Getting cultured

For several months the Blanton Fine Arts Museum on the UT campus has had an exhibit of  nineteenth century paintings of some renown. The exhibit ends this week, so we thought we should take advantage of the good weather, free parking and free admission to go see this collection. So did 3,000 of our closest friends.

When you first go in, you don't realize that the line is as long as it is. It disappears down a long hall and then circles back, then winds down a long atrium and back, down the length of the atrium again, and then after another jog or two ends up at the traffic-control docent at the exhibit entrance. It becomes one of those situations where you say, "Okay, I've already invested this much time. Is that too much to quit?" It didn't help that about halfway through the wait a docent asked how long we had been in line and then commented, "Yesterday there were no lines." Thanks for sharing that.

The exhibit itself is on loan from the prestigious Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and is a sampling of works from Impressionist artists Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas, as well as British and American masters J.M.W. Turner, Gilbert Stuart and Asher B. Durand. I confess that I am not a connoisseur of fine art, but I was impressed by many of these works. I was especially struck by the brilliant colors and vividness of many of the pieces, more than 100 years after their creation.

The Blanton itself is an interesting story. The University commissioned the Herzog & de Meuron architectural firm, designers of some of the most prestigious museums in the world, to create a showplace worthy of the 18,000 holdings of the University - among the largest of any University anywhere. The firm outdid themselves and presented the concept to the Board of Regents, who said, "Gol Dang! That sure don't look like none of the other buildings on the Forty Acres. How about a red tile roof and some native limestone walls?" Whereupon Herzog & de Meuron went back to Switzerland and UT hired some lesser firm to design a building that looked like every other building on campus.

It is an impressive place nonetheless and I think we'll go back soon - when fewer of our friends are there.