I just read an article in the New York Times about the expansion of the Modern Art Department and Wing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY. They said they were going to stop the European section at the 19th Century and have it seamlessly go from the late 1800's to the 20th century, . . . this sounds like trouble to me. I have this feeling that they will be eliminating some fine academic paintings from their collection to do this. I think we should all look into this. The links to modernism that the curator appears to refer to, leave out academic work and only speak of the impressionists. The Frederick Leighton painting hasn't been on display since 1989, what next!, . . . the Bastien-LepageJoan of Arc or the Bouguereau paintings, who knows!!??!! To most people, art is only as good as art critics say it is, and that is sad. Not to sound like a simple-minded person, but, I always thought of the museum as a place for presenting "the history of art", not one span of about 50 years of "art" that most people don't understand. It is an impractical analysis of art that allows this to continue. So much money is tied-in to modern art that the critics and the owners are afraid of devaluing the work and the we are fed this mish-mash of nonsense about art that fails to communicate to its audience without paragraphs and paragraphs of explanation attached to them telling us "how important they are" and why we should appreciate the "simplicity of nothingness". To me, fine art should have some kind of refined skill and communicable appeal (I don't just mean lowest common denominator either) I think the museum needs to expand and include illustration work from the golden age to now. I hope we don't get screwed by another museum, like that Minneapolis fiasco. I'm glad that your website exists and I thank you for it. But, nothing beats seeing the real thing!
