The Art of Boston - Culture, History, and the City - Essay Example

no. The Art of Boston: Culture, History, and the The history of art in the of Boston can only be traced through the state’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) that was established in 1870. The MFA has been operational until today. Archival photographs, selected artwork, documents, and architectural rendering and elements, all of which are included in the installation, characterize the museum. The MFA in Boston is among the largest museums in America. It has more than 450,000 art collections that makes it the most comprehensive collection in the United States. The museum receives more than a million visitors annually, making it the 55th most visited fine art museum globally (Macdonald 257). These statistics were as per the 2014 records. It is worth noting that the museum is an affiliate of the School of Museum of Fine Arts and it has a sister in Nagoya, Japan, the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Nonetheless, the Museum has a series of fine art collections taken mainly from the Art Gallery of Boston Athenaeum. The local artist Francis Davis Millet was instrumental in setting up the Art school that was affiliated to the museum. In his efforts, he appointed Emil Otto Grundmann who became the first director of the museum (Macdonald 283). With the contribution of different personalities, the MFA of Boston have managed to collect different and numerous art works depicting different times in history with different historical influential, historical personalities, and artists. The MFA holds comprehensive collections globally and has materials from varied cultures and schools. The museum has one of the largest and highly maintained online databases with over 346,000 items ready for access including digital images and documents. Additionally, it is worth noting that these collections are from different parts of the world including artifacts from Egypt including jewelry, sculptures, and sarcophagi (Macdonald 302). Collections from French post-impressionists and pre-impressionists’ works including collections from Manet, Paul Gauguin, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas, and Cezanne also form part of the museum’s collections. Additionally, it is worth noting that most of these collections include the 18th and 19th centuries’ art works from American artists including John Singleton Copley, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and Gilbert Stuart. Other artwork collections in the museum were collected from the Chinese artists including calligraphy, painting, and imperial Chinese arts works that include most treasured paintings that have been known in the Chinese history. Despite being outside Japan, the museum is known to have the largest Japanese artwork collections under one roof globally. Some of the Japanese collections in this museum include the Edward S. Morse’s collections that are quantified in terms of 5,000 pieces Japanese pottery (Macdonald 294). Finally, it is worth noting that museum contain some of donated collections including the Rothschild’s collections that are stated to be over 130 objects collected from Rothschild Australian family brank. Bettina Burr among other heirs contributed to these donations to the museum. One of the paintings that can be analyzed in the MFA is the Isaac Winslow and His Family portrait. Joseph Blackburn, a British born American, did the painting among other previous paints that portrayed increasingly wealthy Boston citizens. Picture 1: Isaac Winslow and His Family, 1755 Source: MFT Boston. Retrieved May 6, 2015 web< from http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/isaac-winslow-and-his-family-32859> Blackburn was probably trained in England and moved with most of his artwork materials including pale rococo palette colors to the United States, Boston. It is postulated that he moved to Boston in 1755. Other than colors, he introduced different artistic styles into the Boston fine art including portraiture, materials of paints, as well as poses and different compositions from England. Despite having been painted earlier, Isaac Winslow’s wealth was enormous for him to afford another stylish group portrait of the family members. Unlike the previous paints, Blackburn afforded the Winslow’s the latest London style that was pleasing and elegant (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). As it stands, the portrait was more of royalty than of just a wealthy citizen. Notably, the style and posture as well as the tires or the clothing of the entire family were classic and were not for any country family. However, the portrait failed to depict the nature of house; the standard it was, since most of it is dark. Additionally, the neighborhoods were also not much of a royalty but just a common rich fellow citizen. Moreover, other than showing the status of this family in the society, the portrait tries to isolate different character trait on individuals in the portrait. Winslow is in cross-legged position depicting his proud nature as opposed to the wife and other family members (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). Winslow’s children are portrayed as happy people. Notably, this is what the society had to offer them due to the financial status of the father. In other words, they sense no suffering and they lived a happy, healthy, and wealthy life. This was not the nature of Boston as it is in the contemporary States of Boston. During the time of painting the art, Boston was still undergoing civilization and life was not as easy as it is today. However, the kids showed much more than what the society offered. For instance, the elder sister was holding fruits that the younger one was trying to reach. The fruits especially their swan ponds may be alluding to the prosperity of the family (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). Moreover, the levels of prosperity was also clear in their dressing including choice of materials and color. These dressing codes are highly of the contemporary fashions than the fashion during the painting period. These clothes especially the quality of the materials and designs that included floating drapery were never characteristic of clothes and designs in Boston in the 1750s. Additionally, the postures including the additional