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Well my lovelies, it is springtime and the art museums are multiplying like rabbits!

And the rabbits are multiplying like art museums! 😀

Well actually Harvard has always had multiple art museums ‘cause they’re rich and if you’re that wealthy one art museum just ain’t enough! 😃

Originally the three museums, the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Arthur M. Sackler museums were separate collections housed in separate locations. The Fogg concentrated on western art, the Busch-Reisinger on central Europe specializing in German speaking countries, and the Sackler on Asian, Middle Eastern, and Islamic art.

Then in 2014 the original Fogg Museum building was expanded into a much larger facility that now houses all three museums, designed by Renzo Piano.

I took the commuter rail train into Boston that Sunday, and it being the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day, it was packed with a festive and rowdy crowd of people going in the to see the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston (colloquially known as “Southie”) They were all “wearing o’ the green” and bedecked in Celtic tee shirts, elaborate tiaras (for the women), and the like. Yeah people were in good spirits and although loud it wasn’t that big of a deal, particularly since I listen to music via headphones on the train anyway. 🙂

I got off at the Porter Square stop in Cambridge and then took the Red Line subway to Harvard Square. Already spring was in the air and I had a nice walk through the Harvard Yard on the way to the museums. I had been to the new location before but even I was surprised that the admission is actually free nowadays!

You do still have to register at the front desk but then you enter the beautiful Calderwood Courtyard dominated by a large mobile sculpture called Triangle Constellation by Mexican artist Carlos Amorales.

My first visit in this emporium of art and culture was Impressionism and the Late Nineteenth Century rooms in which I saw a lot of nice paintings.

A nice restrained painting with subtle color shifts, one in a “nocturne” series that Whistler did. Of course the painter is most known to the general public from his Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 (1871), more commonly known as Whistler’s Mother, a wonderful example in which high art becomes “low” art so to speak, with the sublime transforming into a cliche in pop culture.

That painting is actually housed in the Musee d’Orsay on the Left Bank of the Seine river, Paris, France. Someday I hope to visit that museum! When of course I have cobbled together a suitable Toulouse Lautrec outfit/costume! 😁

Also I am reminded of the fact that Whistler was a bit of an international dandy and friends with the playwright Oscar Wilde and also possessed a famous wit. According to Wikipedia:

Whistler was well known for his biting wit, especially in exchanges with his friend and rival Oscar Wilde. Both were figures in the Café society of Paris, and they were often the “talk of the town”. They frequently appeared as caricatures in Punch, to their mutual amusement. On one occasion, young Oscar Wilde attended one of Whistler’s dinners, and hearing his host make some brilliant remark, apparently said, “I wish I’d said that”, to which Whistler riposted, “You will, Oscar, you will!” In fact, Wilde did repeat in public many witticisms created by Whistler.

This in turn reminded me of the hilarious Monty Python “Oscar Wilde” sketch:

CAPTION: LONDON 1895

CAPTION:
THE RESIDENCE OF
MR. OSCAR WILDE

(Mix through to Wilde’s drawing room. A crowd of suitably dressed folk are engaged in typically brilliant conversation, laughing affectedly and drinking champagne.)

Prince: (Terry Jones) My congratulations, Wilde. Your latest play is a great success. The whole of London’s talking about you. 

Oscar: (Graham Chapman) Your highness, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. 

(There follows fifteen seconds of restrained and sycophantic laughter.)

Prince: Very witty Wilde. Very very witty. 

Whistler: (John Cleese) There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty. 

(Fifteen more seconds of the same.)

Oscar: I wish I had said that Whistler. 

Whistler: You will, Oscar, you will. (more laughter)

Oscar: Your Highness, have you met James McNeill Whistler? 

Prince: Yes, we’ve played squash together.

Oscar: There is only one thing worse than playing squash together, and that is playing it by yourself. (silence) I wish I hadn’t said that. 

Whistler: But you did, Oscar, you did. (a little laughter)

Prince: Well, you must forgive me Wilde, but I must get back up the Palace. 

Oscar: Your Majesty, you’re like a big jam doughnut with cream on the top. 

Prince: I beg your pardon? 

Oscar: Um… It was one of Whistler’s. 

Whistler: I didn’t say that. 

Oscar: You did James, you did. 

Prince: Well Mr. Whistler? (The Prince of Wales stares expectantly at Whistler.)

Whistler: I meant, Your Majesty, that uh, like a doughnut your arrival gives us pleasure and your departure merely makes us hungry for more. (laughter) Right, Your Majesty is like a stream of bat’s piss. 

Prince: What? 

Whistler: It was one of Wilde’s. 

Oscar: It sodding was not! It was Shaw! 

Shaw: (Michael Palin) I… I merely meant, Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark. 

Prince: (accepting the compliment) Oh. 

Whistler: Right. (to Prince) Your Majesty is like a dose of clap. 

Prince: (accepting the compliment) Oh. 

Whistler: Right. (to Prince) Your Majesty is like a dose of clap. 

Prince: What?!?

