Art Eyewitness Essay: The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project Triumph

 

The Triumph of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project

A Photo Essay, 2017- 2021 

Original Photos by Anne Lloyd

Commentary by Ed Voves

Old friends in new surroundings. That was the image which almost immediately leapt to mind when my wife, Anne, and I paid our first visit to the newly renovated galleries and public spaces of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

The immense redesign and construction project can be traced back to initial planning in the year 2000, with construction commencing in earnest in 2017 and opening to the public just a few weeks ago on May 7, 2021. Anne and I had been honored to attend the March 2017 groundbreaking which I discussed in Frank Gehry's Master Plan for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Now, four years later, we were back to see how our "old friends" liked their new digs.

By "old friends" I mean the treasures of the Philly Museum's wonderful collection, which have been "reimagined" in the expanded gallery spaces. 

High on the list of familiar and beloved art works is Charles Willson Peale's Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaele Peale and Titian Ramsey Peale). This nearly life-sized portrait of two of Peale's sons, complete with tromp l'oeil steps, has been placed at the entrance of a newly designed suite of galleries dedicated to telling the story of art in early America. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries, showing a sofa designed by Benjamin Latrobe (1808). The painting (center) is Washington Allston's Scenes from the Taming of the Shrew (1809)

The "new spaces" include the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries (American art, 1600's to 1850) and the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries for Contemporary Art, especially works with a Philadelphia focus.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Gallery view of the New Grit: Art & Philly Now exhibition in the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2020) Alex Da Corte's S.O.S. (Sam on Sill)

The real "show-stopper" is the Williams Forum, a new public events site of such astonishing design that it was disorienting to take in, the first few times I have visited there.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 

A dramatic view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, with cantilever steps leading down from the first floor.

The redesign of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was designated as the "Core Project" because of the decision to utilize internal space within the imposing  building. Where other museums have "added-on" or "built-out" from their existing structures, the planning committee of the Philly Museum decided to "go deep."

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art's East Entrance & the "Rocky" steps   

As a result of this decision, the familiar "face" of the Philadelphia Museum of Art appears little affected by the momentous changes taking place inside.

"Going deep" was possible because of a complicated series of strategic moves beginning with the acquisition of an Art-Deco style building located near the Philly Museum in 2000. Renamed after generous donors, the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building provided space for staff offices formerly housed in the museum. This now-vacated office space and other areas within the great building would provide room for the Core Project reconstruction without radically altering the distinctive facade of the museum.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) 

Cutaway views of the architectural model of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project. The bottom photo shows the Great Stair Hall with Calder Mobile, located above the new Williams Forum.

Maintaining the exterior of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is more than a case of "keeping up appearances". Long before the steps of the museum's East Entrance entered Hollywood legend in the 1970's film Rocky, the Philadelphia Museum of Art occupied a huge place in Philly's cultural identity. Yet, the museum's history is marked by change and coping with adversity.

The Core Project represents the third major transformation experienced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

May 10,1877 was the opening day for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its first home was Memorial Hall, one of the buildings of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Memorial Hall was totally inadequate as an exhibition space by the early years of the twentieth century. The present museum, a magnificent neo-classical structure built with honey-colored limestone, rose on the site of the historic Fairmount Waterworks. The iconic building greeted its first visitors in 1928 and the stage was set for a great future.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018)      

The North pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  showing Carl Paul Jennewein's ceramic-glazed terra cotta sculpture entitled Western Civilization, 1932

The next year witnessed the Wall Street debacle followed by the 1930's Depression and World War II. Funding was scarce and the new museum struggled to keep open.

Never-the-less, the Philadelphia Museum of Art endured and thrived. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the collection had grown in quality and quantity to such an extent that many of the galleries were overwhelmed with masterpieces. Clearly a strategy for the Philly Museum was needed, one which would also provide space for the display of contemporary art, especially works by local artists.

