Masterpieces of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has many Masterpieces. Below are some of the highlights:

• ” Mrs Fiske Warren and Her Daughter Rachel” by John Singer Sargent“
  • Mrs Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel” is an oil on canvas portrait painting completed in 1903 by the American portrait artist John Singer Sargent. Gretchen Osgood Warren came from a prominent Boston family and was an accomplished poet as well as being an actress and singer. She posed with her eldest daughter Rachel at Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Mansion (now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), where Sargent had set up a temporary studio.
• “Dance at Bougival” by Auguste Renoir“
  • Dance at Bougival” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir made in 1883, depicts two of Renoir’s friends dancing at one of the open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, on the Seine outside Paris. Renoir used intense colour and lush brushwork to heighten the sense of pleasure conveyed by the whirling couple who dominate the painting. The woman’s face, framed by her red bonnet and is the focus of attention. The woman’s body is arched to the dance as she turns her head and looks away delighted with the pleasure she inspires in her dance partner and herself. Her dress swirls to the rhythms of the dance.
• Relief of a Winged Genius
  • This slab of sculptured relief on gypsum depicts a winged genius (or antediluvian sage) holding a mace. It comes from the Northwest Palace of King Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud. Nimrud was an ancient Assyrian city located 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Across the centre, the panel is inscribed with the “Standard Inscription” of King Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned between 883–859 BCE as king of Assyria,
• “The Fog Warning” by Winslow Homer
  • “The Fog Warning” by Winslow Homer depicts a lone fisherman in a dory who has caught several halibut but now sees fog approaching, threatening to cut him off as he rows back to his ship. He looks over his shoulder as he faces his most laborious task of the day, the return to the main ship. The choppy seas and the high waves show that the journey home will demand all his physical efforts. The scene is psychologically disturbing as the risk of being lost as a result of a sudden fog is very real.
• “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit” by John Singer Sargent
  • “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit” by John Singer Sargent depicts four young girls, the daughters of Edward Darley Boit, in their family’s Paris apartment. Dressed in white pinafores, the most youthful, four-year-old Julia, sits on the floor, eight-year-old Mary Louisa stands at left, and the two oldest, Jane, aged twelve, and Florence, fourteen, stand in the background, partially obscured by shadow.
• “Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair” by Paul Cézanne
  • “Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair” by Paul Cézanne is a portrait of the artist’s wife. Cézanne was a methodical and painstaking worker who required a model to pose with great patience for extended periods. This early portrait of Madame Cézanne shows her dominating a canvas built up with many small blocks of subtly varied coloured paint strokes. The subject, Marie-Hortense Fiquet Cézanne (1850 – 1922) was a former artist’s model, who met Cézanne about 1869; they had a son and later married. Paul Cézanne painted 27 portraits, mostly in oil of her and she became his most-painted model.

26 August 2023, 16:11 | Views: 1522