The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page 11

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1992 THE SUN 11A OPINION COMMENTARY Clinton-Gore: Going for the Market at The Gap Still Faithful to the Cones By ARNOLD L. LEHMAN TIPPER SAVS LAY frames. (The Musee National d'Art Moderne In Paris is one of the few museums in the world, other than the Baltimore Museum of Art, that honors Matisse's frame preference; their Matisse paintings are exhibited in wood-strip frames like those used personally by the artist.) Like Matisse, van Gogh was committed to framing simplicity. Fred Leeman, exhibitions curator at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam, has written In detail of van Gogh's framing Intentions. Mr.

Leeman writes: "Framing a picture Is an act of appropriation. Framing an acquisition offers the opportunity to the private owner to embrace his conquest, to domesticate It, to adapt It to his own ambiance, and finally to subject It to his own taste." But the museum, Mr. Leeman suggests (and Before Etta Cone's death, portions of the Cone Collection were shown in the museum in clean, modern spaces, which she visited. Had Miss Etta desired a recreation of her domestic surroundings, she would have clearly indicated her wishes, as she did in other matters. By ELLEN GOODMAN Boston.

So much for the Idea that geography Is destiny. The old Ironclad rule that a political ticket ought to look like a Trlptlk for a party that travels north to south, east to west, was Just torn into as many pieces as a used airline stub. When Bill Clinton picked Gore for the second spot, he barely stretched from one Southern state to another. It's not a lot of frequent-flier miles from Hope. to Carthage, Tenn.

By the traditional political map, the Tennarkana ticket looks lopsided. We not only have two white guys, mld-40s and middle-of-the-road, but they were raised In two towns where as Senator Gore said, "people know about It when you're born and care about It when you die." A hub If there ever was one. In many ways though, this choice says something about the changing American reality. America Is less divided by place than ever before. We may still use geographic terms as If they had philosophical meaning.

We may talk about the West, the South, the Midwest, the Northeast as if they were distinct nationalities. But we rarely even consider geography when we think about diversity. Regionalism has gone the way of the local accent. In the older generation, Howell Heflln of Alabama was the Southern standard. Cab drivers spoke linguistically pure Brooklyn-ese.

By comparison, today's accents carry a hint of origin and the spice of local color. But we rarely have trouble understanding each other. People may root for the hometown boy, but they find It as hard to Identify their hometowns as George Bush does. The average American moves 12 times In a lifetime. We reach out and touch our parents or kids by telephone.

The most popular family policy In America this summer Is the bargain air fares. In Garry Wills' new book, "Lincoln at Gettysburg," he says the both ran up against the Issues of their generation. One fought In Vietnam; one didn't. One Inhaled; one didn't. Indeed their wives provide a truly balanced ticket of gender roles.

Tipper was mercilessly trashed by the left for proposing that records carry a label like the movies. Hillary was trashed by the right for stepping on a land mine in the mommy wars. If these two couples travel these rocky trails and end up a team, It's not a bad sign. The distance this generation has to cross to common ground may be getting shorter. Carthage to Hope, Hope to Carthage.

This was the easy leg of the trip. The only geography that counts now Is finding a way to Washington. Ellen Goodman is a syndicated columnist Civil War president deliberately encouraged citizens to think of the United States as a singular, not a plural name. People used to say the United States are, now they say the United States Is. It took a while, but It worked.

Today the Electoral College counts us as residents of a state, but In presidential elections we vote as Individual Americans. Today each region has Its own weather, history, traditions, establishment. But we are more likely to divide by class, age, race, zip code and "lifestyle enclave" than by map. We think of the country like merchants do. Spangles sell In Dallas and black dresses are hot in Manhattan.

But there are T-shirts and Jeans In every mall In America. The Democrats in essence are going for the T-shirts. If not The this Mr. Lehman concurs), has a more complex responsibility to the artist and to the painting. While acknowledging this community's indebtedness to the Cone sisters, the Baltimore Museum of Art must also honor Matisse's radi- 1 cal modernity.

Reflecting Matisse's i artistic intention, the museum re- framed his paintings. To quote Deputy Director Brenda Richardson, "The museum as- sumes custodial responsibility not Just for the physical work of art but for the integrity and the 'ethic-aes- thetic' of the artist. Matisse wanted Parallels us to look at paintings, not at By GARRY WILLS The "original" frames were re- used on the objects from the Cone Collection that traveled to the Muse- urn of Fine arts, Boston, last fall, not Christopher Weeks' Opinion Commentary piece on Baltimore's great Cone Collection, which appeared July 1 on this page, was so filled with Inaccuracies and misleading commentary that I felt compelled to respond both on behalf of historical veracity and the Baltimore Museum of Art's committed stewardship. When Dr. Clarlbel Cone died In September 1929, she left her collection to her younger sister, Etta, and not to the Baltimore Museum of Art as Mr.

