The Other Barnes Debate

There is more to the great battle over the future of Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation than just an argument over the location of the permanent collection, says Edward Sozanski. In fact, the future of the Barnes’s educational program is the subject of a debate that truly gets to the heart of the foundation’s mission. “The Barnes gospel of aesthetic analysis, which the founder expounded in a number of books, letters and public utterances over three decades, contains the key to the collection. Yet over the last six years, the Barnesian doctrine, which remained reasonably intact for more than 60 years through several administrations, has been strained by what amounts to a theological schism.”