In 2004, a long-range Facilities Master Plan was approved. Many dedicated people would play major roles in implementing this Master Plan but four deserve special recognition: Gail Harrity, President of the museum, Anne d’Harnoncourt,  Director and CEO until her passing in 2008, Timothy Rub, Director and CEO since fall 2009, and Frank Gehry, who was selected as architect in 2006.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Portrait of Frank Gehry

In accepting the challenge of the Core Project, Gehry cogently explained the guiding principle of honoring the vision of the original architect, Horace  Trumbauer and his chief designer, Julian Abele: 

The goal in all of our work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been to let the museum guide our hand. The brilliant architects who came before us created a strong and intelligent design that we have tried to respect, and in some cases accentuate. Our overarching goal has been to create spaces for art and for people.

The "strong and intelligent design" of the original architects of the Philadelphia Museum of Art provided 90,000 square feet of internal space for Gehry and his team to "reimagine." Needless to say, an enormous amount of planning, fund-raising and hard work was part of the process.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017)

     The Vaulted Passageway of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  before renovations in March 2017

Along with the vacated office space mentioned earlier there were two primary areas awaiting redevelopment. The most dramatic was a corridor, 640 feet long, sited on a north-south axis. Even before the construction crews started work, the Vaulted Walkway, as it is known, was a really imposing site. Yet, for almost half a century, it had been closed to the public. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) 

The Van Pelt Auditorium being demolished during the

 Core Project renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Most museum patrons had no idea that the Vaulted Walkway existed. The second major space to be utilized to provide square footage was much more familiar. This was the Van Pelt Auditorium, the site for so many memorable lectures and classic film presentations. But with a replacement planned for the Perlman Center, this much-used locale was demolished to make way for the visionary Williams Forum.

                                  Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)                                           The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, constructed on the site of the demolished Van Pelt Auditorium

While the construction work proceeded, a second key facet in the success of the Core Project commenced. This was to keep as much of the Philly Museum's collection visible and accessible to patrons during the long years of "pardon our dust" labor.  

The strategic management skills of Timothy Rub, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, solved the problem. A succession of major exhibitions propelled the museum's public service mission as the structural changes of the Core Project gained momentum. Rather than attempt a breathless "recap" of all of the exhibits, a brief discussion of two will suffice. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) 

Timothy Rub at the opening of the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibition. In the background is a 60-foot composite photo by  Michael Nichols of a 3200-year old Giant Sequoia Redwood tree

The first of these was Wild: Michael Nichols. on view during the summer of 2017. Wild brilliantly juxtaposed images by the noted nature photographer, Michael Nichols, with art works from the Philly Museum's collection. What might have been a superficial "compare-contrast" display yielded many profound  insights into the interaction of human beings and Planet Earth.

                                      Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017)                                                View of the Philadelphia Museum exhibit, Old Masters Now.  Rodin's sculpture Thought (left) is shown with Manet's The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama"

The special exhibition which followed Wild: Michael Nichols in the autumn of 2017 was also worthy of note. Old Masters Now provided a brilliant overview of Philadelphia Museum of Art history by examining the role of one of its principal protagonists. John G. Johnson was a discerning Gilded Age collector. The exhibition reunited many of his greatest acquisitions, by such masters as van Eyck, Rembrandt and Manet, now displayed throughout the museum.

By the late autumn of 2019, The Philadelphia Museum of Art was ready to open the first of the completed "new spaces." The North Entrance provided stylish and easy access to the museum and the Vaulted Walkway reflected the lights of glittering Christmas trees to the delight of happy, impressed patrons.

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2019)

 Views of the renovated North Entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vaulted Walkway, December 26, 2019

Less than three months later, history repeated itself. Just as the 1929 Wall Street collapse plagued the Philly Museum's early years, so the Covid-19 pandemic and March 2020 "lockdown" created serious problems for the Core Project renovations. 

As the museum construction entered the "home stretch," Timothy Rub kept the massive, $233 million project on target. Delays, of course, were unavoidable. A joint retrospective of Jasper Johns, organized with the Whitney Museum, had to be postponed. But Rub's dynamic leadership got the job done. Fiske Kimbell, the embattled director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1925-1955, would have approved.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 

Nuria, 2017, by Jaume Plensa, 

on view in South Hall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art 

Now, walking along the Vaulted Walkway or studying works of art in the new settings of the McNeil and Dietrich galleries, I am filled with amazement and gratitude. Artists and voices from the past, once undervalued, have been accorded an honored place. Young artists from today are receiving what every true artist deserves - an opportunity to contribute to the World of Art.

