Albert Barnes Foundation Analysis

Albert C. Barnes was a strong willed and confident philosopher, who was ahead of his time both culturally and intellectually. He spent most of his life collecting pieces of art from famous artists such as Picasso, Van Gough, and Matisse. He then proceeded to carefully orient the paintings, coming from different parts of the world, to perfectly complement each other and make a statement that every human is equal. Furthermore, each piece was unique and alluring, causing the collection to be worth more than $25 million. Many strongly desired to obtain these paintings, but because of his strong will, Barnes declared to make his exhibit used primarily for educational purposes. His will was for the collection not to be moved, loaned, sold, or used for commercial exploitation. Despite his hard work to make this clear to his adversaries, his will was lost in a world of a hundred power-hungry men.

Furthermore, being lost is the inability to match ones mental map, a type of mental model that remembers a geographical route, with the

environment. According to Laurence Gonzales, being lost constitutes of five different steps. They are: (1) the denial of being lost and moving urgently to fit ones mental map with environment, (2) the realization of being lost and unexplainable behavior, (3) development of a plan, occasionally a terrible one, to find areas that match mental map, (4) the perception that the plan is a failure and seek to resolve it, and (5) Accept reality or either resign life (Gonzales 166). These are all steps the will of Albert Barnes went through.
When Barnes and his trustees died, the beginning of a will lost without guidance commenced.

The Barnes foundation was also left in utter confusion, shock (denial that Barnes death marked the end of his collection for education), and stress. In desperation, they entitled Richard Glanton, president of Lincoln University, as president of the Barnes Foundation. This was a reckless decision, because they failed to acknowledge that the will was now lost. In turn, Glanton acted against the will by mobilizing the artwork, and then proceeded to injure with bankruptcy. The foundation now realized that they made a mistake and in an attempt to resolve the problem (bankruptcy), they accepted the money offers from other foundations who tricked them into moving the paintings into an art exhibit. This marked the death of Barnes’ will. A lost will who if the foundation “[payed] attention and [kept] an up to date mental model”, would still be alive

today.