Art in Hi-Fi

The massive central balcony and surrounding galleries of Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art last week were aglow with an unprecedented display of masterpieces. On view were Giotto's famed Paduan fresco Betrayal of Christ, Piero della Francesca's looming Resurrection, the Louvre's Mona Lisa, El Greco's towering 16-by12-ft. Burial of Count Orgaz and Georges Seurat's 7-by-10-ft. Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. To equal the experience, an art lover would have had to visit 26 museums, travel some 15,000. miles.

Behind the Met's show of 50 masterpieces, plus a one-quarter scale replica of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, was a unique illuminated color process worked out by LIFE Magazine. Color transparencies of the masterworks were blown up on strips of 40-in.-wide film to the exact dimensions of the originals, and framed by light boxes containing fluorescent tubes. The brighter-than-life effect was like listening to symphonic music on a hi-fi recording. It was an exciting, highlit visual experience.

But the critics asked, is a museum the proper place for such a show? The New York Herald Tribune's Emily Genauer said the exhibit made her feel she had attended a dinner party with guests from Mme. Tussaud's waxworks. Said she: "Museums ought to stick to their originals. There is no shortage of them, old and new, in America." The New York Times's Howard Devree called it a "neon age substitute" and objected to the "inescapable tang of reproduction."

Reproduction it certainly was. Said James J. Rorimer, director of the Metropolitan: "It is not oil painting, granted, but it is a magnificent display of color and design. I don't see how anyone can help being overpowered by it. Of course, if art is nothing but oil paintings, then let's throw away our slides, picture books, and save art only for those who can afford to travel all over Europe."

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