Coast of Capri, the only painting by Johan Christian Dahl exhibited by Carnegie Museum of Art seems out of place among paintings advocating grandeur and sublimity. The painting purveys mystic and meditative, as if there is an unknown force behind the scene that even its thoroughness goes beyond grand and sublime.

There is no wonder that Johan Christian Dahl always reminds me of Casper David Frederick. The two men once lived in the same house and exhibited together. Yet the Norwegian painter is more reticent in his words. Unlike Frederick, whose landscape paintings are disguise forms for life voyage and moral advancing, Dahl didn’t bring such austerity above the moody oil surface; instead he dug it into the landscape and let the viewer discover the deep intention that he planted.

While the life of Casper David Frederick has been studied thoroughly, Dahl, who is usually called Casper’s follower, didn’t receive enough attention nowadays. In the description note provided by Carnegie Museum of Art, it is said that Coast of Capri was the work following Dahl two-year’s stay in Italy. However, another source from Sotheby’s states that Dahl got married in June of 1820 and the very next day he left alone to Italy where he remained one year. Thus the two sources disagreed with how long Dahl stayed in Italy. The exact length of his stay in Italy is of great importance here because Dahl’s several most famous paintings were about scenes in Italy.

(PHOTO: Butler Institute of American Art, one of many U.S. Museums with a free admission policy.)
I remember a story told to me in California about some travelers from Pittsburgh wondering around Europe, in a museum looking at dinosaur bones. One commented to the tune of "there's nothing like this back in Pittsburgh." Just then the other pointed to a label that indicated the item was a "copy of the original at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Folks at the Carnegie have been busy recently renovating our famed dinosaur exhibit and it should be a time for a monster of a celebration. It is time for that celebration, unfortunately it will be accompanied by a stone-age decision.

The Carnegie announced this week admission prices will increase with the opening, by as much as eighty percent.

Undoubtedly this decision is rooted in a need for additional revenue in order to continue the improvements to the largely state-supported art and natural history museums. Unfortunately the move will likely result in making art and history less accessible in Pittsburgh. This is unfortunate for the public and for Pittsburgh as it continues to grow into a thriving community of art and artists.

Sadly it may not even accomplish the intended effect of increased revenue.

Take the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery, also in Baltimore, as an example. These institutions recently converted to a "free admission" policy and have since seen about a 15 percent increase in attendance, with a more diverse and younger audience. Some members also have upgraded memberships.

A Press release from the Walters and the BMA reported that during "Free Fall Baltimore" in October and November (2006), the BMA had 44,700 visitors and the Walters had 39,194 visitors—both among the highest attendance recorded for those months during the past five years.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s total museum attendance was 124,125 visitors from October 1, 2006 through March 31, 2007, an 8 percent increase over a two-year average of the same period. More, first-time visitors made up 37 percent of admissions.

During October 2006, the first month of free admission, the BMA recorded 24,200 visitors—the highest attended October in the past five years. The BMA also had an 89 percent increase in participation of Sunday family art activities.

The Walters Art Museum’s total museum attendance was 103,531 visitors from October 1, 2006 through March 31, 2007, a 38 percent increase over the same six months of the previous year. First-time visitors made up 43 percent of admissions, an increase from a 36 percent average. The museum’s diversity in admissions rose to 18 percent persons of color, nearly doubling from spring 2005. During October 2006, the first month of free admission, the museum recorded 21,523 visitors—the second highest October attendance in the past five years and an 80 percent increase from October 2005. The museum has also experienced triple-digit growth in children and family art activities.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art also recently went "free." Museum Director Maxwell Anderson told another publication that among the top 100 museums in America, excluding the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the average revenue from tickets to art museum budgets is about 4 percent, yet public and media focus when measuring museums is all about attendance.

No doubt, the move would seem to cost money. A lead gift of $800,000 from Baltimore City and Baltimore County allowed both museums to eliminate admission fees and become free to the public for the first time in two decades. Additional support for free admission was received.

One might suspect that if four percent of a typical museums total budget comes from admission that additional revenue in gift shops, cafe's, parking and the like might more than make up the difference.

Of course a "free" program that seems to work in Cleveland, Indianapolis and Baltimore might not for some unknown factor work at the Carnegie. Still an eighty-percent increase in admission fees would seem to put further out of reach the treasures at Mr. Carnegie's museum, making art and science less accessible to the masses. On one hand this may encourage more membership purchases, then result in more repeat visits, but how many families of four will be willing to dish out about $52 to attend? Is it enough to make them spring for the $130 family membership? Or will it make the visit to see the dinosaurs an infrequent or once in a childhood event?

What would Mr. Carnegie think?

"Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth."

The current special exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art provides a rare opportunity to view 75 American drawing and watercolors collected by the first director of Carnegie Institute of Art (John Beatty) during the first two decades of the 20th century. Based on a museum conservator’s comment, ideally paper works should not be exposed under light for more than 16 weeks per year, thus such treasure has never be integrated into the permanent collection in the museum. Among them, there are works by Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, William Glackens, and Frederick Childe Hassam.

