Picture Thomas Crown minus the whole thieving element and you might have Hasso Plattner, the real-life German businessman and collector of some of the world’s most valuable Impressionist and Modern paintings (Renoir, Signac, and, of course, Monet). Plattner is also the Museum Barberini’s founder, and his donation of 100 paintings, 34 by Monet—Plattner acquired the famed Meules (1890) for a record $110.7 million at auction last spring—creates a new permanent installation in the museum. Mostly landscapes, the collection also includes Pissarro’s Boulevard Montmarte (1897) and Picasso’s Boulevard de Clichy (1901), both acquired in the past few years. “The paintings involve us as viewers in a very direct way,” Plattner said recently to the Financial Times—exactly what we need after months in the virtual sphere. —J.V.