So it comes as a surprise to walk through the museum with Rogers, as I did at the end of last year, and realize just how much remains to be done.
Notwithstanding all that has been achieved, many of the greatest areas of the collection continue to be presented in a poor light, seeming — especially in the context of the gleaming new Art of the Americas galleries — woefully out-of-date and haphazardly arranged.
The Greek and Roman galleries, for instance, have wall labels that were written decades ago, evidently on a typewriter, and dazzling sculptures set off against a profoundly unattractive color scheme best described as baby-poo brown.
Egyptian art, like Greek and Roman, is one of the MFA’s great strengths. What’s more, imaginatively presented, Egyptian art seems to excite young people more than any other category of art besides video games. The museum’s Egyptian collection, which dates to the first joint MFA- and Harvard-sponsored expeditions to Egypt in the early 20th century, inspires envy the world over. But the Egyptian galleries are lackluster: They are split up over two levels into galleries both new and old, and irrationally displayed.
Meanwhile, the Koch Gallery - one of the museum’s largest and most prestigious spaces, filled with superb old master paintings by the likes of Velazquez, Titian, Van Dyck, Poussin, El Greco, Ribera, and Rubens - is badly lighted. The paintings are hung too high, and there’s no discernible sense to the arrangement.
Rogers conceded some of these points when I put them to him, and said he had plans to effect changes - not just in these galleries, but in many others. “I’m fully aware that these galleries do look tired,’’ he said at one point. But, he said, “The issue is, where do we find the funds?’’
