The New York Times comes down hard on the Philadelphia Museum of Art's current exhibit, "Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia," but still sees value in the "mixed bag of 60 works by 25 artists."
The exhibition catalog is filled with excellent color reproductions of many great works not in the show, including Botticelli’s “Primavera,” Titian’s “Concert Champêtre,” Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” and Matisse’s “Bonheur de Vivre.” An exhibition displaying everything in the catalog would be a once-in-a-lifetime event and a richly illuminating meditation on the classic Arcadian myth of pastoral bliss and what it means for the modern world. But if you want to know what you will see in the flesh, you have to consult the thumbnail-illustrated checklist at the back of the book. Can you say, “false advertising”?
Original source: The New York Times
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