2 July 2014: Museum of Fine Arts Boston

I went to the MFA on July 2 to see the Magna Carta Exhibit (wasn't very busy - it was basically in a secure, undisclosed location).  And I posted running commentary on Twitter, at least until my battery died.  So now I'm sharing the fun.



12:30 PM Finally here! I should have been here an hour ago, but I hadn't driven down this way in a long time so I used the GPS. Big mistake!
 It kept trying to leave me in some random unpacked driveway in the hood. You know it's the hood because there's ODB Liquors.
 I did not even make that last part up. I would have taken a picture but the light turned green.
 *unpaved. Although since there were several piles of gravel, I guess you could also say it was unpacked.

Silver pieces by my ancestor, Jacob Hurd, part of the permanent collection.  I was already designing jewelry before I knew of him, but apparently silversmithing was actually the family business in Colonial times.  Cool, eh?  He also made some jewelry, but is better known for his hollowware and engraving.  While Paul Revere is more famous, much more of Jacob Hurd's work survives.  More than half of the surviving silver made in Boston during the era was done in Hurd's shop, where his sons Nathaniel and Benjamin also learned the trade.  A number of Nathaniel's pieces are also at the MFA; in addition to his hollowware and other three-dimensional objects, he was also skilled at pictorial engravings for printing.  As, alas, I can't find any Hurd silver for sale, nor could I likely afford any that should become available, I settled on a search for a limited edition 1939 book on their work.  A used/antique book store had a copy signed by the author, which set me back a bit, but given the rarity and the fact that copies of the 1972 reprint in equally good condition were nearly as expensive, it seemed like a good investment.

When I was a kid the Peabody Museum had paintings similar to Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley, except they were stabbing whales.  Also, shrunken heads. They had shrunken heads. My favorite part. Those were gone last time I went, what fun is that?  Maybe I'll go there again for this project, but when I searched their collection online, I still couldn't find any of the cool stuff they used to have.  Can you actually just throw out a shrunken head?  That doesn't seem right. 

I spent eight Fridays here in 4th grade as part of a special school project focuses on the Ancient Egyptian collection. Menkaure seemed so huge then. Now he's just kinda big.  He's also known as Mykerinos if you're a fan of Herodotus, or Mycerinus if you've read Matthew Arnold's poem.  He was possibly the grandson of Khufu, and was buried in the smallest of the three Great Pyramids at Giza.  His sarcophagus was lost along with the ship carrying it, the Beatrice, after departing from Malta in 1838; the wooden coffin that was inside appears however to be of later manufacture, and the bones inside have been carbon dated to the early centuries AD - some 2500-3000 years after Menkaure's lifetime.  Since grave robbery was common in Egypt - as much controversy as there is today over stolen antiquities and pieces taken out of various countries during the last couple centuries when they were colonized (or occupied, depending on one's perspective) by European powers, so those bits in museums are just what's left over after the tombs were often pillaged as soon as they were sealed - who knows where the wooden coffin and bones came from, or who they belonged to originally.

 Well, now we know why Paris chose Venus. She's the one with her boobs out.  (Pallas Athena, Venus and Juno, by Hans Von Aachen, German, 1593.  He seems to have used the same models in several paintings, frequently showing full boob, often in the same style dress with gravitationally impossible neckline.  Also apparently fond of pale guys in black robes with frilly white collars - himself if he didn't happen to have a handy emperor or duke laying about.)

In 1693, land went for £65 in silver and £20 in pork. So, it's not just recently that bacon is practically currency.  Kind of makes you wonder just how much pork you could buy with £20 back then, doesn't it?  Well, at least according to this website, that equals $14454.18 cash and $4447.44 worth of meat in today's dollars.  I don't think I've even bought that much bacon in my entire lifetime.

Flying Jesus goes for the original Hail Mary pass.  (It's crooked because I was crooked when I took it.  Sorry.)  The actual title is The Risen Christ by Simone Cantarini, but only because football hadn't been invented yet.

El Greco's St. Catherine: Martyrdom totes gets in the way of shopping at Contempo, you guys.

Seriously, the long, wan face, tilted head, and expression of mildly bemused discomfort... forget the wheel, this model's torture came in the form of standing still for hours when she clearly had better things to do, like getting a latte and talking about the hot guys at whatever the early 17th-century equivalent of Urban Outfitters was.  Oh, and she's fingering that sword so gingerly because when the "thunderbolt from heaven" destroyed the wheel, they beheaded her instead.  St. Catherine, I mean, not the model.  That I know of, anyway.

::sigh:: I'm already going to hell, may as well have fun on the way.

