May 15, 2005
Michael Kimmelman, rhetorician
Michael Kimmelman, lamenting the sale (to Alice Walton) of Asher B. Durand's Kindred Spirits (1849), comes up with a few powerful lines, italicized below:
When a policewoman was out of sight, Mr. Gambacurta took me up 40 feet of fresh scaffolding to show off a fresco of St. Francis blessing the birds, with medieval Montefalco painted rising above Assisi. Benozzo signed the picture with an inscription in Latin: "For what I am as an artist take a look for yourself."
"Benozzo is what we are," the mayor said.
Durand is who we were as New Yorkers. The sale is what we have become as Americans. From time to time, American museum directors talk about following the lead of other countries by drawing up lists of objects so important to the nation that they should never be sold. But the idea never goes anywhere. We're a rich country. We're capitalists. Our museums are stuffed with treasures bought and plundered from elsewhere. We benefit from a free market. Our museums are our argument for the values of dispersing global riches, for spreading multiculturalism.
It's nice to hear a little passion in his voice.