Oddly enough, for me, the most profound feelings engendered by the Core Project were the result of a chance visit to the Resnick Rotunda. This was one of the areas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art least affected by the redesign. Many of the Philly Museum's world-class Impressionist collection are normally on view in this area of the museum.

During the rehab, the paintings by Monet, Cezanne and van Gogh were displayed in a special exhibition, The Impressionist's Eye, while the Resnick Rotunda and adjoining galleries were refurbished. When Anne and I peaked in, the Resnick Rotunda was empty. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)

 View of the Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art 

during the Core Project renovations

I wondered to myself, "what will it be like when people return?"

As the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine took its toll, this image of the deserted  Resnick Rotunda haunted my mind. Eventually, my "what will it be like, when people return to the museum" question was answered.

It is wonderful.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)

 The Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 

May 28, 2021

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)

 Patrons visiting the newly-opened Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries. 

 The portraits, of Hiram Charles Montier and Elizabeth Brown Montier, are the earliest surviving paintings of an African American couple.

 The portraits were painted by Franklin Street in 1841.

This brings me back to Charles Willson Peale's The Staircase Group. According to another of Peale's sons, Rembrandt, George Washington was totally taken in by the "trick of the eye" when he visited the 1795 exhibition where the painting was first displayed. Glimpsing the "sons" of his friend, Peale, Washington tipped his hat to Raphael and Titian Peale.

That is exactly what I do now, after several visits to the "new" Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

To Gail Harrity, Anne d’Harnoncourt, Frank Gehry, Timothy Rub, to the generous donors who provided the funding for the Core Project and to the curators, designers and construction workers who made it happen ... I tip my hat.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Original photos by Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved.

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Charles Willson Peale's The Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaele Peale and Titian Ramsey Peale), 1795. Oil on canvas: 89 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches (227.3 x 100 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art. The George Elkins collection, E 1945-1-1

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries, showing a sofa designed by Benjamin Latrobe (1808). The painting (center) is Washington Allston's Scenes from the Taming of the Shrew (1809)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Gallery view of the New Grit: Art & Philly Now exhibition in the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Alex Da Corte's S.O.S. (Sam on Sill), 2020. Forman Family Collections.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) A dramatic view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, with cantilever steps leading down from the first floor.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Philadelphia Museum of Art's East Entrance & the "Rocky" steps.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Cutaway views of the architectural model of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) The North pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  showing Carl Paul Jennewein's ceramic-glazed terra cotta sculpture entitled Western Civilization, 1932.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Portrait of Frank Gehry at the Opening Ceremony of the Core Project Renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) The Vaulted Passageway of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, before renovations in March 2017

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) The Van Pelt Auditorium being demolished during the Core Project renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, constructed on the site of the demolished Van Pelt Auditorium.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Timothy Rub at the opening of the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibition. In the background is a 60-foot composite photo by  Michael Nichols of a 3200-year old Giant Sequoia Redwood tree.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) View of the Philadelphia Museum exhibit, Old Masters Now.  Rodin's sculpture Thought (left) is shown with Manet's The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama"

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2019)  Views of the renovated North Entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vaulted Walkway, December 26, 2019

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Nuria, 2017, by Jaume Plensa, on view in South Hall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)  View of the Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the Core Project renovations.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)  The Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 28, 2021.

Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Portrait of Hiram Charles Montier and Portrait of Elizabeth Brown Montier, 1841, by Franklin R. Street. Oil on canvas, 35 x 28 inches. On loan from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Pickens, III

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection

Philadelphia Museum of Art

November 3, 2017 –February 19, 2018

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is an exciting and important exhibition - for unexpected reasons. 

This exhibition is much more than a thoughtful reexamination of great masterpieces collected over a century ago. Old Masters Now presents a living collection, rich in new insights and revelations, asserting its cultural importance in ways that its first owner never could have expected.

