By Sean Hughes and Cameron Knight

New, modern lighting has given many of the Taft's paintings new vitality. Charles and Anna Taft (above) still preside over the Taft Museum's largest room; each area (below) has a pleasant, intimate charm.

Cincinnati is often accused of being 10 years behind the rest of the nation, missing out on trends and late to recognize shifts in styles and ideas. Fortunately, when it comes to the international movement spawning new cultural facilities and the expansion of older ones, Cincinnati is a significant part of the trend, setting a fast pace that other cities strive to match.

It's great to be ahead of the curve for a change, and the renovation and expansion of the Taft Museum of Art is the "latest and greatest" reason for Cincinnati's now enviable position as a nexus of several important visual arts institutions.

The building that has become the Taft, built in 1820, had several owners, the last of which were Anna and Charles Taft. The couple wished to have their home, with its art collection, become a Cincinnati museum. Since 1932, that mandate has been carried out. Now, because of the vision of the museum's director, Phillip Long, and a team of talented staff, outside consultants and generous local donors, the Taft enters a new and distinguished phase in its history.

The museum reopened its doors May 15 after being closed for two years to construct a new wing and to complete an ambitious interior renovation. The results -- costing $22.8 million -- are dazzling.

Photo By Cameron Knight

Visitors peruse the Taft Museum of Art.

The new Taft is new for two distinct reasons. First, the addition provides the public with previously lacking amenities, such as a reception area, a meeting room for public programs, a tea room for light refreshments, an expanded garden and -- most important of all -- a spacious and well-designed special exhibition gallery. All these changes will alter the public's experience of the Taft, converting it to a welcoming place and a museum with the space to present historically important special exhibitions on subjects related to its permanent collection.

The second reason the new Taft is new has to do with renovation of the Taft home and the total reinstallation of the art collection. This is what makes the change at the Taft nationally significant. Here we go beyond public amenities and can consider how Long's team revamped the domestic interior and rethought the presentation of the permanent collection.

From the moment the visitor steps over the threshold from the public spaces of the new wing into the intimate environment of the Taft home, one is enthralled by the physical surroundings and the quality of each and every work of art.

New, modern lighting has given many of the Taft's paintings new vitality.

Anna and Charles Taft were thoughtful collectors who studied art through extensive travels and under the tutelage of the best art dealers of their time. During the first three decades of the 20th century, they used their inherited wealth to amass nearly 700 works of art. They collected old master European painting and 19th-century American paintings favoring landscape, portraiture and genre scenes -- Pieter de Hooch, Rembrandt, Ingres, Sargent, Daubigny, Corot.

They believed that if the local populace studied the world's great decorative arts traditions, American design and our related industries would benefit. With this motivation, they purchased hundreds of decorative arts pieces -- Chinese ceramics, French Limoges enamels, Italian Renaissance Maiolica.

What many in our community don't realize -- and what this renovation makes clear -- is that the Taft Museum of Art houses true masterpieces. I do not use the word "masterpiece" lightly. This is a great collection, and the Taft Museum of Art is, now more than ever, rightly considered one of the great house museum collections in the United States.

Charles Taft still presides over the Taft Museum's largest room.

With the renovation, the greatness of the art collection can be seen and appreciated by all visitors. I mean this literally. The renovation includes an entirely new lighting system. Before the Taft was a dim place with a shabby feel. Now it sparkles.

Every work of art is thoughtfully installed. The walls are washed with lighting that enhances every picture, and the magnificent, well-designed wall cases have state-of-the-art interior lighting so that the displayed art objects are adequately illuminated. This drastic change in the visitor's experience and our ability to derive pleasure and joy while studying the art cannot be underestimated.

After being overwhelmed by the new lighting, the next change that makes this renovation project a success is the new layout of the paintings and objects. The rooms in the house weren't structurally altered, but where much of the art is placed has been. This sequencing of art has increased its historical relevance.

A portrait of Anna Taft

After a welcoming orientation gallery, the paintings and European decorative arts are laid out chronologically with the Chinese objects and other decorative arts pieces interspersed in an effort to illustrate cross-cultural interests. So we start in the Medieval treasury, move on into the Renaissance treasury, into a gallery dedicated to 17th-century Dutch painting, then 18th-century British painting, 19th-century landscape and genre painting and so forth. There are informative wall labels throughout and soon there will be an audio guide to provide further education.

Being a house museum, one goal of the renovation was to retain the domestic character of interior. This was overlaid with a desire to have the décor (new throughout) relate to the art and also a moment in the history of 19th-century American interior design. The refurbishing includes all new carpets, window treatments, wall colors and wallpaper borders, along with the restoration of decorative plasterwork and the use of faux wood graining.

This aspect of the renovation meets with mixed success and is perhaps a matter of personal taste. At times, the combination of so many design elements results in an opulence and visual overload that overpowers the art. The juxtaposition of the decorative arts and the pictures is not always meaningful. But this is a minor complaint.

Each area has a pleasant, intimate charm.

The rhythm of the wood archways throughout the hallways is a visual enhancement, as is the shift in their color from white to wood grained. The wall color selections are absolutely right. The window treatments, use of decorative wallpapers and replacement fireplaces are works of art in their own right.

Personal collections have a character that institutional collections rarely possess. Domestic environments provide, in our 21st-century world, a rare opportunity for intimacy. I love house museums for these very reasons.

A house museum brings the viewer into a closer relationship with the works of art. The experience is more personal and our ability to understand the art is often enhanced.

If you want to return to the intimacy of an earlier time but with all the amenities of the present day, get on over to the new Taft Museum of Art. It is our new, old home and it's welcoming all of us in for a visit. ©