The works by Childe Hassam are mostly pencil and ink drawing. He chose different types of paper to provide the prime color for each work: some brown, some black and of course some white. The effect in general is bold and almost graphically decorative. In particular, he took advantage of the inherent contrast between ink and colored paper to emphasize light and shadow: some more protruding, some more coherent, depending on the similarity between color tones.

Homer started his career as an illustrator for Harper’s weekly. His pencil drawings are quite unique and interesting. But in my mind, it is his water-colors that should be valued the most since they have not been equaled ever since. In the current exhibition, the rare occasion provides two works of his famous theme: Proust’s Neck: one in pencil drawing and one in water-color. Both are efficient and foreboding. The water-color, eliminating the view of sea, projects the anxiety of waiting by carefully scaling the people with the nature. In contrast, the pencil drawing is more economical. He did not try to convert the value of colors into black and white, thus the figures in the drawing are exposed to a world rawer and barer.

It surprised me that Frederick Church sketched two mermaids holding a skull, something that is beyond the scope of accuracy and clarity that he’s familiar with. On the other hand, it does make sense that it was the painter who sketched the unseen and magical, endured all the inconvenience and sufferings to paint exotic scenes of both Arctic and South America.

Thomas Moran’s fondness of light effect is obvious on his only drawing in the exhibition. On the same wall, a pencil drawing of trees by Sanford Gifford bears the distinctive hazy and suffuse characteristics.

Lastly, a work by John Beatty’s contemporary and friend Alfred S. Wall also surprised me. As one of the initial trustees to the Carnegie Institute, his oil works are displayed at both Carnegie Museum of Art and Westmoreland Museum of Art. Among Wall family, I like A. S. Wall the most. William Coventry Wall is too meticulous and controlled while A. Bryan Wall is loose in paint brush while tight in subjects. The scene of Western Pennsylvania under A. S. Wall is mundane, un-idealized. It is not totally untamed, yet not luminous or sensational either. Instead, in that small picture on the middle of the wall, Wall painted the diminishing scene of uncultivated nature with traces of human beings, and infused them with a sense of nostalgia.

Such scene may be forever gone in the current Pittsburgh metro area, but through the carefully preserved artworks it can be still be imagined and appreciated, until Oct 7, when they are put back into storage.

It is rare for one to find paintings by top American artists. Only less than one year ago, “Gross Clinic” by Thomas Eakins was tagged with a label of 68 million dollars, now there is one (possibly) by him on eBay. It would be interesting to see how much money it fetches through the internet. On the other hand, with eBay live more and more quality art works can be found in auction houses which allow internet bidding. If such works do appear on eBay alone, they are usually unsold items from a recent auction house.

The current Eakins is possibly from this case. The painting does bear a label on the back with “NO/15 T.Eakins”. Since the seller stated that the work was only on eBay due to an unsuccessful payment from a recent auction, it is easy to track in which auction house it was sold before. Simply going through ARTFACT.COM gave me the answer.

The seller, unfortunately, might not have told the whole story. It was in Ivey-Selkirk Auction house one month ago, as lot 160. The estimation was $35,000.00 - 45,000.00, but the final price only reached $22,000. Even with 18% buyer premium, it was not sold at this auction for what the seller had claimed as 30 grand. Although it may be the sellers' wish that the final price could match his own estimation of $100,000, judging from the pictures taken by the auction house (not included in the eBay listing), the condition of the painting is poor and a full restoration may be needed.

Thomas Eakins was one of the most undervalued artists of his time. If the painting is authentic, the condition tells that the painting has not been treasured as it should be. The label on the back of the wood panel even shows the original price: $47.50. For a quick comparison, in 1895, Henry Clay Frick paid to William Bouguereau $5,000 for a painting named “A mischievous girl”. Eakins’s price tag here seems meager. Unlike his contemporary John Singer Sargent, a painter of high society, Eakins painted who he knew, not who he knew had deep pockets. And Eakins did not paint idealism as did Bouguereau, instead he painted beautiful minds under the normal flesh. It was such a delight to see his “Concert singer” one year ago in Frick Art & Historic Center: besides the fabulous light and shade on the gawn, Weda Cook’looking is as melancholy as Whitman's song that she is singing. At Butler’s Museum of Art, his painting of Beatrice Fenton who is in deep self-absorbed meditations, like his other works, is almost characteristically narrative under the calm surface. Glamour in style or richness in color is rare for Eakins, behind the darkness of the background is something psychological, a distinctive feature of Eakins, sometimes almost nerve rattling.

No matter in whose hands the current eBay listing ends, a mystery which will be disclosed within 3 days, with the current starting bid price ($30,000), it will for sure that the painting would be better preserved, possibly through some professional conservator. That would be a happy ending.

eBay number: 120141916511

1. Made in Pennsylvania Gallery Tour: Furniture & Fraktur

When: 7PM, Thursday July 19, 2007
Where: Westmoreland Museum of Art
Price: Free (though donation is usually needed for admission)
Who: Charles Muller and David Brocklebank


2.William Bouguereau—The Perfect Painter

When: Aug 22, 2007 7:00 PM
Where: Frick Art &Historic Center
Price: $8 for students
Who: Eric Zafran, Ph.D.