BlogBacks: Defenders of the Met's European Installation

Two readers respond to my recent post, The Met's New European Galleries: The Good, the Bad and the Dumbed Down:

---Veteran art writer Paul Jeromack, whose work has appeared in The Art Newspaper and Art & Auction, among others, writes:

The two walls with the Sorolla, Zorn, Sargent and Boldini portraits are dazzling: Each is a masterpiece of its kind. I like [Metropolitan Museum associate curator Rebecca] Rabinow a lot, but I'm pleased she was overruled here. [She had said that she would not have hung the Boldini.]

[Boldini's] Consuelo Vanderbilt portrait amply demonstrates, in its so-called "slapdash" brushwork, the kinetic frenzy of the Futurists Balla and Boccioni. I'm delighted it is on view. And long may it remain so.

---Rick Currie, a collector who works in international banking, writes:

I usually agree with your commentaries, but on your recent posting about the wall labels on the rehang of the paintings in the Met's new 19th- and early 20th-century galleries, I have to disagree. You said some of the labels were "fatuous and that they say more than what we want to know about the personnages" but not enough about these as works of art. I found your coments somewhat elitist.

I have an art history background and have been an avid museumgoer in this city for 30+ years, but I still get irritated when I view so many paintings and read, "Portrait of a Man...Portrait of a Woman...Lady this...Duchess that." Aside from the art-worthiness and/or historical meaning of the painting, it does help to know who the person was and what he/she did. It is not a dumbing down to include that information. It brings the painting to life and makes it more meaningful.