Over winter break I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. This gallery was full incredible history and beautiful art, leaving me with many take aways.1. Art on furniture is a weird but amazing way to story tell. In the museum a lot of the art was delicately painted on the furniture especially on the arms and backs of chairs. It made wonder why - what was the purpose of putting art on furniture - what is the story and message and idea the painter wanted the viewer to get. I noticed that the art on the chairs depicted war and suffrage but if someone were to sit down- the art would be covered and hidden. Maybe the artist wanted us to remember that we should acknowledge history but not let it define us.
2. The history behind the museum is very interesting. In 1990 a pair of thieves stole 13 pieces of art work that costed a total of $500 million. This made me think - it made me wonder how we put a price on art work and how we judge it's value. I have seen such incredible art pieces come out of this art room but it confuses me to think about how much the pieces we create could potentially be worth.
3. In the museum there were many sculptures without heads - and I know that this isn't a particularly rare finding to see at art museums but it made me question why an artist would choose not to include some's head when they have the rest of the body. I pondered all the philosophical reasonings and complex meanings but ultimately came to this conclusion - heads are hard to sculpt. Maybe the artists just didn't feel like putting time into sculpting a head.
4. This is going to sound weird but I realized architecture represents power. When you walk into the gardens of this museum you are surrounded by tall walls with bricks and intricate glass windows and its intimidating. I don't think this was the museum's intention to scare me (not really scare but that idea) still it just made me realize how important architecture can be in conveying an over all theme for an entire museum.
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