Late this past summer I went to see the Edward Hopper retrospective at the Boston Museum.  Certainly a substantial representation of his work.  Almost everything was there.

However, the museum itself was no longer the pleasure that I used to experience by driving down from my studio in Maine.  The great master works in their collection were all hung horribly in a large gallery with terrible lighting.  Apparently someone thought it would be "interesting" to present these paintings in the style of another era and in architectural circumstances like....What, castles and palaces?.......stacked 3 on top of the lowest (which was already too high).  It was impossible to see the paintings due to the great distance and, didn't anyone notice the angled daylight from above that made each painting appear as though it had a sheet of ice covering it?.

Since I always spend an entire day in any of the world's great museums, some refueling (lunch) becomes necessary.  But the only remaining restaurants in the museum are upscale so that I had to go out on the street to find anything I could afford.  And there's nothing in the immediate vicinity of the museum.  Finally, upon leaving the museum, I was presented a bill for $22 for parking in the museum lot.

They've succeeded in making the Boston Museum an unpleasant experience.

I should have spent the day at the Isabella Gardener Museum instead which was close at hand.