum that embraced rigid, eccentric, archaic policies. Unfortunately, this misperception exists, even today, and it stems from the Barnes Foundation's purposive, low public profile.

 

The Barnes Foundation's Education Outreach Program

Clearly, the Barnes Foundation itself must accept responsibility for the public's misperception of it, for it lacks a strategic element that is visible and viable in every successful educational/ arts institution—an outreach program. Unlike other educational institutions, the Barnes does not have today, nor did it ever have, in the past, a working relationship, network, or alliance with other educational institutions; an environment or resources open to scholarly inquiry; a strong advocacy for its aesthetic philosophy and educational program; a public relations department; or "user friendly" materials that clearly set forth the institution's mission, goals, methodology, and philosophy (educational and aesthetic). As a result, the Barnes Foundation has no:

 Consequently, little is known about the Barnes Foundation's approach to art appreciation outside the limestone walls that enclose it and its extraordinary collection. Worse yet, because of its lack of accessibility to scholars who are interested in conducting research, much of that which is perceived and disseminated by outsiders is erroneous.

 

The Barnes Foundation's Philosophy of Art

Even though it is the repository of the world's largest teaching collection for art education in the world, there is little substantive research on the Barnes Foundation's philosophy of art or its position as an element in art education. A paucity of scholarly knowledge exists in five important areas: Barnes the philosopher/ educator; the Barnes philosopher of art; the origin/ roots of the Barnes' aesthetic philosophy; the aesthetic philosophy's translation into practice in the Foundation's art appreciation courses; and the Barnes' Deweyan, educational tradition. To compound the problem, there are many in art and art education who cavalierly write off the Barnes Foundation's approach as reactionary, although they know little or anything substantive about the aesthetic philosophy that grounds it or its praxis.

One recent example of a widely held misconception about the Barnes' aesthetic philosophy is voiced by Daniel Levy, in Time magazine, when he asserts that Albert Barnes "replaced factual art history with a photo—New Age veneration of beauty" (1992, p. 87). Levy's allegation that the Barnes' method is a "proto New Age veneration of beauty" — whatever that is — indicates that he is ignorant of the Barnes' philosophy of art, for the writings of Albert Barnes and those at the Foundation, as well as what is taught in the Barnes' art appreciation courses do not support such a position.

All aesthetic theories select a specific focus in their endeavor to extract meaning from works of art, and in so doing, they favor some subject matter of material over other subject matter; therefore, that which is extraneous to the theory's purpose or intention is excluded. In essence, "selective emphasis" ignores, omits, or denies the existence of the other; this does not imply that that which is left ou—the other—is unimportant, but that it is not relevant to the intention or purpose of the one who is selecting. (6) In any event, selective emphasis substantiates that art can be approached from a multiplicity of perspectives: aesthetic, historical, semiotic, feminist, social theory, etc. The Barnes' focus or selective emphasis is the aesthetic—the art in art which reveals to the viewer the world, by expressing the qualities in objects, situations, emotive material, etc. in lived experience.

Clearly, then, it is obvious to anyone, who possesses a relevant background in aesthetics and who has studied the Barnes Foundation in depth - in theory and in practice - that the Barnes' aesthetic theory is firmly grounded in Expression Theory, which hark back to the early 1900s. Mary Mullen (1923), author of An Approach to Art—the first text to emanate from the Barnes Foundation—makes the perceptive reader aware that she is espousing expression theory when she asserts that life, at base level, is feeling, the non-cognitive, non-rational aspect of experience; it is formless and without meaning until the consciousness is brought to bear upon it, and, then, feeling takes on form and meaning. "An artist is a person who can express his experience (forms) in a suitable material so that they will arouse similar feelings in the observer"; art is the form of the artist's lived experience art is expression (p.17). Mullen (1923) is responsible for the famous "art is a fragment of life presented to us enriched feelings by means of the creative spirit of the artist" statement that graces the Barnes Foundation brochure and is the credo in the Barnes classes (p. 5).

Moreover, it is also clear that the founder of the Barnes and his protege, DeMazia, embrace expression theory. According to Barnes, as set forth in Art as Painting (1925), and Barnes & DeMazia in both The Art of Renoir (1935) and Art and Education (1929), art is not narrative, utilitarian, the evocation of emotion, nor what authority claims to be art; it is an artist's discovery in perception. (7) All experience is constitutive of sensuous qualities, qualities which define, color, and give experience its unique character and identity. As individuals endeavor to apprehend experience, they explore and organize the sensuous qualities in experience—in themselves and in the qualities of the specific event, object, and emotive material that initially excited them in the environment - and as they explore and organize, they discover the "itness" or pervasive character of the experience. The exploration/ organization activity that the individual undertakes - in order to discover the essential quality of his or her interaction with the environment -is expression. The primary purpose of art is that it reveals to us our world, by expressing the qualities in objects, situations, emotive material, etc. in lived experience. Expression in art is not expression of a different kind, but expression in art embodies the qualities of life and nature in a product, i.e., a painting, sculpture, music, etc.

Laurence Buermeyer, Associate Director of Education at the Barnes during John Dewey's tenure as Director, also unquestionably establishes Expression theory as the philosophical base for art in The Aesthetic Experience (1924), and his expression theory is clearly Crocean, for not only does Buermeyer mention Benedetto Croce by name, he draws extensively upon his aesthetic philosophy in three separate sections of the book. Buermeyer states that art is "an expression of emotion" in which one sees the object of the emotion, with its attendant qualities; the meaning of the emotion and its object is only effected upon ordering, reorganization, and interpretation of the initial chaotic, formless impression or sensations (p. 93). The imaginative activity of bringing order, form, and meaning to sensuous chaos is expression, and all expression is uniquely individual. What separates expression per se from aesthetic expression is aesthetic universality, for all expression (i.e., the immediate act of apprehending experience) is particular or individual, but all expression is not particular/ individual and universal. Expression that is inclusive of the individual and universal is art, a distinction that places Buermeyer's expression theory in the Croce camp.

