Enamored by five enormous paintings of the muses by Charles Meynier (1768 - 1832), we listen to our docent tell the story.  A French politician originally commissioned Meynier to complete 9 canvasses, but the French Revolution intervened and money ran out.  The five muses languished in Meynier’s Paris studio until a Swiss general bought them for his château, where only family and guests could see them.  The Cleveland Museum of Art, established in 1916 by the city’s wealthiest philanthropists, eventually bought and restored the paintings.

Fine art moves me in a way pop culture can’t.  It speaks to my humanity, connects me to ancient ideals; it enriches me.  The story of Meynier’s muses is one of art and riches moving each other through history.  I don’t admire the über-rich who horde their wealth as peasants do their bidding.  Then one day they plant a lush museum to immortalize their grand names carved in marble to atone for their sins. 

Yet, it does seem to have been an expedient route to great collections of fine art.  Would the huddled masses have found a way to underwrite so many artists and the museums that house their work?  I guess we’ll never know.

Pride may come before a fall, and some of the earls and bishops with ‘encrustations of medals and cacophonous fabrics’ in their portraits look fairly silly in retrospect.  But when I stand in the middle of this gallery, where lighting experts have staged a wondrous play of oil on canvas emerging through financial upheaval and the mercies of time, I am simply grateful for the privilege to be seeing this.

I may be a mere peasant and nobility is oft unworthy of its title, but in these works there shines eternal bold antiquity that belongs to none - and all.