items in the portrait like the Mrs. Winslow’s wife holding her apron was a mean of showing abundance. Therefore, it is worth noting that this painting had a lot of exaggeration that seems to be characteristic of painting in the 18th century. The above portrait also shows how the artist idealize the female beauty (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). This was not characteristic of Boston painting until the emergence of Blackburn with his fanciful settings as well as introduction of new costumes. Additionally, he exaggerated most of the assets owned by his artistic customer, for instance, he exaggerated Winslow sitter’s estates and possessions; therefore, it is worth concluding that this work emphasized mainly on the artifice as opposed to emphasis on realism. The At Dusk (Boston Common at Twilight) This paint is among the very many twilight images that are characteristic of the Boston nature paintings. Frederick Childe Hassam who lived between 1859 and 1935 introduced this type of paining in the Boston Fine art. Hassam was a prolific American painter who concentrated in impressionistic painting that was characterized by coastal and urban scenes. Among other artists including John Henry Twachtman and Mary Cassatt, Hassam became instrumental in the promulgation of the impressionism to American dealers, collectors, and museum (Magister 01). Hassam produced numerous paints and collections that constituted to nearly 3,000 collections composite of paintings, watercolors, oils, lithographs, and etchings. Hassam was born in 1859 in the suburbs of Boston (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). His father was a descendant of the New Englanders while Risa, his mother was a Maine native. His interest to air began in his early ages of life. He took his first art lesions in watercolors and drawing in Mather public school. Following series of events in his family’s life, he dropped out of school but his immense interest in artwork took him back to art works and in the 1879, he started creating his first oil paintings; however, his most preferred medium of painting his art works was watercolors (Magister 01). In 1882, he conducted a solo public exhibition that he conducted at Everett and Williams Gallery located in Boston. The exhibition was mainly of paintings made of watercolors. Having had little formal training in art, he was advised to go to Europe for art study. He did this in the 1883 summer and Garrett accompanied him. During their study, they travelled in numerous European nations master old art techniques and creating watercolors (Magister 01). Hassam did sixty-seven watercolors during his strip all of which led him to his 1884-second exhibition. On returning to Boston, Hassam concentrated on producing landscape artworks. Among his motivators and critics, Hassam work that was founded on the sound French school was noted to be … "the Boston taste for landscape painting” … was … “vital, positive, productive, and distinctive tendency among our artists today...the truth is poetry enough for these radicals of the new school (Magister 01). It is a healthy, manly muscular kind of art." Notably, with this kind of hard work and determination, by the mid 1880’s, he concentrated on cityscape paintings, for instance, in 1885, he did ‘the Boston Common at Twilight” that was his first within this collection (Magister 01). From the above, it is clear that Boston’s artist acquired their artistic knowledge from Europe. Jean-Léon Gérôme who asked him among other artists to “Look around … and paint what … what they… see” influenced the shift in his artwork (Magister 01). According to Gérôme, they should have forgotten “… the Beaux-Arts and the models and render the intense life which surrounds … them… to be… assured that the Brooklyn Bridge is worth the Coliseum of Rome and that modern America is as fine as the bric-a-brac of antiquity." Despites giving his urban work his best, one of the Boston critics passionately rejected Hassam’s urban subject choice and described them as "very pleasant, never regarded it as art (Magister 01)." Picture 2: At Dusk (Boston Common at Twilight); 1885–86 Source: MFT Boston. Retrieved May 6, 2015 web The picture 2 above is a late nineteenth century creation that captures a moment that many people would consider trivial. The timing of the paint is in the evening when people are expected to commute back home from either work or school. The evening atmospheric light depicts the time of the day through which the painting portrays. This is illustrated or revealed by the choice of the color used by Hassam (Museum Fine Art Boston 01). Additionally, other than focusing on evening traffic on the roads and the busy shops, Hassam concentrated on a woman and her two kids. Notably, he used specific techniques to illustrate the scene perfectly. Generally, this art work illustrates moments of the 19th century; the rush hours; however, both the background and foreground are painted with contrasting colors dark and light colors that reflects different values thereby calling for different attentions. In other words, the portrait presented the Boston City in unique lights particularly in the contrasting light and dark colors. However, application of heavier paints or impasto could have made the fading sunset and snow to appear very light and fresh. However, the effect of the color could have been chosen to mute the modern harshness of the city. Moreover, the little girl is portrayed as feeding desperate bird, this nature of event depicts that, in the 19th century, Boston City was not congested thereby allowed human and nature to interact perfectly without interference (Museum Fine Art Boston 01) as it’s the nature of Boston today. Additionally, the absence of many people and less traffic indicated that Boston was not as congested as it is today. Therefore, the early artwork by Hassam only intended to portray the relationship between nature and human beings in 19th century. Works Cited Macdonald, Stuart. The History and Philosophy of Art Education. Cambridge: The Lutterworth press, 2004. Print. Magister, Senex. Frederick Childe Hassam, Impressionist Painter, 1859 – 1935. Retrieved May 5, 2015, web Museum Fine Art Boston. Retrieved May 5, 2015 web http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/isaac-winslow-and-his-family-32859 Read More