The Barnes Foundation and the Death of Fun

I know you were busily reading the newspaper cover to cover this weekend, so you won’t have missed the exceedingly important piece by Nicolai Ouroussoff on the Barnes Foundation, the Getty and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: three museums built in America by wackos that have since (after their founders’ deaths, of course) been taken astray of their intentions by their current managers. The Barnes (which has on exhibit more Cezannes than you can see in all of France, should that be a thing you would ever want) is currently in the last gasps of a long legal fight, which seems to be ending badly for the people who would like it not to be uprooted and moved to downtown Philadelphia. Everything interesting becomes made dull for profit! Attend the Barnes before June 30th, if you can! And then, join me in never visiting it again.