Weeks states. Using precatory language, Dr. Clarlbel Indicated to Etta that "in the event the spirit of appreciation for modern art In Baltimore becomes Improved," she desired that the Baltimore museum "be favorably considered" to receive her collection. An editorial lauding the Cones and their collections appearing In The Sun Nov. 22, 1929 stated "The ultimate bestowal of these works upon the Museum depends definitely on Miss Etta Cone's conviction that the community deserves them and wishes them We are wisely required to prove our worth before we are given this spirited stimulus toward our artistic renaissance." It was not until Etta Cone's last will and testament of May 18, 1949, that the museum was assured of the bequest of the collection.

Etta Cone died on August 31, 1949, and her own collection, that of Dr. Clarlbel, and the collection of her brother, Frederic, came together to the Baltimore Museum of Art. It Is important to understand that the Cone sisters' manner of displaying their collection in their separate, small-roomed apartments In the Marlborough on Eutaw Place reflected necessity as much as It did their late-Victorian decorative taste. The Cone sisters had little choice but to stack objects floor to ceiling if they were to see even a small fraction of their collection; Indeed, It was the small scale of their living quarters that pre-empted the purchase of any of the great larger works by Matisse. But with the opportunity to display the collection In considerably increased gallery space at the museum, due to the additional generosity of the Cones, museum Director Ade-lyn Breeskln and Chief Curator Gertrude Rosenthal set about the task of exhibiting objects from the collection for the benefit of the public.

Rather than encapsulating this truly modern collection in the taste and manner of the 19th century, Ms. Breeskln and Ms. Rosenthal, who were both devoted to Etta Cone, chose to let the collection breathe. Under their direction, the museum built spacious, well-lighted and climate-controlled galleries that allowed millions of visitors from all over the world to experience the brilliance and breadth of the Cones' choices. Indeed, prior to Miss Etta's death, portions of the Cone Collection were shown on many occasions In the museum In clean, modern spaces, which Etta Cone visited and enjoyed.

Had Miss Etta desired a It must be understod that the Cone sisters' manner of displaying their collection in their separate, small-roomed apartments in the Marlborough on Eutaw Place reflected necessity as much as it did their late-Victorian decorative tastes. recreation of her domestic surroundings, she would have clearly Indicated her wishes, as she did on so many other matters, to her friends Adelyn Breeskln and Gertrude Rosenthal. The collection was left to the museum with no such restrictions. Indeed, Mr. Weeks Ignores the fact that for decades the museum has Included vignettes partial room settings that authentically depict interiors from the Cones' Marlborough apartments, thus allowing museum visitors to better understand the ambiance of the period while, at the same time, allowing an unfettered view of the Cone sisters' masterpieces.

Mr. Weeks' assertion that the "original" Matisse frames were "Matisse-sanctioned" is totally false. Artists rarely participated in decisions about framing the paintings they sold to collectors. We know that when Matisse showed or sold a painting to Clarlbel or Etta Cone, the painting was stretched but unframed. Additionally, photographs from the 1920s and 1930s document Matisse's home and studio filled with his own paintings all displayed either without any frame or with simplest of narrow wood-strip because of the curatorial request tor the "original" frames from the Mu- seum of Fine Arts, but simply be- cause the contemporary frames on J' the Matlsses In our galleries are not designed for travel.

These frames are not constructed to accept any glazing; and since the Baltimore museum always uses a protective glazing (special i glass) when Cone Collection pic- tures are loaned, we always send Cone paintings out Into the world In their earlier Cone frames. This Is not an option granted the borrower, as Mr. Weeks would have us be- Washington. It has been widely noticed that Ross Perot and Bill Clinton were born In towns only 30 miles apart. Even closer to Mr.

Perot's Texarkana was the birthplace of Jeff Davis, the most famous Arkansas politician of the early 20th century. Jeff Davis (named after the Confederate president, but no relative) was a populist lawyer who became the Arkansas attorney general and three-time governor before going to the U.S. Senate. He was a colorful outsider who always ran against his own state's capital city, with its political establishment, newspapers and lobbyists. Almost all the press of his home state opposed Davis throughout his career, but he wore that opposition like a badge.