The Johnson Collection occupies a special place in Philadelphia's cultural history. John G. Johnson is certainly not as famous an art collector as the controversial Dr. Albert Barnes. But in many ways, he was just as daring and adventurous in acquiring major works of art. Indeed, Johnson's choices often confound our stereotypes of Gilded Age art collectors. 

John Graver Johnson (1841–1917) was born in Chestnut Hill, then a small town outside Philadelphia. The son of a blacksmith, Johnson graduated from the city's prestigious Central High School and the University of Pennsylvania. Incredibly, a childhood photo of him survives from the 1840's, showing the sharp, perceptive eyes of a "Philadelphia lawyer" - years before he became one.

John G. Johnson: Boy and Man

Johnson was the greatest corporate lawyer of post-Civil War America. Although he only served briefly in the Pennsylvania Militia during the Civil War, it should not be forgotten that Johnson was a member of a generation that had passed through the "fire" of America's most tragic era. 

Johnson was a charter member - through hard work, rather than inheritance - of the American elite. But he knew the meaning of "nobless oblige," of giving back to the community that had nurtured him.  In Johnson's case, this was Philadelphia.

"I have lived my life in this City," Johnson stated in his will. "I want the collection to have its home here.” 

Johnson's collection - 1,279 paintings, 51 sculptures and  over 100 objects in other media - is the keystone of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View showing photo of John G. Johnson's home

When you enter the exhibition galleries, huge mural-size photos of Johnson's splendid homes on S. Broad Street are on display. For a moment or two, you can imagine yourself entering these opulent Edwardian-era rooms. 

Fantasy should not edge out reality, however. My wife, Anne, noted that the second interior photo, taken in 1936 long after Johnson's death in 1917, is stacked floor-to-ceiling with framed paintings. Significantly, it shows the escalating collection after Johnson's wife, Ida, died in 1908. 

     Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit,          Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection

The exhibit galleries, in contrast, display a significant number of Johnson's treasures in a spacious, almost contemplative atmosphere. In a nod to historical authenticity, one wall of the exhibit gallery is hung in the "stacked" manner of Johnson's home. 

I did not linger very long in front of this vintage display. There are so many great masterpieces in the exhibit, commanding our attention. 

Callisto Piazza, Musical Group, c.1520's

I've been looking at many of these "Old Masters" in the Johnson collection for decades now. For many years, these were grouped together in a separate gallery, by the terms of Johnson's will. He actually stipulated that they be kept in his Broad Street mansion, but his executors wisely ignored his wishes and brought them to the much safer environment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Seeing the Johnson Collection masterpieces in this brilliantly curated exhibition is a revelation. I realize that, for all the times I have looked, I have never really "seen" many of them as Johnson did. One gets the sense that Johnson's art collection became a way for him to channel his love, after the great personal loss of his wife's death, to future generations.

When it came to his day job, Johnson was a hard-eyed realist. Johnson twice refused appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did not want to exchange the $100,000 per year he made representing J.P Morgan, the Rockefeller family and the Sugar Trust for a paltry Supreme Court salary of $8,000. 

At the same time that he made all that money, Johnson also served on Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Commission which oversaw the city art collection. It was upon his recommendation that Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Annunciation was purchased in 1899. This painting was the first work by an African-American artist to enter a public collection in the United States and now hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Art had great meaning  for Johnson on many emotional levels. Empathy, intellectual stimulation and aesthetic pleasure obviously guided his choices. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mark Tucker, the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Director of Conservation, about one of Johnson's most surprising selections
. 
The painting in question is Portrait of a Young Gentleman, by Antonello da Messina. Antonello came from Sicily, the only major Renaissance artist born in southern Italy. Somehow, Antonello established contacts with artists from the Netherlands and learned about oil painting. He was the first to master oil painting in Italy. His surviving works of art are comparatively rare and were not especially popular with American collectors in Johnson's time.

Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Young Gentleman, 1474

Why, then, did Johnson buy this portrait of a brash young man with a probing look in his eyes?

"The subject of Antonello's portrait," Mark Tucker noted, "has just come into the studio from the street. The collar of his doublet is undone and the cord used to stitch it in place is dangling loose. Usually, the sitter in a Renaissance portrait is posed very formally, every detail of his attire in perfect order.

