I gave a tour of the Gardner Museum to Courtney and a few of her friends who were in town for the weekend – I love meeting my friends’ friends because they are always, without fail, awesome people!
And, we got to see this year’s hanging nasturtiums in the courtyard … and they are truly gorgeous this year!
I know I take a lot of pictures of the Gardner Museum’s greenhouse … and here’s some more! One of the gardeners saw me taking pictures (and he saw my badge), so he offered to let me in to the greenhouse for a closer look. What a treat!
The Gardner Museum’s new wing is now two years old, and after two years of encouraging guests to take photos in the new wing (because that’s the only area of the museum where photography is permitted), I finally got around to taking my own photos! The morning light was absolutely gorgeous, especially with all of the light reflecting off of the snow.
The new wing starts with the front entry hall and the admissions desk. Beyond that is greenhouse which guests can view from a long corridor. Across from the front hall is the coat check and the gift shop, and then beyond that is the main staircase. To the right of the main stairs is the Living Room, to the left is the cafe and the art studio, and between the stairs is the corridor that leads you to Mrs. Gardner’s spectacular museum.
I had a much needed museum-day, wandering around the MFA with my sketchbook and my camera. It had been too long since the last time I brought my pencils to the galleries.
In one of the galleries, there’s a beautiful sculpture that has caught my attention before, and this time, the most magnificent light was shining on it from the nearby foyer. My photos don’t do it justice, but the light made this gorgeous marble sculpture look like it was made out of fresh snow. I couldn’t get enough of it!
The sculpture is called Blind Cupid, because it depicts Cupid hiding behind Venus, playing a little game of hide-and-seek (so the card says), and Cupid’s eyes are closed. It’s by Bela Lyon Pratt, whose name rang a bell. I ran in to Gardner friends who helped me figure it out – Bela Lyon Pratt is also responsible for the gorgeous sculptures in front of the Boston Public Library.
Please click here for the MFA’s page on Blind Cupid
Bela Lyons Pratt created two grand sculptures for the main entrance to the Boston Public Library. The sculptures depict Art and Science (this photo shows Art), and they are each displayed between pedestals inscribed with notable names from each field.
The MFA also has Pratt’s miniatures of these sculptures: Art and Science.
The MFA’s Christmas tree, looking up towards Sargent’s Rotunda:
I went to the Gardner Museum this morning to hear a wonderful lecture about the Sargent exhibit. As I was leaving, the light was pouring in to the Living Room, one of the most wonderful spaces of the Gardner Museum’s new wing.
Mrs. Gardner loved gardens, and in addition to her spectacular indoor courtyard, she included a lovely little outdoor garden just outside of her palace. When the museum’s annex was torn down to make way for the gorgeous new wing, the Monks Garden became a part of the construction site. Now, a year and a half after the new wing opened, the newly redesigned Monks Garden is finished!
The landscape architect created a space for visitors to meander through the greenery much like the way visitors meander through the galleries exploring Mrs. Gardner’s eclectic collection. Similar to the galleries, your experience has everything to do with the lighting conditions.
I visited the new Monks Garden for the first time around 4:30pm. By that hour, the late September sun was hitting the tops of the trees, and the high-walled garden was mostly in the shade. I can’t wait to visit the garden at other times of the day, in other seasons. I’m told that some of the stones in the path come alive in the morning light!
The plants in the garden are from all over the world, just like Mrs. Gardner’s gardens in her own time, and it promises to be an absolutely gorgeous spring when the new plants are in bloom.
I had some time to kill before an evening meeting for the volunteers, so I sat in a comfy chair in the museum’s living room (last 2 photos) and read a book on Venetian Renaissance painters.
I love giving tours of the Gardner Museum to people who have never been before, and this week, I got to do that twice!
Our cousins were passing through Boston on their vacation, and they came to Third Thursdays at the Gardner while I was volunteering. The joint was jumping by the time they got there, and I gave them a whirlwind tour of the whole museum before heading out for a late dinner. It was so great to see them!
I love it when friends have family in town, and they ask me to give their family a tour of the Gardner Museum. I’ve done this a gajillion times, and each time, it’s such a treat to show the museum to a group that has never been before, and to see the museum fresh through their eyes.
