Sun 6 May 2007
Flying from Boston is always a pleasure; the airport is only minutes from the city centre and it’s never too busy (in fact, today is the longest line I’ve seen for airport security and it only takes 30 minutes to negotiate).
The flight is short – two hours shorter than the flight out – but has some fairly strong turbulence so it’s not much fun. No cards this time!
We arrive at the ungodly hour of 5.30am and quickly say our goodbyes….then it’s all over.
Sat 5 May 2007
Last time I was here there was a foot of snow on the ground; today the cherry blossom is in full swing.
When I walk through the park, the tour is over – time for the airport.
Sat 5 May 2007
On the long drive up to Boston I see in the Times that an Edward Hopper exhibition – including “Nighthawks” – starts in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts this weekend.
Could this be a wonderful stroke of luck? Super mega triple jackpot? Somehow, with all the time I’ve spent in Boston and Cambridge, I’ve only ever visited one museum – the Science Museum – and that was a flying visit. Many more await…sadly, it’s not to be as it starts tomorrow, Sunday, by which time I’ll be back in Dublin. So, once more, I give the Museum of Fine Arts a miss, primarily because I only have one morning in Boston and the MFA takes about a week. Some day I will do it.
Well, the guidebook heartily recommends the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum. A few minutes fiddling with the T ticket machine later (the “T” coins have been replaced with a boring and confusing ticket) I take the green E train to the museum, which is almost next door to the MFA.
This museum was Ms. Steward Gardner’s home for twenty years before her death; a somewhat rich woman, she spent years travelling the world during which time she had filled two town houses on Beacon Street to bursting point. After her husband’s death she embarked on building a fine house to, well, house her collection.
It would not be a typical museum, but a “public house” where ancient Chinese artifacts and Monets were displayed side-by-side, music recitals a regular occurrence and artists and writers encouraged. The house’s most famous feature is its courtyard, an enclosed inner atrium bathed in natural light and featuring a rotating selection from the collection.
The collection itself has a number of interesting conditions attached; her will specifies that:
And if any of these things ever happened then the entire collection was to be sold and the proceeds given to Harvard University.
The tour guide tells us of an old joke whereby Harvard sends over someone once a week to see if this has happened (perhaps this isn’t so much of an exaggeration; in 1990 thieves broke into the museum and stole over $300 million worth of Monets and other paintings in possibly the most famous unsolved art robbery in history – the blank spaces remain to this day and provide some clue as the worth of the remainder).
The museum proves fascinating; firstly, the inner courtyard is as spectacular as you might imagine. Second, her vision of a house as museum works. You can spend hours exploring the rooms and reading or listening to the history of each object. I decided to forgo the latter, just spending a couple of hours wandering about admiring the fine rooms…no photographs, unfortunately…
