The Art of the Americas - Assignment Example

The Art of the Americas: The American Aesthetic Interpreted for the Display of Works of Art The new wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is designed in order to reflect the aesthetics of space through historical interior design frameworks from within the Americas. The wing promotes the importance of both the decorative arts and fine arts providing a discourse on the evaluative purpose of both in regard to the historic culture of creativity that expressed the nature of human existence within the American experience. A wide variety of historical knowledge is revealed within this spacious wing of the museum, creating a dialogue with attendees about the nature of how art reflects a culture. The use of space and the enormity of the new wing in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston titled ‘The Art of the Americas’ provides an experience for those in attendance which elaborately and lavishly explores the history within the Americas. More than 5000 works of art from Northern, Central, and South America fill the wing, creating a connectivity between the regions as well as providing context for more than three millennia of human existence through artistic references for the regions. The earliest works are from the Olmec era that was in existence around 1000 BCE. The art works span the existence of time from that era until they reach to the “first three quarters of the twentieth century” (Davis 9). Most of the body of works, however, are from the Anglo-American colonies of the United States which encompass work produced after the Revolution until the late nineteenth century (Davis 9). This exemplifies the aesthetics most often considered when discussing United States historical artwork, thus providing a framework from which the other regional and cultural art stems. Rich wallpaper and American heritage colors cover the backgrounds on which many of the works hang. The color story that is visualized as an attendee walks the great halls is just as vital and informative as the objects themselves. Writer Laura Collins-Hughes compares the view of a Tiffany window to the revolutionary philosophical conflicts, suggesting that in seeing the stained glass window, the viewer might “make the connection between love of imported luxury items and the Colonists’ ire over taxation”. The window, reflecting yellow and green birds as they gather around a fishbowl, brings to mind that the Carolina parakeet is extinct, creating a multi-layered complexity of historical and cultural value merely in just one of the pieces on exhibit (Collins-Hughes) The history of these pieces and the culture implications may not be readily available to the average viewer, but as Laura Collins-Hughes was given a tour of the exhibit by Elliot Bostwick Davis, chair of the department overseeing the exhibit, a complexity of historical relevance was revealed to her. Something that Davis shared with Collins-Hughes was that American art often seen as “lower in the hierarchy” of importance in comparison to European art. Therefore, her passion for the works has allowed her to help the department to elevate the awareness of the important work that was done throughout the Americas. In addition, because of the academic attitudes about American art, the amount of money and the enormity of the exhibit creates an unusual effort. The development of the wing required eighteen months of work which included professionals from many areas of expertise. Conservators and curators of collections that included prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, fashion arts, and musical instruments all participated in creating a collection that represented a texturally depth of cultural study about the many cultures that are represented. The architect firm of Lord Norman Foster and Partners designed cases for the displays along with Alessandro Goppion and Museo Technico of Milan and designers employed by the museum provided spaces in which the works could tell a story rather than just sit on display. The larger architectural overhaul was on the exterior of the building where Malcolm Rogers, director of the museum asked the London based architecture firm of Lord Norman Foster and Partners to create an exterior that was transparent, overcoming the impression of a museum as having the feel of a vault, imposing and daunting in its appeal. The wing was redesigned to have a glass and granite exterior, creating a space of 50,000 feet of area in which to house the display. The space created a place of “drama and showmanship”, states Rogers, who also said that the architectural firm created a “stage set for the theatrical presentation of our art” (Dobyzynski 34). Through a well presented architectural redesign of the building, the interior could then be formed into the desired layout for the best presentation to the public. The exhibit includes an interactive space in which information on how artwork is selected and presented through art objects, interactive touch screens, interpretive materials, and videos (Davis 10). This section of the exhibit allows for deeper meaning to be cast upon the items within the spaces, the instructional aspect of the nature of this space intending to provide attendees with another dimension to their experience. Looking at the contents of the museum is overwhelming in the sense of the history of the variety of nations that are rarely so clearly defined as they springs to life within the imagination. While the body of education more often explores the European works, not shifting to the American aesthetics until the early twentieth century, the evidence of a much longer history provides a greater appreciation for the unexplored depths of artistic experiences across the world. While the classroom setting often focuses on familiar paths of artistic exploration, the interactive nature of the informative spaces in the museum brings forward the fallacy of the idea that the art world is defined by only one cultural path of relevance for art history. The wing of the museum was the first dictating factor on how the exhibit could be organized. The curators had a static element through the