Whistler: Before you arrive is pleasure, but after is a pain in the dong. 

Prince: I beg your pardon? 

Whistler: It was one of Shaw’s. 

Oscar: Well Mr. Shaw?

Shaw: Um … what I meant, Your Majesty, what I meant …

Prince: I’m waiting.

Shaw: What I meant was…

(Shaw blows a raspberry)

(The Prince shakes Wilde’s hand. Laughter all round.)

And they do have paintings from one of my favorite painters, one of the founders of Impressionism, Claude Monet.

Monet had visited London three times and he painted this view of the Thames from his room at the Savoy hotel.

Actually as I writing this part of the blog, I am listening to the beautiful strains of music from Claude Debussy.

Simply beautiful!

I love the realistic play of light in the Summer Scene painting by Jean Frederic Bazille; it is indeed a view into a past summer.

American artist Mary Cassat moved to Paris and studied under the impressionist salon there. I love the detail in this painting, it is a fantastic study in realism.

According to the museum, the painting The Miracle of the Holy Fire, depicts William Holman Hunt’s satirical view of the Eastern Orthodox holy fire ritual at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. He thought it brought Christianity into disrepute, but personally I like it ’cause it has a lot of bright colors and a lot of activity! 😀

Next is a particularly striking painting, The Apparition, by Gustavo Moreau showing Herod’s daughter Salome conjuring up the head of John the Baptist. I love the bizzare mystical aura of the scene and also I love a sumptuous half-naked babe! 😊

More wonderfulness from Mr. Moreau! The stunning painting Jacob and the Angel from a passage from the Old Testament Book of Genesis in which Jacob wrestles with an angel from God.

According to the museum:

This nocturnal scene derives from the Book of Genesis, in which Jacob, on his journey to Canaan, wrestles with an angel. Condemning Delacroix’s famous 1861 painting of the biblical passage, Moreau wrote that his illustration of the scene more accurately conveyed the futility of Jacob’s battle, as he fights an invisible and infinitely more powerful foe.

Moreau’s monumental canvases have been interpreted as allegories of contemporary politics, and the struggle between human and moral strength in this painting could allude to Moreau’s strident reaction to the brutal conflicts of 1870–71. These included the Franco-Prussian War, in which he fought as a soldier. When this painting was presented at the Exposition universelle of 1878, it functioned on an additional allegorical level. It was part of a trio of works — including The Infant Moses, in the adjacent gallery, and David — that symbolized the three ages of man.

Ah, life in a Turkish harem! Depicted in Odalisque with Slave by Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres is the sensual delights of the court of the Sultan, with the “odalisque” or concubine reclining while being serenaded by a musician with a lute while a eunuch looks on in the background. And this is just a garden variety eunuch, not a high falutin one like Lord Varys from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

I’m liking this dude Ingres! In his The Golden Age, he depicts a garden of earthly delights; a true Bacchanalian romp in a misty and mythical glade.

According to the gallery text:

Depicting the Golden Age, it refers to the mythical past described by ancient poets as the utopian existence humans first enjoyed after being created by the gods. Ingres outlined the iconography of his composition in a letter: “A heap of beautiful sloths! . . . The men of this generation knew nothing of old age. They lived for a long time and [were] always beautiful. . . . All this in a very varied nature, à la Raphael.” Ingres further invoked Raphael through some of the figures’ poses, in the arched shape of his picture, and by painting the mural on plaster, thereby inviting the comparison between his own work and Raphael’s famous frescoed murals in the papal apartments of the Vatican.

More brilliance from Mr. Ingres! In Studies for the Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian for a huge mural for the Cathedral of Autun he sketched out various figures for the upcoming work. Symphorian was a young nobleman in Gaul who was beaten to death for refusing to worship the Roman gods.

This next painting depicts everything a man just arriving in the “Orient” needs for his morning shaving routine, ornate bowls for the shaving soap and a nice sharp scimitar for that extra sharp shave!

I love me a nice mountain scape! I particularly like the sun’s crepuscular rays lighting up an alpine meadow.

Ornate table settings indeed!

This is what I need for an alarm clock!

Canaletto was the master of a hyper realistic style, here evident in his wonderful painting of Venice’s Piazza San Marco. And luckily it isn’t marred by a goofy gondala being driven by Roger Moore’s James Bond!

The museum’s building is a work of art in itself.

Visiting the third floor, I saw various Greek and Roman sculptures in the Classical Sculpture Room.

Hermes was the herald of the gods. Here he gazes at us from Antiquity. (Actually, most of the white statues from ancient Greece and Rome were originally painted in the variety of bright colors, which have been worn away by time.)

Likewise, in the Funerary Relief of a Man and Child, a man gazes out at us from the year 150 AD from the Roman province of Palmyra (Syria).