Seriously though - I don't get modern art (there's some really atrocious stuff, like stenciled dogs and seagulls crapping everywhere on a Russian-submarine-grey background that everybody says is groundbreaking and edgy, but it's so big because you know nobody's going to hang that in the living room anyway), but I could look at this ancient-->medieval-->Renaissance stuff forever.  I mean, even the 13th-14th century stuff where the proportions in portraits are all wrong and there's little to no interplay of light and shadow, they were clearly expressing something that they felt was glorious and mysterious as best as they knew how.  They weren't just slapping canned politicism on a canvas and waiting around for people to start talking about it.

Everyone in Ancient Rome had leprosy.

(Not meaning to eavesdrop but is it even ok for someone giving directions to a blind person to say "When you hit the end of the corridor..."?)

I have massive respect for the unknown sculptor who carved this. The chainmaille is flawless European 4-in-1.  Having thrown several chainmaille pieces that I was making across the room in frustration, I can say from experience it isn't easy, and I can't imagine carving it in stone is any easier.

  

Since I'll probably never see Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes, this Jan Massys will have to do.  That's right, boobs again.  You thought all this time that art museums were stuffy and boring, but there's actually boobs everywhere.

Lucas Cranach the Elder's Vampire Chick Licks Jesus's Hand While Girl In Red Dress Flirts With The Painter.  OK, the real title is The Lamentation, but clearly mine is better.

And Anthony Van Dyck's Man In Hat Plays World's Saddest Bagpipe.   ::sigh::  It's Portrait of François Langlois, but once again, I think my title does a better job of telling you what's going on.  The instrument is called a musette, basically a bagpipe for aristocrats who can't handle a proper bagpipe.

Last but not least, what's a blog without gratuitous food porn?  Dinner in the museum café/wine bar.  Fresh mozzarella: fine.  Pesto: fine.  Arugula: ok.  I draw the line at sticks.

That black stuff all over the focaccia?  I think it's charred rosemary.  Some girls would be able to eat this without even smearing their lipstick.  I ended up looking like I had ants crawling over me, most likely to get at the frangipane tart crumbs.  And next time I order a tart, somebody please remind me that I don't like frangipane.

Irreverent Cultural Tours: About This Blog

I went to the MFA last month to see the Magna Carta exhibit and take photos of some of my other favorite pieces in the collection.  I posted running commentary on Twitter, at least until my battery died.  Since a number of my friends said they enjoyed my slightly subversive take on what many consider to be a stuffy subject, I decided to make it a semi-regular thing, as time and budget allow.  This blog will be a place to collect these experiences and expand beyond a 140-character format.

Why?  Well, lots of places try to make things like art, science, and history fun and accessible in order to encourage kids to learn.  What about the adults, though?  I love the idea of "Paint Nights," where people can get together, have a few beers or glasses of wine, and paint a portrait of whatever the evening's subject may be.  The idea seems to be spreading, and that's great.  But once you've used the social aspect to hook people, where do they go to learn more?  There's literally thousands of years worth of art history waiting to be discovered, but not everybody is enticed by the idea of walking around and reading plaques on walls, and while those plaques will identify the subject and provenance of those paintings and sculptures, they don't say why you should care about them.  Ditto for all those landmarks and "living history" places that are popular places to take children while the adults just hope the kids will be worn out by the end of the day. 

My goal is to hopefully make these subjects fun and entertaining for adults.  Don't just look at a painting, read who the artist was and the approximate year they painted it, and walk on to the next one.  Look at the models' expressions.  What do you think they're really thinking while they pose for the artist's sketch?  It's not just the Mona Lisa - aka La Giaconda - who seems to be hiding a secret.  There could be anything from political commentary to the artist's lust in that religious painting.  Or the perspective is skewed so it looks like something totally other than what was intended is going on.  And history is so much more interesting when you discover real people and places instead of just names and dates in a book.  I hope to use my own slightly skewed perspective to encourage others to see things in a way that maybe they haven't before.

Please keep in mind that although I'm not above making wisecracks and personal asides about the subjects I'm presenting, I do have the utmost respect for them at the same time; it's not my intention to be mean-spirited.  It wouldn't be fun to joke about an El Greco or Cranach painting if they were just terrible artists (that's what MOBA is for, and I love them for what they do).  It's because they've done brilliant works that just happen to have a certain je ne sais quoi that I can find humor while still admiring them.  I hope that by sharing the things I see - both on exhibit and in my head - I'll convince some of my readers that you should see them for yourself, and see what you can take from those experiences.

I'm also always taking suggestions for new places to visit.  Right now due to the aforementioned time/budget thing I'm sticking to the Boston area and day trips from there, but I'm hoping that as we go further along, I'll be able to branch out and maybe do some getaways, too.  It's a very loose experiment, and I'm still working on a list of places to visit in the coming weeks/months.  I don't know where it's going to take us, but isn't that half the fun?