"Antonello is not concerned with a formal pose in this portrait, of how the subject was dressed. Instead, he painted the movements of his mind."

There can be little doubt that Johnson bought this outstanding work of Renaissance art because he sensed that this alert, questioning, savvy fellow from the Quattrocento was a kindred soul.

The movements of Johnson's mind led him from collecting rather conventional  contemporary works like Mary Cassatt's very early genre scene, On the Balcony, to more daring choices like the Antonello portrait . 

Édouard Manet, The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama”, 1864

Johnson's range of interest extended to the Impressionists and  in 1888 he purchased Édouard Manet's Civil War naval scene, The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama.” Johnson saw this striking painting at a display of Impressionist art, organized by the French art agent, Paul Durand-Ruel, in New York City. Johnson may have been influenced to buy Manet's painting by his own military experience during the Gettysburg campaign.

This almost monochromatic work utilized Japanese-inspired compositional elements like a high horizon line and the off-center placement of the schooner in the foreground of the painting to convey a "you-are-there" viewpoint. Manet was long thought to have witnessed the sea combat, which took place just outside Cherbourg harbor in 1864, but careful scholarship has revealed that he painted the battle based on newspaper accounts.

In 1894, Johnson purchased Jan van Eyck's small devotional work, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. With this pivotal acquisition, Johnson began assembling one of the largest collections of paintings from the Netherlands, works created between 1400 and 1700. By the end of his life, Johnson 's Flemish and Dutch masterpieces numbered 425. On the whole, he chose very wisely. But with art scholarship still in its infancy, a number of his paintings, thought to be by Rembrandt or by Bosch, have not retained their attribution.

Johnson also bought what he thought was a pair of tipsy Dutch drinkers by Frans Hals.  Subsequent research showed that it was painted by Judith Leyster, the greatest woman artist of the Dutch Golden Age. But an even greater surprise was in store about The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier), painted around 1639. A print from the 1600 showed the same pair in the company of a lively skeleton, encouraging them to drink. In 1992, the conservators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art decided to put Leyster's painting to the test.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Judith Leyster's The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier) 

As expected, a skeleton was detected lurking below a layer of overpainting. Mark Tucker meticulously removed this paint, restoring the skeleton to "life" and showing that Leyster's work had a very serious message. It was a memento mori, a caution about heedless over-indulgence and a warning against disregard of God's commandments.

Along with van Eyck's St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, the jewel of the Johnson Collection's Netherlandish works is Rogier van der Weyden’s Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460.  Along with Thomas Eakin's The Gross Clinic, van der Weyden's Crucifixion is the greatest painting in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is also a very powerful depiction of the struggle of faith vs. despair. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460

This pair of complementary wood panel paintings has been the subject of exhaustive study. It is now believed that they were placed side-by-side on the shutters of an elaborate altarpiece. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Mark Tucker showing the placement of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion on a model of a medieval church altarpiece, now missing

A wonderful model, which  Mark Tucker demonstrated at the press preview, shows the configuration of these Johnson collection paintings along with two others, discovered in 2012, that were part of the amazing altarpiece. The remaining paintings - and the altar - have yet to be discovered, if indeed they still exist.

Another work by Rogier van der Weyden figures in the Johnson Collection exhibit. The life-sized altarpiece, now in the Prado, Descent from the Cross, c. 1434, was copied many times. Around 1520, the Netherlandish artist, Joos van Cleve, reprieved Descent from the Cross, placing the dramatic scene against a naturalistic landscape. The original has a gold-leaf background.

Van Cleve's homage to van der Weyden has not been displayed for thirty years. It was painted on five wooden panels which have separated several times causing paint loss and other damage. The panels have also warped over time.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Lucia Bay with Joos van Cleve's The Descent from the Cross

A major conservation effort, requiring a year's exhaustive labor, was undertaken by Lucia Bay, an assistant conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The triumphant restoration is on display in the exhibit, enabling us to value van Cleve's painting as a major work of art. Rather than a derivative copy, van Cleve created a new version of this moving scene by van der Weyden, placing it within the context of the emerging school of landscape art.