According to the gallery text:

The cloaked man on this tomb relief is accompanied by an Aramaic inscription that reads: Malē, son of

Maliku, son of Bagad. Alas! The man’s son, standing behind him on a pedestal, is also identified as

Maliku. The clothing of the two figures is culturally mixed: Malē has a hairstyle popular in the time of

Hadrian, and his tunic and cloak are Greco-Roman in style, while Maliku is dressed in a shorter tunic and

what may be Parthian trousers. As with other Palmyrene funerary reliefs, Malē’s portrait is notable for its frontality, which encourages the viewer to engage directly with the image of the deceased.

And a similar Funerary Relief of a Woman and Two Children.

Gallery text:

Ba’altega, Daughter of Hairan. Alas!

Ba’altega gazes at us. Decked out in fine jewelry and reaching modestly toward her veil, she is the very image of a wealthy Palmyrene mother. This portrait likely marked Ba’altega’s burial in a family tomb when it was made in the second century CE.

Imagine stepping into Ba’altega’s family tomb at Palmyra. A tendril of scented smoke floats up from incense you lit on a small altar. The light from your oil lamp flickers on the faces of the ancestors around you. You spot Ba’altega and step closer, ready to pour a libation and leave her your lamp.

In Palmyra, she would have been surrounded by similar portraits marking burials of her family members, all identified by name. Here in Cambridge, she is accompanied only by her sons, Šim’on, shown to the left, and Hairan, shown to the right.

And what trip back to ancient Rome would be complete without some actual Emperors. (music in background: “Entrance of the Charioteers”, Ben-Hur soundtrack, Miklos Rozsa) First off, Lucius Verus, who co-ruled with his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius, from 161 to 169 AD. This dude had a great head of hair!

And the famous Roman Emperor Trajan ruled the empire from 98 to 117 AD during its greatest expanse. Here he is shown in military garb after the conquest of Dacia (modern Romania).

In the uppermost floor are the conservation labs where they restore the priceless objects in the museums.

I cut my visit to the museum short because it was turning out to be a nice day and I wanted to get out into the balmy spring sunshine! Basically this is the norm for me anyhow since during the summer months I just do outside activities anyway so I like to go to the museums in the winter, it’s basically my “museum season.” 😀

It was a warm and breezy day in the old Harvard Yard and it was givin’ me some nice The Paper Chase vibes, if only a 70s Lindsay Wagner was traipsing through the “quad” the day would have been complete! 🤪

I love springtime in the city!

In the distance I could hear some groovin’ tunes and finally found the source, some young musicians in the band Zoza playing outside of The Harvard Coop. Man these guys were good. They were playing a free form jazz odyssey and it was great. A lot of the so-called street performers and subway musicians in Boston and Cambridge frankly are crap and I agree with QI host Sandi Toksvig that a lot of time you feel like paying them to stop playing! So this was very refreshing to see some natural talent.

Here is a video clip of these dudes jammin”! 🙂

Enjoy! 😎

I ate lunch at one of my favorite Harvard Square eateries, the venerable Charlie’s Kitchen, founded in 1951, which serves diner type food, which is always a big hit with students, workers, and tourists to the area.

If you order the famous “Double Cheeseburger Special”, you get two two open face cheeseburgers, which I eat in that manner but I suppose a lot of people put ’em together. No matter what, it’s very tasty. 😊

I also had to visit a shopping icon in the square known as “The Garage”, which actually is a converted parking garage. It has always been another favorite place of mine since it has a Newbury Comics store there. And in the past they had a very good pizza place called “Crazy Dough’s”, but sadly that is long gone. A real estate firm called Trinity Property Management has bought the property and is planning to totally renovate it to make it a more efficient space, which although I was initially alarmed by this development I actually do agree with them, it is inefficient because of the wide car sized walking ramps in the place.

The once busy food court was kind of sparse.

On the first floor they also had a Japanese style arcade called DXArcade; very colorful! 😎

I was glad to find that Newbury Comics is still there which made me happy for nostalgia reasons, but it has definitely changed!

They have a lot of trendy novelty collectible items like Funko Pops. Lots and lots of Funko Pops! Trust me, I’m so old I didn’t really know what Funko Pops were but basically they are collective figurines like Beanie Babies.

Originally, as to the title of the franchise, the store was founded by three MIT students in 1978 on Newbury St. in Boston and sold comics and records. Over the years that had evolved and they eventually sold CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, movie posters, tee shirts, “fringe” books, etc.

Nowadays the owners have expanded this to include a variety of pop culture items like Manga, media tie-ins, and the like.

I almost bought this tee-shirt! 🤩

I used to buy CDs and used DVDs and Blu-rays, so was amazed that they only had a small CD section, no DVDs or Blu-ray discs, and lots and lots of vinyl records.

Smashing Pumpkins, Lou Reed…

New and old…

But, people were buying vinyl records! It’s one of those weird retro things where although so much content is being streamed nowadays the people that are actually buying physical media have dictated the marketplace.

It’s because of the fact that the guys who own Newbury Comics have totally adapted to the changing marketplace that they are still going strong when Tower Records, Strawberries, HMV (in the U.S.), etc. have all closed their stores.

Yeah, it was a great day in which I did lots of fun stuff!