What to Expect at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
July 31st, 2008 at 10:52pm Under Main Content
What was it like to excavate an ancient temple or burial chamber and watch a brilliantly painted statue of a 5,000-year-old Egyptian official emerge from the sands? Such a dream exists today not only among amateur archaeologists and ancient Egypt fans, but also among scholars. Last year, the museum returned a painting to Poland that had been plundered by the Nazis. ICA presents impressive rotating exhibits of 20th- and 21st-century art, including painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance art and imaginative shows - from baseball to the concept of emotion. The visionary museum captures contemporary culture through stimulating films, musical performances, poetry readings, lectures and educational programs, and provides a dynamic waterfront space for experience contemporary art.
The American collections include Paul Revere’s silver, New England furniture, and a selection of paintings from all eras of America’s history. Selections from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s collections are represented in ARTstor with over 13,000 images, along with a related collection of more than 22,000 photographs documenting the museum’s excavations at the Giza pyramids from 1905 to 1942. He’s familiar with the MFA’s collection, having sold paintings to the museum over the years. And he knew of the museum’s rich Monet collection of 36 paintings. Lori?s multi-dimensional paintings, and Judith Stone?s multimedia cityscapes.
This style, which draws on elements of classical and Renaissance architecture, calls for painting and sculpture to decorate a building’s interior. Thus in 1916 the Museum’s trustees hired Sargent to create murals for the Museum’s rotunda, the hub of the building. Shackelford said it is one of the four or five most important German and Austrian expressionist paintings in the museum’s collection. The MFA’s collection of approximately 350,000 objects was built from a core of paintings and sculpture from the Boston Athenaeum, historical portraits from the city of Boston, and donations by area universities. The early MFA connoisseurs were as enamored as any cultured Victorians with the great art of European civilizations.
Been around the globe since then and the masters paintings will rival any collection in the world such as the Louvre and Hermitage. Early America displays will blow your mind if your are into that period. The collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, and decorative arts spanning 300 years, from locations around the world.
Secondly, it has quite a few collection of Monet, one of my favorites. When I was a master’s degree student in Boston, they happened to have a special Exhibition on Monet in which I understand many more was brought in for the purpose. My kids were with me and thank goodness were very tolerant as I spent hours perusing the Egyptian art, the print collection, the impressionists. What a great place.
By Marc Michel Add comment