Art Trek: Works from the William S. Paley Collection and the Louvre

When are the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco--the de Young and the Legion of Honor--going to show art that isn't a) decorative, b) all about fashion, and/or c)  pretty much stuff you've seen before? 

"Milk Can and Apples," 1879-83, Paul Cezanne

Jerry and I were in San Francisco last weekend and dropped into the de Young Museum to see paintings and sculptures from the William S. Paley collection/New York Museum of Modern Art. The show, "A Taste for Modernism," consists mostly of Post-Impressionist works.  Lots of big names: Cezanne, Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Much of the art is wonderful, but it's very, very familiar.

"Seated Woman with a Vase of Narcissus," 1941, Henri Matisse

Paley was a founder of CBS, and he spent part of his fortune on paintings, many of which hung in his Manhattan apartment.  There are photos of his apartment, which was elegant, but do we care that he shared a decorator with Jackie Kennedy?

(Someone does care--perhaps the chairwoman of the board of the Fine Arts Museums, who's a well-known socialite with lots of money and whose own house has been photographed for shelter magazines?) 

Afterward, we ate hot dogs from a food truck in Golden Gate Park.  Delicious and we didn't have to brave the crowded museum cafe.

Then we took a walk along the Coast Trail at Land's End--terrific views--and ended up in the parking lot of the Legion of Honor, where we took a quick look at a new exhibit from the Louvre, "Royal Treasures: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette."  If you're into bejeweled trinkets designed for kings of France, this is your kind of show.

 Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, described the show as "a feast of eye candy from the French aristocracy," and called the items "dazzling tchotchkes of excess."

He also wrote " 'Royal Treasures' and its ilk on the exhibition front reduce museum-going to the higher window shopping."

It's very off-with-their-heads.  And at $20 a head (no pun) to get in without a membership card, a bit steep.

Even Jerry, not a big art museum fan although God knows he's been dragged around enough of them, called the show,  "garish."

But the walk and the hot dog were great.

"A Taste for Modernism," William S. Paley Collection, de Young Museum, through December 30, 2012.

"Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette," Legion of Honor, through March 17, 2013.