As he put it: "I have a little boy I love better than anybody on Earth except his mother. If I find that boy Is a smart boy, I will go and make a preacher out of him. If 1 find he is not so smart a boy, I am going to make him a lawyer. And If I find that he has not a bit of sense upon Earth, I am going to make an editor out of him and send him to Little Rock to edit the Arkansas Democrat." Davis constantly railed at the political establishment: "The Judges have lived too long in Little Rock, 'j'ii Gap market, the generation gap market. This flat-out baby-boom ticket Is generational politics to the hilt.

As Senator Gore said, "That time has come again the time for a new generation of leaders." In fact, the old regionalism has been replaced by a lingering civil war over values with baby-boom roots in arguments over Vietnam, over drugs, over gender roles. The baby-boom generation has been fractured by Its own Internal divisions, which have kept the best and the brightest of them out of power. What this team lacks In geographical balance, It may make up for in a kind of lntra-generatlonal balance. Al Gore, the son of a senator, and Bill Clinton, maybe the last candidate to grow up with what he genteelly calls outdoor plumbing, for Perot nor of your state, that gang down there at Little Rock would run over him In a week. I am going to put knee breeches on Judge Wood and run him for page when the legislature meets.

I will also try to get Van-deventer some kind of Job, even If I have to have him put In as a chambermaid around the statehouse." His contempt for his rivals, who were supported by the editors and preachers of the state, was exuberantly phrased. Describing a violent storm that hit one outside debate, he said: "Judge Wood had his wife's parasol with him, and he got all his friends under his wife's parasol and kept them dry. Judge Vandeventer set off to the store, bought a dollar-and-a-half umbrella, and kept all of his friends dry. All of my friends stayed out in the rain and got wet. Women, with babies In their arms, shuffled around for shelter, and the babies got so wet they would slip out of their mothers' arms Just like eels." Davis always said that only the people were on his side: "A man BECK ter parents can give him more.

Gregory's case has civil rights and children's rights advocates lining up in support of his stance, insisting that youngsters have the same legal rights as adults and must have the same access to the courts to protect those rights. But such flat assertions sound scary to most parents. So do other questions they raise: If children do have the legal right to go to court to demand what they see as their own best Interests, how old Is old enough to do so? (One children's rights group says Just as soon as they learn to talk.) Who will pay the lawyers? What Is to prevent affluent couples from wooing away the children of the poor, offering them a lifestyle and material possessions their own parents cannot? How can hard-pressed parents ever trust a foster-care system when foster fathers and mothers may encourage their children to demand legal separation from them In court? Gregory may not win when his case Is heard In circuit court. But he has already been Instrumental In stretching the concept of children's rights In new legal ways. This will be uneasy legal territory for years to come.

Parental responsibility for children has been eroding forbears, along with the Increase in single-parent households, A Fight Over a Child's Desire for 'a Place To Be' asked me who my campaign manager was, and I told him It was Just the farmers of Arkansas." After describing the evil establishment, he said: "But if I can get the plain people of the country to help me, God bless you, we will clear the thing out." Sounds a good deal like Ross Perot, doesn't he? Davis remained an outsider even In office he tethered a goat on the lawn of the governor's mansion to show he had not Joined what he called the "high collars," people whose starched collars creep up on them so that they cannot see the plain earth around them, only the sky above. And what was the result of all this outsider campaigning? As Raymond Arsenault showed In his fine 1984 biography, "The Wild Ass of the Ozarks," Jeff Davis made no impact on the financial problems of his state, deepened its real flaws (racism and opposition to reform) and made a fool of himself when he went to the U.S. Senate. The outsider can be good for colorful denunciation, but working with a government you have vilified Is another matter. Now that really sounds like Ross Perot.

Garry Wills is a syndicated columnist the rising Influence of gangs and the growing pervasiveness and profitability of illegal drugs. It Is worrisome to see the courts approving any undermining of traditional family authority, however well intended. But parental abuse and neglect of children are also facts and problems that haven't been prevented by abortion (as some abortion advocates said they would be if unwanted babies were never born). Nor have they been solved by all the earnest efforts of public and private child welfare agencies. Enough well-meaning, even well-trained adults have messed up children's lives with the best of Intentions that surely other approaches should be tried.

But a major expansion of legal rights for children is still an unmarked trail through unexplored and potentially dangerous territory. It Is much too soon for sweeping legal precedents to be set. Cases like Gregory's should be considered each Individually on their own merits, however burdensome to the courts. Three principles should prevail: The best interests of the child must come first. The state should use Its great power to Interfere with family life only when clearly necessary.

