We arrived in Boston on a misty day, with Hurricane Lee looming on the horizon, set to make landfall along the East Coast and New England in just a few days. This was quite unexpected since New England typically avoids the path of such storms.
However, Boston charmed us from the moment we set foot in the city. The waterfront and rows of historic houses seemed to have inspired the creation of the magnificent and contemporary architectural wonders that lined the shore. Despite the overcast sky, the city thrived with an energetic and vibrant atmosphere, especially evident in the bustling welcome-back vibe of prestigious institutions like Harvard and MIT. Beneath the veneer of an old city, we discovered a youthful and invigorating spirit.
Our visit to the Harvard Art Museums, Boston marked our ninth encounter with a Renzo Piano masterpiece. Strangely, this particular design resonated with me the most, possibly due to its renovation aspects. The graceful marble seemed to serve as a timeless pedestal, supporting Renzo's innovative blend of glass structures and an intricate system of automatic blinds and louvers on the rooftop.
Furthermore, The collections are truly splendid.
The descriptions provided here ( quoted here in italic) are subject to copyright protection by the museums and their respective curators.
Pierre Bonnard_ Interior with Still Life of Fruit,1923
"The vibrant reds, greens and yellows of the fruits contrast with the dominant purple and turquoise jewel tones of the distinct interior space."
Claude Monet_Red boats, Argenteuil,1875
"For most of the 1870s, Monet lived in Argenteuil, a town on the Sein only seventeen miles from Paris and accessible to the city by train. Eleminating the factory smokestacks that were in fact visible at this location, Monet highlights the area's picturesque and recreational aspects, including the boat rental area on the left. Impressionist painters like Monet deliberately eschewed the finished structure and line of academic painting, but the irresolution of this painting has led to its occasional categorization as a "study".
Pierre-Auguste Renoir_Self Portrait,1876
"Covering most of this canvas with sketchy, large brushstrokes, Renoir renders parts of the composition perfunctorily, leaving the position of his right arm unresolved and his palette and brushes barely discernible. His face, however, is portrayed with amiable intimacy and subtlety".
Camille Pissarro_Mardi Gras on the Boulevards, 1897.
"Although his Parisian views were undertaken partly as a commercial venture, they also presented the artist with an exciting new challenge: how to capture the evanescent energy of the large crowds that filled the wide boulevards lined with tightly packed buildings of modern Paris".
Claude Monet_The Gare Saint-Lazare- Arrival of a train, 1877
"Monet's thick build-up of pigments here is a virtuosic example of his approach to painting during this period, when he juxtaposed multitudinous hues in mounds of impasto that would blend into a coherent whole only when viewed from a distance. This technique reportedly led Cezanne to declare" Monet is only an eye, but my God what an eye!".
Hillaire-Germain-Edgar Degas_The Rehersal, 1873-78
"He has fallen in love with modern life, and out of all the subjects of modern life he has chosen washerwomen and ballet dancers... It's a world of pink and white, of female flesh in lawn and gauze, the most delightful of pretexts for using pale, soft tints.".
Vincent van Gogh_Three Pairs of Shoes, 1886-87
"This composition is painted over another image of a large bouquet of flowers in a vase.Their arrangement in a diagonal line lends the scene of sense of balance, while the playful individuality of each boot adds rhythmic movement to the composition."
Vincent van Gogh_Self portrait Dedicated to Paul Gaugin, 1888
"He manipulated his features in response to Japanese prints, changed the contours of his jacket for coloristic effect, and painted the background" pale veronese green" without any shadows. Shortly after her sent the work to Gaugin, however, their friendship deteriorated, and Gaugin sold it for 300 francs." What a friendship this is!
Vincent van Gogh_Seated Bather, 1883-84
"Exploring the canonical theme of female nude bathers, renoi titled a work similar to this one Naiad, or water nymph, highlighting the figure's classical inspiration. Renoir painted the figure and her drapery differently from the landscape, so that she appears to float in the setting."
Georges Pierre Seurat_Hydrangeas, 1878-79
"This is the only still life Seurat is known to have painted, and it is a rare surviving example of his early work, as it is believed that the artist destroyed most of those canvases. In its subject and predominant use of red pigments, it aligns with French academic trends of the 1870s, particularly artist' interest in flower painting..."
Henri Rousseau_The Banks of the Oise, 1907
"Rousseau was celebrated by younger avant-garde artist, including Pablo Picasso, who saw in his idiosyncratic works an evocation of modernity. The larger trees closely resemble those in his other paintings, while the dappled brushwork in the background creates a subtle screen of autumnal foliage. The sturdy cattle dwarf their archaic-looking herdsman, who wears a Phrygian cap, a soft conical hat first worn by the ancient Greeks."
Andre Lhote_ The Trees, 1909
"The vivid palete and swirling forms of the Trees reveal his early affinity with fauvism, which favored a gestural application of bold, often strident color over a precise naturalism. Perhaps because he had trained as an ornamental wood sculptor, Lhote was able to embrace the conventionally opposed aesthetics of realistic depiction and decorative design."
I adore museums, not just for the masterpieces they house, but also for the opportunity to observe people. How their curiosity drives them, how they immerse themselves in observation and contemplation
Renee Sintensis _ Self Portrait,1931
"Sintensis successfully fashioned her unmistakable appearance as a brand. Embodying the so-called New Woman of the period- independent, athletic, short-haired, smoking tobacco, and often wearing traditionally male clothing. The partial rendering of the skull resembles a death mask, which, along with the downward gaze, powerfully embodies melancholy."
Gustav Klimt_Pear Tree, 1903
"In the flowering branches, each dab of paint indicates a single leaf, blossom, or piece of fruit. The flat, flickeing field of color evokes both postimpressionist painting and Byzantine mosaics."
Lyonel Feininger_Bird Cloud, 1926
"During summers on the Baltic coast, Feininger made hundreds of open-air sketches that reveal his fascination with the coastal landscape and its changing atmospheric conditions. Through a process of reduction and splintering of forms, which he called "prism-ism," he sought to create a distilled vision of the world."
Samuel Finley Breese Morse_Gallery of the Lourve, 1831-33
"Between 1831 and 1832, artist, educator, and inventor Samuel f.F. Mors, along with a close circle of family and friends living in Paris, regularly visited the Lourve to copy works of art. The practice of copying venerated paintings to align eye, hand and mind in intellectual and kinetic response has been part of academic training of artists for centuries. A painting about painting, Morse represents 38 European works he believed offered instructive examples for an American audience." What's intriguing is that during our visits, we noticed a group of students engaged in the same artistic practice.
Randolph Rogers_Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, modeled 1853-54, carved 1859
"Nydia is blind, enslaved flower-seller liberated by a noble man named Glaucus. During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Nydia risks her life to save Glaucus and his fiancee. Rogers portrays Nydia navigating the city amid the ecological upheaval of the eruption.The dynamism of her tunic, the broken Corinthian capital at her feet, and her hunched form convey her forward momentum against the high winds, ash, stone, and debris she must traverse."
Gian Lorenzo Bernini_Bozzetti
"Bernini began by sketching in clay, then developing his ideas through subsequent versions. These models were then transformed into large scale sculptures in marble or bronze, often by his workshop. Imprinted on the surface of the clay are the movements of Bernini's hands, a variety of tool marks, and even his fingerprints. Bernini created the bozzetti of standing angels holding the instruments of the Passion while designing the marble angels on the Sant 'Angelo bridge that crosses Rome's Tiber River."
Comments