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I went with my parents to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum yesterday afternoon.
We meandered around, and as always I wished I could have some kind of wonderful picnic in the atrium, a lovely place with mosaics, statues, greenery, orchids, a bit of water falling, with the skylight four stories above, almost ignorable, except that the weather was so different from outside. We were there particularly for the visiting exhibit, "Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti", which was interesting, with representations of Bindo through his life, and some other Raphael and Cellini works. I liked the portraits of Bindo, both when young and older, but the bust was really impressive, showing the texture of his headgear beautifully. Also interesting were the books, one with sketches of ancient sculptures on square pillar bases. There was a name for these, but I've forgotten that. There was also a huge metal bust of a ruler (named Cosimo, I think) nearby, and all I could think about when I looked at it was that he had olives for eyes, and it was odd he had nipple clamps on his breastplate.
We walked through the rest of the museum rather leisurely. The Rembrandts were away on loan to the MFA until next weekend, a couple of things were down for renovation purposes, and there were the holes left from that theft some years back. Even so, I can't imagine living in such a place, not really. The scale of the rooms is just so large (one of the mid-sized ones is more than half my apartment), a lot of the artwork huge and hung high up on the walls. The things are beautiful, or interesting, or both, but far from what I'd choose for home. Heck, if I lived there, there would be far too many corners for papers to multiply in. And the lighting would definitely need upgrading. Not to mention a wireless network :-) Still, I love how things are jostling together in a way that is less informative, perhaps, but a little less sterile than a lot of museum rooms.
We meandered around, and as always I wished I could have some kind of wonderful picnic in the atrium, a lovely place with mosaics, statues, greenery, orchids, a bit of water falling, with the skylight four stories above, almost ignorable, except that the weather was so different from outside. We were there particularly for the visiting exhibit, "Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti", which was interesting, with representations of Bindo through his life, and some other Raphael and Cellini works. I liked the portraits of Bindo, both when young and older, but the bust was really impressive, showing the texture of his headgear beautifully. Also interesting were the books, one with sketches of ancient sculptures on square pillar bases. There was a name for these, but I've forgotten that. There was also a huge metal bust of a ruler (named Cosimo, I think) nearby, and all I could think about when I looked at it was that he had olives for eyes, and it was odd he had nipple clamps on his breastplate.
We walked through the rest of the museum rather leisurely. The Rembrandts were away on loan to the MFA until next weekend, a couple of things were down for renovation purposes, and there were the holes left from that theft some years back. Even so, I can't imagine living in such a place, not really. The scale of the rooms is just so large (one of the mid-sized ones is more than half my apartment), a lot of the artwork huge and hung high up on the walls. The things are beautiful, or interesting, or both, but far from what I'd choose for home. Heck, if I lived there, there would be far too many corners for papers to multiply in. And the lighting would definitely need upgrading. Not to mention a wireless network :-) Still, I love how things are jostling together in a way that is less informative, perhaps, but a little less sterile than a lot of museum rooms.