Photograph by Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia Commons

Don’t judge a museum by its facade!

This summer, a friend gave me a copy of Daniel Gross and Tyler Cowan’s book Talent (maybe he thought it would help). He also suggested I listen to Cowan’s podcast, Conversations with Tyler. I started with the episode featuring poet, former National Endowment for the Arts chair, and former General Foods exec Dana Gioia — the only person, noted Cowan, who could answer every one of his questions.

One of those questions was, “Which is the most underrated art museum in the world?” Gioia mentioned The Hermitage (unassessable, since so much of its collection is loaned out across the world), a gallery at Bob Jones Jr. University, the Detroit Museum of Art...oh, and one other:

“Most of my trips are to see art museums,” said Gioia. “I see them again and again and again and again. To me, it’s my pleasure. And I love going to these forgotten museums that have one or two great paintings. I’m a verbal artist, but there is an extraordinary intellectual, emotional, and spiritual power that the greatest paintings have, and if you put yourself in their presence, they unlock and awaken things inside of you. Let me give you one other fine museum that people don’t know about, which is in Balboa Park, which is arguably the most beautiful public space in California. There’s this ugly, modernist building, a tiny, awful little thing, and this awful little moat, that is a blemish on the entire park. It’s the Timken Gallery, which is only six rooms, and every room is full of fantastic paintings. And when I’m there, there’s usually three or four other people there. People don’t know about it. And there’s a Bosch!”

On this last point, Gioia is mistaken. There was a Bosch, or rather, a maybe-Bosch, that came through in the ‘90s. It mostly lives in Bruges. Perhaps he was thinking of the Savoldo Torment of St. Anthony, which contains several demons that seem to have slithered, flown, or hopped across the decades and borders from 15th-century Netherlands to 16th-century Italy. But he’s right about all the rest of it: it’s squat stone box amid the ornamental riot of Spanish Colonial whimsy, blessedly easy to overlook, and filled with the sorts of works that possess the “intellectual, emotional, and spiritual power” to “unlock and awaken things inside you.” The Savoldo is a fine example; the way it captures the twisting, lunging figure of the saint, recoiling with his whole self from his nightmarish vision, but looking back at it even as he attempts to pray. Anyone who has ever struggled within himself can feel the forces at work.

But the awakening needn’t be anything so tinged with morality. To celebrate its recent remodel, the Timken acquired Ella Ferris Pell’s Salome. When my family visited last, my eldest daughter stayed with it for a long time. The infamous dancing girl depicted on the canvas had the beauty and grace to beguile a king, but she still had to obey her murderous mother. Power and its opposite, both captured there in the young woman’s haughty but melancholy expression.

Balboa Park is such a pleasant place, it can almost seem a waste to spend time indoors. But Gioia knows what he’s talking about. Standing in the presence of these works isn’t good for you like exercise or broccoli. It’s good for you like sunshine or sleep. Go be one of those three or four people.