Johnson traveled frequently to Europe to search out masterpieces. In an engaging memoir, Sight-Seeing in Berlin and Holland among Pictures (1892), he explained the philosophy upon which he based his collecting endeavors:

Art gives us real delight only when the eye derives pleasure from what is really worthy.

This is a cryptic remark, capable of being interpreted in a number of ways. Johnson closely studied art, becoming a master of appraisal. Yet the financial value of art works did not determine what was "really worthy" about the paintings and sculptures he collected.  Nor did Johnson select art works because they conformed to popular standards or the dictates of academic authority.

"Worth" derived from a process of engagement between collector and  object. Johnson carefully took the measure of the art he chose for his collection and  the paintings and sculptures, in turn, became an expression of his life, of the "the movements of his mind."

      Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson's home, c.1936                       Auguste Rodin's Thought appears at center

In one of the mural-sized photo's of his mansion, the one with paintings stacked floor to ceiling, we see one of the sculptures he collected. Thought by Auguste Rodin shows the head of his mistress/muse, Camille Claudel, emerging from a block of undressed marble. Rodin modeled the likeness of Claudel in clay but another artist, Camille Raynaud, did the actual sculpting.

Rodin originally called the work Thought Emerging from Matter. Looking at it in the exhibition galley of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one senses again "the movements of his mind" coming into play. Rodin's Thought clearly resonated with Johnson's powerful intellect and equally powerful emotions. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Auguste Rodin's Thought 

Upon receiving Thought, Johnson wrote to Rodin: 

[Y]our lovely marble has at last arrived and fascinates me . . . you have made that coldest of all things—marble—warm with life. I hope it will long dream in its present surroundings of paintings by the Masters of the Old and of the New Art.

That is where Rodin's Thought does indeed find its home, "dreaming" in the company of Johnson's treasures at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its companionship with The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama,” St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata and the other great works on display is about to enter a new phase, or perhaps new "dimension" would be more exact. 

The Philadelphia Museum will soon unveil the Johnson Collection in a new digital publication. According to a press release, the Philadelphia Museum curators have "made use of a new technology implementing IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) to present digital images in a more versatile and flexible way."
When the digital version of the Johnson collection is released, I plan to do a follow-up review on this wonderful research tool.

"Masters of the Old and of the New Art" appearing in a new, digital format! There can be no more fitting way to begin the second century of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image

Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish 1400-1464) Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460. Oil on panel, 71 inches × 6 feet 1 3/8 inches (180.3 × 186.4 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 335, 334. John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson, as a young boy, 1840's, combined with detail of Conrad F. Haeseler's Portrait of John G. Johnson, 1917. Oil on Panel, 34 x 24 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Miss Julia W. Frick and Sidney W. Frick, 1971.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit, Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection.showing photo of John G. Johnson's home. Archival Photo.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit, Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection.

Callisto Piazza (Italian,c.1500-1561/62) Musical Group, c.1520's, Oil on panel, 35 5/8 x 35 3/4 inches (90.5 x 90.8 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 234, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Antonello da Messina (Italian,1430-1479) Portrait of a Young Gentleman.  Oil on panel,

12 5/8 x 10 11/16 inches (32.1 x 27.1 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 159, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama.”  Oil on canvas, 54 1/4 x 50 3/4 inches (137.8 x 128.9 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 1027, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Judith Leyster's The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier), c.  1639. Oil on canvas, 35 1/16 x 28 15/16 inches (89.1 x 73.5 cm).  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 440, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460.

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2017) Mark Tucker, Director of Conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, showing the placement of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion on a model of a medieval church altarpiece, now missing. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Lucia Bay, Conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with Joos van Cleve's The Descent from the Cross. Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson's home, c.1936                Auguste Rodin's Thought appears at center. Archival Photo.                                               

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Auguste Rodin's Thought, modeled,1895, carved by Camille Raynaud, c.1900, Marble, 29 1/8 x 17 1/16 x 18 1/8 inches (74 x 43.4 x 46.1 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 1148, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.