And decisions should not be allowed to bog down In legal hassles because time runs out quickly for children. Joan Beck Is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. which Is why they ruled against the people." His campaigns always had this message: "There Is a gang down there that needs cleaning out, and It needs It awful bad." He would rid the state of lobbyists: "It would be more decent for a member of the General Assembly to be seen talking on the streets with, or found In the room of, the most vile prostitute In the city than to be found In the rooms of one of these lobbyists." He ran his first campaign to prevent the construction of a new state capltol. He said It was being built by corrupt deals that foisted on the state a damaged property: "That land is so poor that two drunken men could not raise a difference upon It. It Is so poor you could not raise an umbrella upon It.

It Is so poor you have to manure It to make bricks out of It." He called his rivals "squirrel heads" and questioned their manliness. "If you had a Miss Nancy, a man without a backbone, as gover By JOAN with whom she Is now living is unemployed and has a record of armed robbery and drug possession. For most of his life. Gregory has lived with his biological father or in foster placements, wishing for "a place to be," as he reportedly told state Investigators. He found that place In the most recent of his foster homes and he wants to Join his foster family permanently.

Gregory's father agreed to give up parental rights to the boy. But his mother refused. So with the help of a lawyer (his foster father Is also a lawyer), Gregory went to court to argue that he has the constitutional right to fight for what he considers his own best Interests and that he doesn't have to passively accept what his parents, a guardian or a state child-welfare agency decides on his behalf. His mother, Rachel contends that Gregory simply wants the more affluent lifestyle his foster family can provide and she cannot. She Isn't a bad mother, she told a reporter.

Just an unlucky one, with too many financial pressures and too little help. She only wanted a little temporary assistance from the Florida child-care system, she Insists. She Is now taking good care of her two younger sons, she says, and she does notfwant to lose her oldest boy Just because she Is poor and his fos Ueve. The Cone galleries will retain their Integrity and elegant spaciousness after the completion of the Museum's new wing. Mr.

Weeks, whose intimate knowledge of the design for this new facility must come exclusively from his reading of Ed Gunt's Sun article of April 19, once again Is uninformed. In addition to the entrance to the new wing from the Cone galleries, there is another major entrance from the newly renovated galleries on the lower floor, enhancing the total visitor circulation of all the spaces on the west side of the building. In addition, the naturally lighted rotunda, which Joins the Cone wing to the new wing, continues the classically Inspired axial program Initiated by John Russell Pope and embraced by architects Bower Lewis Thrower In the 1978-1980 renovation and 1982 east-wing addition. The subtlety of carefully planned lighted spaces radiating from the Schaefer Court In the heart of the building not only encourages visitors to move through an otherwise complicated spatial maze, but also enlivens this movement with views of sky, gardens and greenery. Mr.

Weeks was not an elected member of the museum's board of trustees as his commentary Implies. Rather, he represented former Harford County Executive Habern Freeman, who was ex officio. There was one assertion made by Mr. Weeks with which I heartily agree, and that Is the observation that the Cone Collection "In breadth and In depth is one of the truly great collections of art in America, the glory not only of the Baltimore Museum of Art, but of the entire city and state." From the time this treasure came to the Baltimore Museum of Art, this museum has demonstrated Its commitment to Its forward-thinking benefactors, Dr. Clarlbel and Miss Etta Cone; to the great artists represented; and to the generations of Maryland residents and visitors for whom we hold It In trust.

Arnold L. Lehman is director of the Baltimore Museum of Art Washington. Does a child have the light to "divorce" his parents if he has found two others he prefers? Does a mother who puts a child In foster care because she has financial and family problems have the right to Insist he return to her If he doesn't want to? The blunt questions and their awesome implications He at the heart of a troubling lawsuit that passed Its first legal test last week and will soon be heard by a Florida circuit court. The hurting people pitted against each other In this unusual legal clash of family rights may be Just the first of many more to come now that a Florida Judge has ruled that an 11 -year-old boy has the same constitutional rights as an adult to be heard in court. It's the kind of case that fires up the extremists, challenges basic assumptions of the law, creates unknown new risks for families and comes with no easy answers.

Gregory K. (last names have been withheld by the court) wants to be legally free from his parents so he can be adopted by the foster father and mother with whom he has lived for nine months. He makes some persuasive arguments. His biological parents neglected him and subjected him to a chaotic and unhappy life, Gregory says. His mother, a waitress, abused him mentally and emotionally, according to his legal complaint.

The man.