Here’s yet another photo of the flowers in the Gardner Museum’s greenhouse:
There are two Baroque paintings in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art that I think are worth the entire two hour trip from Boston to Hartford to see. When I first visited the Wadsworth about 10 years ago, the entire Baroque section was being renovated. When I visited again in 2011, I got to see one of them and it was truly a treat. The other was in storage. This time, I finally got to see the painting I had been trying to see, and it was gorgeous.
One painting is Orazio Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes. Like so many others, Gentileschi painted in the style of Caravaggio, and he was among the few who truly mastered Caravaggio’s rich colors, dramatic shadows and intense emotion.
The other painting is Caravaggio’s St. Francis of Assisi. There are only a handful of paintings by Caravaggio in American collections, so it’s a treat to see works by the master on home soil. The Wadsworth worked an entire exhibit around these two paintings (Burst of Light: Caravaggio and his Legacy), so obviously, I have been dying to see this since it opened in March. We finally found a free weekend to head down to Hartford and we had a wonderful afternoon.
Photos from our visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum in 2011
The MFA has outdone itself again. Instead of yet another exhibit of pretty paintings (which I wouldn’t have minded), they are currently hosting a phenomenal exhibit of Samurai armor (my photoblog entry from the exhibit). They have done a stellar job of displaying this collection, but they didn’t stop there. They partnered with a comic book artist who draws samurai, and a video game company that animates samurais from the comic book. In doing so, they have brought together a magnificent ancient Japanese craft, a truly talented comic book artist, and the under-appreciated art of video game animation and given us the opportunity to consider how all three art forms relate to eachother.
Stan Sakai is the writer and artist of Usagi Yojimbo, a comic book series about a samurai rabbit. Brian has been a big fan of this series for a very long time, so were right there with all the other geeks and nerds at the front of the line waiting to hear him speak. But Stan did more than just talk about his process. He showed us. They set him up at the podium with an overhead projector, and while he talked to us like we were all old friends, he was also drawing and doodling on MFA letterhead. We watched his characters come to life right before our eyes. It was truly an honor to watch the master at work. And he was hysterical.
Before he spoke, we heard from the president of Happy Giant, the video game company that created a Usagi Yojimbo video game, with special content based on the MFA’s Samurai exhibit. The MFA is exhibiting ancient armor, and they partnered with video game animators, who were in turn partnering with Stan Sakai, and the result is a samurai rabbit animated in authentic Japanese armor. Hopefully, this is the future of artistic collaboration.
After picking up a few special items for our moms at the gift shop, we visited the MFA’s Japanese garden to round out our visit.
The MFA has renovated a gallery of Dutch paintings and added a few cases of gorgeous vases and plates etc. I love being able to see something that I’ve seen before in a new light.
It was a madhouse at the MFA today. Gorgeous day, the semester’s almost over, the terrorists have been caught, the Samurai exhibit just opened, the Michelangelo exhibit just opened, and Art in Bloom is happening. For three days, gorgeous floral displays are placed throughout the galleries near the work of art that they were designed to be displayed with. They’re absolutely gorgeous, and it draws a huge crowd. In fact, I left just as a huge school group was arriving.
If I could have avoided the crowds, I would have, but I couldn’t wait another day to see Michelangelo’s drawings. Usually, I miss out on seeing Art in Bloom because I would rather avoid the crowds, but this year, I was right there with all of the other ladies oohing and aahing and taking pictures. The flowers were gorgeous, but my favorite shot from this group is the one on the right. The pattern created by the shadows of well-lit flowers, juxtaposed with the tile pattern of the fireplace behind it, took my breath away.
Michelangelo, Study for the Head of the Madonna for the Doni Tondo, 1508,Casa Buonarroti, Florence. Photo Source: mfa.org
This past Tuesday, the Museum of Fine Arts opened an exhibit of 26 drawings by Michelangelo, borrowed from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. I had to wait five whole days before I could get over there to see the exhibit. It’s an extremely rare treat to see works by Michelangelo in the United States, not to mention in my own neighborhood.
Thank you to the MFA for exhibiting Michelangelo’s Drawings and giving me the chance to notice an interesting connection between two unrelated works.
When I saw the drawing on the right at the MFA, my first thought was of the figure of Jonah on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. When I read the label, I realized my mistake. It’s a study for the Doni Tondo, Michelangelo’s painting of the Holy Family for the Doni family. But was I wrong?