Thus, any substantive research on the Barnes philosophy of art will reveal that it is Expression theory - expression theory that is Crocean in nature. The implications of such a discovery reveal the importance of Buermeyer and the Barnes Foundation to the history of American aesthetics, but this paper is not the place to pursue this topic, for it deserves an in-depth exegesis of its own.

 

Summary and Conclusions

This paper has addressed three common misconceptions about the Barnes Foundation relative to its collection, its purpose, and its aesthetic philosophy. What should now be patently clear to the reader is that there is a dearth of substantive, scholarly research on the Barnes Foundation; such a situation should not exist, given the fact that this institution's aesthetic theory is of great import to art education and the field of American aesthetics. As stated earlier, much of the blame rests on the shoulders of the Barnes itself because of the closed manner in which it conducts "business," but there also appears to be a closed attitude towards the institution emanating from the art world. That is due, in part, to the fact that the Barnes Foundation's philosophy of art is grounded in expression theory, a theory that is not popular among contemporary art institutions today.

However, to say that the Barnes Foundation's aesthetic theory is outdated is to say that there is only one way to approach art. Not only is such a premise false, for there are a multiplicity of ways to approach art as discussed earlier in the paper—such a stance is in opposition to education's challenge to "respect difference" which is being heralded all across the nation today. Elliot Eisner addressed this very issue — in his presentation "Should American Art Education Have a National Curriculum?" at the 1992 NAEA Annual Convention in Phoenix, Arizona—when he stated that "diversity is not a vice; diversity is a virtue." We in art education should advocate that position, as long as the approach in question is a valid example of Socratic inquiry, and the Barnes Foundation's philosophy of art fulfills that qualification.

Obviously change is necessary—on both sides. It is time for the Barnes to open its doors, to be more receptive to inquiries of scholarship; it is time— and long overdue — for scholarly research on the Barnes Foundation, and it is also time for those who are writing about the Barnes' philosophy of art and its praxis to write from a position of authority, authority that comes with credible, substantive knowledge and understanding. Moreover, if the Barnes Foundation is to become a viable institution of art education, it is also time for the Barnes to take a visible, vocal, and proactive stance on its aesthetic philosophy and educational program.

 

References

Note 1: The current controversy centers on the Barnes Foundation's 1922 Indenture of Trust and its ByLaws, with its subsequent Articles, Paragraphs, and amendments which impose great constraints on those who are designated as the caretakers of the Barnes legacy. The present trustees of the Barnes Foundation have challenged the trust and petitioned the court to override some of those constraints such as: selling some of the paintings; increasing public access; changing the institution's conservative investment policy; raising the price of the admission fee to the gallery; using the gallery for social functions; and sending a large group of paintings on a world tour. Two factions have developed in the controversy: the Barnes loyalists who are committed to preserving the educational program for which the Foundation was created; and the trustees who are intent on generating capital to modernize the institution's physical plant, making it financially prosperous, and opening the famed collection to greater access. [return]

Note 2: 0ver the years, various figures have been given for the number of paintings in the Barnes collection, including the specific number by individual artists. However, there has never been an official catalog available from the Barnes Foundation listing its holdings, therefore published information on the number of paintings in the collection cannot be substantiated at this time. [return]

Note 3: For more information on the hanging and arrangement of the collection, consult Violette deMazia's article, "The Barnes Foundation: The Display of its Art Collection," in Vistas, (19811983). [return]

Note 4: The assembly and arrangement of the collection is at the center of an ongoing controversy, for Albert Barnes made provisions in the Foundation's By-laws to ensure that all the paintings remain in the positions and arrangements in which he placed them in perpetuity (By-laws, Article IX, Paragraph 17). The trustees of the Barnes led by Richard Glanton, the president of the Barnes Foundation, petitioned the court to override that stipulation of the By-laws, so that 15 of the paintings could be sold to generate capital for renovations and repairs that were said to be needed at the aging institution. For more information on this topic, see Michael Kimmelman's article, "Barnes Foundation Seeks to Sell Some Paintings," in The New York Times, March 29, 1991. [return]

Note 5: Albert Barnes never intended to open the gallery to great public access, for the Barnes' purpose was educational, and the collection was maintained solely for the use of the Barnes students. Therefore, many years of litigation were required to effect changes that culminated in three days a week visitation privileges to the general public. The first time that the Barnes collection was available for public inspection was March 18, 1961 —38 years after the institution was first established; therefore, 200 visitors were admitted to the gallery two days a week. National and international press chronicled this landmark event. See John Canaday's "Art Lives Up to Its Fabulous Legend As Unexpected Wonders are Disclosed" in the New York Times and "Public Sees Bames Art for First Time" in The Philadelphia Inquirer. [return]

Note 6: The principle of selective emphasis is explicated by John Dewey (1958 [1929]) in his chapter "Philosophic Method" in Experience and Nature, pp. 25-31. [return]

Note 7: The Barnesian notion of perception is not the same as the analytical empiricists' notion of perception in which the mind passively becomes aware of objects, events, and situations in the environment. Barnesian perception is closer to what Dewey meant by "experience." [return]

 Barbara P. Suplee,
teaches in The University of The Arts,
and is a doctoral candidate in art education at
The Pennsylvania State University.

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