The Cummer Museum and the Gardens That Refuse to Hurry

The Cummer Museum and the Gardens That Refuse to Hurry

The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens at 829 Riverside Avenue sits on the south bank of the St. Johns River, and it is the rare museum where the gardens justify the visit even if you never go inside — though you should, because the collection is deeper and stranger than a city Jacksonville's size has any right to expect.

The gardens descend to the river in a series of terraces — English, Italian, and Olmsted-designed — each one a different conversation with the water. The English garden is formal and clipped; the Italian garden is cypress-lined and reflective; and the Olmsted garden (yes, that Olmsted) is the most naturalistic, with live oaks and azaleas arranged to look effortless in the way that only very careful design can achieve. The river at the bottom catches the afternoon light and throws it back onto the tree canopy, and the whole garden shimmers with a borrowed glow.

Inside, the permanent collection covers 5,000 years — Meissen porcelain, Winslow Homer watercolors, a strong photography collection, and a suite of early-20th-century American paintings that includes works by Thomas Hart Benton and Norman Rockwell. The galleries are small enough to feel intimate and arranged with enough confidence that each room has a clear argument rather than a miscellaneous assortment.

What visitors miss: The Wark Collection of Early Meissen Porcelain in the second-floor gallery. It's one of the finest collections of its kind outside Germany, and the craftsmanship of 18th-century porcelain figures — shepherds, musicians, animals — is so fine it makes you reconsider the word "decorative." Most people walk past it on the way to the paintings. The porcelain has been waiting patiently for two centuries; it can wait for you too, but you shouldn't make it.