According to the Uffizi’s website, Michelangelo painted the Doni Tondo in 1506-08, and according to Casa Buonarroti’s website, the drawing is dated 1508. So it’s quite likely (and who am I to argue with the scholars) that this drawing is a study for the figure of the Madonna for the Doni Tondo.
But Michelangelo also started painting the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in 1508, so it’s also possible that this drawing is mislabeled, and it’s actually a study for the figure of Jonah in the Sistine Chapel.
Unfortunately, my theory falls apart when you consider that Michelangelo frescoed the ceiling from one end to the other, and that he started on the other end (the “Noah” end). In 1508, he was still a few years away from painting Jonah.
But … take a close look at the open mouth of the figure in the drawing (above), then take a look at the closed mouth of the Madonna in the Doni Tondo (below left), and the open mouth of Jonah from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (below right).
You decide.
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| Michelangelo, Doni Tondo, 1506-1508, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo source: Wikipedia |
Michelangelo, The Prophet Jonah, 1508-1512, The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Vatican City. Photo source: The Web Gallery of Art |
Shameless self-promotion:
In 2006, I created an interactive exploration of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, identifying each figure in each panel. Please click here to visit my Sistine Chapel Project, and to see where Jonah is on the ceiling.
I had a cold last week, which kept us from seeing the MFA’s new Samurai exhibit during the Members’ Preview days. We finally got the chance to see it tonight, and it was spectacular! When it comes to art, ancient Japanese armor is far from my usual favorites, but this is an exquisite collection of truly magnificent craftsmanship. Brian loves this kind of stuff and we were both really excited to see this exhibit.
This is a picture of the facade of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Flags are at half-mast all over the city because of the bombing two days ago. Many of us have barely scratched the surface when it comes to processing what has happened. In one of many gestures that makes me love my city even more, Boston museums offered free admission in recognition that museums offer a place for peaceful reflection.
You got that right.
After we saw the exhibit, we decided to walk up Huntington Ave towards Copley Square, which is still blocked off as a crime scene. We got up to the Christian Science Plaza during that golden hour of dusk when the light is perfect. Museums are great, but the Christian Science Plaza is often where I go when I’m in need of peaceful reflection. It’s absolutely beautiful. I can stand in one place and see four of my favorite buildings all at once, without moving my neck, and their reflections in the pool are simply stunning.
We continued up Huntington Ave until we arrived at the edge of Copley Square. News trucks were absolutely everywhere. Bright lights, cameras, cables, equipment and a lot of people doing nothing. At that point, there was so little to report, and everything that could be said had already been said over and over. I snapped a few pictures and immediately felt bad for acting like a tourist, and yet it’s so important to capture this moment. I’ve taken hundreds of photos of Copley Square. This is my city.
The second-half of Spring semester is always the busiest most exciting time of the year for me at work, and this year, it’s also a very exciting time to be an art-lover in Boston. Here’s why:
The Postcard AgeOur household is wicked excited about these two exhibits opening very soon at the MFA:
Every year, the Gardner Museum’s talented gardeners grow long vines of nasturtiums and hang these bright orange beauties in Mrs. Gardner’s gorgeous courtyard. Why? Because Mrs. Gardner did it, and it’s a wonderful tradition that the museum keeps up. It’s not Spring in Boston without the nasturtiums or the return of the Red Sox. These delicate flowers will hopefully hang in the courtyard until the annual celebration of Mrs. Gardner’s birthday on April 14th.
No photography is Isabella’s palace, but her brand new greenhouse in the new wing is fair game.
I love that I live within walking distance of two of my favorite museums in the entire world (and that is really saying something because I’ve been to a lot of museums). I finally got the chance to take a much-needed long walk and see some things I’ve been meaning to see. First, a visit to the MFA to check out The Postcard Age, a phenomenal exhibit that closes soon. Then, a quick spin around several of my favorite galleries, and then a visit to the wonderful exhibit on the Triumph of the Winter Queen before dashing through the Gardner Museum to see the gorgeous nasturtiums that just went up.
Not a bad way to start a Saturday …
I volunteered this morning at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the light pouring in to the greenhouse was absolutely gorgeous.