already existing wing, rather than being given architectural freedom that would exist if the wing was built for the exhibit. Still, the wing provided the teams of designers and curators with four floors of space from which to design their new exhibit, the space allowing for an in-depth exploration of the art that was available to the curators. Davis discusses how the exhibit had to help the museum to maintain a certain integrity of continuity for the rest of the exhibits as well as for the transitions between the existing exhibits within the museum. In approaching the many ways in which the installation of the exhibit could have occurred, the teams of designers studied the work of many others. Davis mentions Alfred H. Barr, the designer of the Museum of Modern Art as one of the designers that she admired, reminiscing that within his design she had discovered the work by Paul Klee from 1987 titled Highways and Byways (1929) from which she took some of her inspiration for a theme for the exhibit. Within this concept, she helped to create a series of a few larger galleries from which smaller galleries could radiate into other avenues of exploration. The major galleries hold the stronger works, such as that of John Singer Sargent and art of the cultures of Ancient and Native Americas. Through avenues of exploration, period rooms can be discovered that hold collections that provide a well rounded glimpse of different aspects of artistic exploration through divisions of time and culture. The gallery is impressive and a bit intimidated to the average attendee, thus creating a dilemma on how to approach viewing the gallery. Because of the central larger gallery design, an attendee can choose to take a shorter route through the exhibit and see fewer pieces for a shorter story, or choose to go throughout all of the rooms in order to gain a greater, more complex version of the story being told. The large size of the exhibit allows for some temporary exhibit spaces to be mixed in with the permanent displays, thus creating some flexibility in the nature of the exhibit (Dobyzynski 36). The type of art exhibited opens up academic discussion about the importance of the art of the Americas. An example of these artists can be found in John Singleton Copley. Copley was born in 1738 in Boston, providing a local artist from an important time in history for the exhibit. His work is considered some of the first important works done in America. He toured throughout Europe and eventually began to live in London, thus taking his art from the homeland of his birth (Flexner 347). One of the more passionate pieces that he is known for is Watson and the Shark (1778) which currently hangs in the Norma and Alfred Saunders Gallery, is expressive in how it portrays the event of the capture of a shark. The painting has the aesthetics of the Baroque period, the immediacy of the climax of the event evident in the tension of the figures in the work. There is blood in the water, revealing a part of the story while the desperation of the man who is unclothed provides a framework for the vulnerability of mankind against the power of nature. Copley is most known for his portraiture. The portrait, Thomas Lane and his Sister Harriot (1792), which hangs in the same gallery as Watson and the Shark (1778), reveals the rich use of color and light in representing the realism of a portrait of a man and his sister. The interesting feature of the painting is that the children look like miniature adults, rather than children, the faces not having the cherub cheeks and spatial relationship of the child’s face seen in reality. However, the details are richly and elaborately discovered within the piece with distinct cultural cues providing for its history. Both The Ascension (1775) and Saul Approved by Samuel (1778) return to the ensemble form as groups of figures tell the story of two biblical moments. The Ascension (1775) represents his first effort at creating Christian based themes in his work with Saul Approved by Samuel (1778) being considered his finest work. Both works carry highly emotional content that can be described with detail by the viewer. Each of the apostles in The Ascension (1775) has an expression on their face, individuated in such a way as a different description of each can be done by the viewer. The paintings continue the use of rich color and high contrasts of dark and light, the realism created through a perspective that is not necessarily connected to the point of view of the artist. The works seen by Copley provide a rich development of an understanding of how these works reflect the time period in which they were created. Comparing these works to later and earlier works allows for the viewer to create a sense of the movement of history, the developments of culture through space and time as it exists within a moment. The way in which the museum has designed the massive exhibit creates moments of possible connectivity that might not otherwise be available to the viewer. Through carefully curate designs, the exhibit has redefined the way in which the American art experience can be appreciated. With the detailed attention to creating an experience within the galleries, the viewer has an opportunity to form new opinions about the artistic heritage in the various regions of the Americas. Through the available educational and informative displays and interactive media, the attendee can create a sense of history through aspects that had not yet occurred to them. With the volume of historical data available through the vast number of artworks, the view cannot help to be better educated upon leaving the exhibit. Works Cited Collins-Hughes, Laura. A Heritage to Share. Boston.com. 7 November 2010. Web. 10 April 2010. Davis, Eliot Bostwick. The Art of the Americas Wing. American Art. 24.2 (Summer 2010): 9-11. Print. Dobyzynski, Judith H. The Art of the Americas Wing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Apollo: The International Magazine of Collectors. (December 2010). pp. 34-36. Print. Flexner, James T. Americas Old Masters: Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale and Gilbert Stuart. New York: Dover, 1994. Print. Read More