I was walking by the Musee d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme in the Marais by chance today. Oh, I had it on my "to do" art list, but had forgotten. Then I ducked inside and had three immediate and negative reactions.
First, they steer you up the stairs to the (American) second floor and the whole floor is devoted to Old "Masters" which are not "masters" by my lights. Second, while advertised as works in search of their owners who died in death camps, a surprising number were restored to some relative or other. And finally, there were photos of the Nazis and I recalled that quote from a review in the New York Review of Books which said "This Hitler, will we never be done with him?"
Once back on the first (main) floor though, I was suddenly confronted with artists I knew, albeit not these works, which have travelled sad journeys in many cases. At first you see Utrillo, Courbet and Manet, but there are also nice pieces by Monet, Seurat, Delacroix, Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Vlaminck and Max Ernst.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see many of these works, so even if they're not first drawer, go. It's only open til October 26th. But we may never be done with this Hitler, and maybe that's for the good, we need to be reminded periodically of what sheer evil is.
Comments