Five years ago, Brian and I spent the day after Christmas at the Met, and we did the exact same thing this year. Several hours of gallery after gallery after gallery – it was wonderful. It doesn’t need to be said that the Met has an incredibly spectacular collection, and I felt like every time I turned around or entered another room, I ran in to old friend. (Yes, I know I’m a nerd).
Every year, the Met has a spectacular Christmas display in one of the Medieval galleries and I always love seeing that. They were also showing an exhibit of Bernini’s clay sculptures. Bernini sculpted many of the famous monuments that we just saw in Rome two months ago, so it was pretty incredible to see his ‘sketches’.
Photoblog entry from our visit to the Met in 2007
The Koch Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
This is my favorite gallery in the new wing — gorgeous red silk, shiny gold frames and pristine white marble. I think they like this room so much, they decided to make the Koch Gallery more like it. Who can argue with that?
Photography is permitted on the first floor of the Gardner Museum‘s new wing, and I finally got around to snapping a few of my own photos. I have a ways to go because the new wing is gorgeous, but let’s start with the greenhouse. The first thing I see every time I arrive at the Gardner Museum is the new greenhouse. The flowers for the museum’s signature courtyard used to be grown and cared for at an off-site greenhouse, but one of the many gems of the new wing is an onsite greenhouse, complete with a greenhouse classroom for teaching school groups about Isabella’s gardens. And my favorite, purple orchids.
We brought a friend to the MFA this morning, and headed straight for our favorite gallery (partly because the bathrooms are right there, but that’s beside the point). We found out that our favorite gallery in the entire museum is being renovated! This photo is from a few years ago, and we’ll never see this again …
One of my favorite ways to spend a day off is visiting some of my favorite spots in Boston
Our visit to the Brooklyn Museum reminded me that I keep running in to copies of Frederick MacMonnies’ ‘Bacchante and Infant Faun‘, one of my favorite sculptures.
Just for fun, here’s a list of all of the versions of Frederick MacMonnies’ Bacchante and Infant Faun that I know of
The description of Bacchante and Infant Faun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website (emphasis mine)
“Modeled by Frederick W. MacMonnies in Paris in 1893–94, “Bacchante and Infant Faun” epitomizes the dramatic quality of the French Beaux-Arts style that dominated American sculpture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The sculpture captures a nude young woman in exuberant motion, her right toes on the ground and her right arm holding a bunch of grapes high over her head. Her left knee pushes upward in a dancing motion, and with her left hand she secures a nude infant sitting in the crook of her elbow. MacMonnies first presented the bronze statue to the American architect Charles Follen McKim in appreciation for a fifty-dollar loan that had facilitated MacMonnies’s trip abroad in 1884. McKim intended it for the courtyard of the neo-Renaissance Boston Public Library that his firm, McKim, Mead and White, had designed for Copley Square. After a great storm of public protest stirred by temperance unions, clergy, and other angry Bostonians against the statue’s “drunken indecency,” McKim withdrew the gift and then offered “Bacchante” to the Metropolitan in May 1897. The Board of Trustees enthusiastically accepted it, and the bronze was displayed for many years in the Museum’s Great Hall with other examples of modern sculpture. Because of the statue’s enormous popularity, numerous reductions of it were cast in two sizes. There are also four smaller bronze versions (68 in. H.), two large marble replicas, and three other located over-life-size bronzes.”
The Brooklyn Museum was on a very short list of museums that neither of us have ever been to, so we spent the afternoon there before heading to Stamford. Not my favorite museum, but still worth it just to see where the opening scene of a Rick Riordan novel took place.
My favorite part was the storage closet! The museum has a visible storage area where visitors can see how the museum stores the parts of the collection that are not on display. I SO need a closet like this!!
After leaving the hotel, we crossed Massachusetts – from East Boston to Williamstown (the furthest north-west corner of MA) – and arrived with enough time to begin our honeymoon with a brief visit one of our favorite museums: The Clark Art Institute.
While the galleries are closed for renovations, they’ve installed several pieces from the collection in a salon-like exhibit, where paintings were deliberately thrown together with paintings from very different times and places. One of the things I love about the Clark is the examples of images of women in their collection – instead of royal portraits, or portraits of women with their children, the paintings in their collection show women who have thoughts and skills (this maybe isn’t the best selection of my favorites, but you get the idea).
Please click here for my photoblog entries for our visit to the Clark Art Institute in
