Violette de Mazia's malign mystique

Villain of the Barnes program?
Violette de Mazia's malign mystique

VICTORIA SKELLY

The Barnes Foundation recently announced that the Violette de Mazia Trust will be conducting a class entitled “Informed Perception: An Objective Approach to Aesthetic Appreciation” in the Foundation’s galleries. The press release further states, “The de Mazia classes will have a significant place within the educational program that we offer at the new facility on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.”

Is this cause for celebration? Shall the legacy of the Barnes Foundation’s teaching be duly preserved after all? Why is this news strangely unsettling?

The Violette de Mazia Foundation, as many know, was formed in 1991 after the death of Violette de Mazia (1899-1988), longtime teacher and director at the Barnes, as well as co-author of many of the Foundation’s books.

The Barnes Foundation, since its inception, has experienced difficulty “training” and retaining talented teachers. At first this problem probably stemmed from the resolute “Papa Bear” personality of its creator, Albert Barnes, a tradition later continued rather imitatively by the Foundation’s Mama Bear, Miss de Mazia. Individuals with high potential passed through initial instruction and teacher training at the Foundation, only to depart when they failed to communicate “the Way” as set down by Dr. Barnes and de Mazia.

Dr. Barnes’s blind spot

Henry Hart, in his book, Dr. Barnes of Merion: An Appreciation (to my mind the only book about Dr. Barnes that delves adequately into his intentions and personality), describes the difficulties embedded in the Foundation’s attitudes, manners and habits that have served over the years to stifle and repel strong teaching personalities. Hart, a journalist who had a long-term relationship with Dr. Barnes and had been authorized by him at one point to write his biography, aptly outlines the blindsightedness that Dr. Barnes had in relation to developing Violette de Mazia as a teacher. There has always been a certain Miss de Mazia mystique. By examining Hart’s material, we might perhaps more objectively assess where she enhanced the program and where she might have led it astray.

Harry Sefarbi, a great Barnes teacher with whom I have had personal experience, always said that every session that he taught was somehow different from the last. Through his 50 or so years of teaching at the Barnes, Sefarbi always sought a new angle, a new way to explain or present his material. One could not copy his teaching, as it was a creative act every time, but always with the Barnes paradigm in mind. It grew over the years and was always connected to what was happening in art in the present.

Diatribes and dazzling gimmicks

The legendary Violette de Mazia, however, I know only through the tales of others. Some, including my father, have spoken of suffering patiently through her long, long lectures and her written diatribes against abstract art. I’m told she wore dresses and jewelry coded specifically to particular paintings in her lectures that were repeated year after year in the vain hope that her hundreds of students might ultimately “get it.” This dazzling gimmickry enhanced de Mazia’s mystique and allure in stodgy old Philadelphia. Yet it also reflects her tendency to concretize the Barnes material.

One cannot say that the Barnes Foundation, under de Mazia’s direction, grew and developed into the open place— yeasty with ideas and discussion— that Dr. Barnes and John Dewey had hoped would take root in Merion. De Mazia presided over the Merion “vault.” Whatever her teaching capabilities— which many say were abundant— she cultivated a cultish atmosphere at the Foundation.

A woman mired in the past

We know this posture was due at least in part to the Foundation’s historically difficult relationship with the press and Philadelphia’s art cognoscenti. It is clear, however, that de Mazia lacked the personality and the background to overcome this problem. Had she been able to effectively recast the organization and its program, she would have directed the organization effectively into the future, which is now our present. As it stands, we are faced with deciding what to do with a program whose germ is worthy, but whose language and methods come, as a whole, from the past. It’s no wonder that the Foundation’s current caretakers are tempted to scrap it all and start anew.

At the heart of the Barnes program is the belief that genuine interest in a subject— in this case, art— drives an individual to seek knowledge and experiences that build into his or her personal “fund,” enabling increasingly rich associations and discoveries. This personal cache of experiences (which often don’t occur in a classroom) can lead one to an increasingly sensitive appreciation of art— or in the case of an artist, to the quality of perception that undergirds all great work.

In this process the teacher functions to assist the students in laying down a base knowledge in the traditions of art, and then offer stimulation as the students find their “work.” Prescribed, rigid methods— what Barnes himself called “academicism”— must be avoided. Alternative “ways of seeing” are to be presented— and what ultimately becomes the student’s way of seeing must be inextricably linked with his or her environment, not some previous environment.

This is why so much of today’s art, even as the volume is cranked up in its shockingness, just disgusts and ultimately bores the viewing public. The art doesn’t relate to our lives now. It’s academic.

Thumbs down to Michelangelo

Albert Barnes recognized that everyone brings a measure of subjectivity to the judgment of art. Our personal experiences are what shape our reactions to things. But a sincere interest in art can drive a person to develop an active connoisseurship. One should strive to understand why one does not “like” a particular work, and certainly know why one feels enthusiasm for another.

Barnes’s “fund” of experience was immense. His knowledge of art, philosophy and science all contributed interchangeably to his perceptions, each enhancing the other, leading to a rich insight. These experiences caused Barnes to find fault with such great artists as Botticelli, Ingres, Turner and even Michelangelo. While we may not agree with his assessment of these artists, his views deserve our attention. If we care enough to indulge him in his eccentric argument, we enrich our own understanding of these artists and others.

So when we speak of preserving the educational portion of the Barnes Foundation, let it follow the model of Harry Sefarbi as our guide, not Violette de Mazia or even Barnes himself, who as a teacher was so cheap in praising the efforts of new students, and who had the habit of steamrolling his opinions upon others rather than encouraging enlightened discussion of matters. His gift to us was the aesthetic achievement of his collection and the development of the educational program that went with it. It’s regrettable that he failed to broadly communicate just what this program was really about. In a major way, that had to do with the selection and development of teachers.

There are people out there in the world, wise and knowledgeable, who are up to this task of great teaching at the Barnes Foundation. Please, let the Foundation take some care in identifying just who those people should be.



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