Polish lone wolf in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: tracing the nineteenth-century transatlantic art trade

Gods, Goddesses, and Mortals for the 21st Century: The Reinstallation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art

Argentina's National Museum of History and the National Museum of Fine Arts were created almost at the same time in Buenos Aires, towards the end of the nineteenth century. Many of the artefacts collected in both museums are of the same kind: oil paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculptures, depicting battles, portraits, landscapes, and costumbrista scenes. However, the artefacts in each institution were understood differently: those in the Museum of Fine Arts were considered as ‘art’, while those in the other museum were seen as historical documents. This differentiation between the material of art history and that of history deserves critical examination. The creation of each museum may explain this distinction, as well as offering a point of departure for further reflections about the way in which those artefacts have been exhibited, studied, and preserved.

Smartphone users have a new habit of taking selfies then posting to Instagram or Facebook which will then be liked and commented on by their friends. This selfie culture influences the visitors of fine arts exhibitions and museums driving the urge to take a selfie in front of the work on display. Taking a selfie in front of a work of art seems to show the self-expression and self-identity of the performer. Selfie photos have similarities with self-portrait paintings by famous painters from the Reneisance era to the present. Selfie culture has influenced the behavior of millennials in appreciating works of art. Some applications that support selfie culture have been developed and gives smartphone users the opportunity to use it to create new interpretations of images. This article discusses the shift in exhibit behavior at the fine arts museum which is shown through photos uploaded on social media.
 Keywords: social media, selfies, art museum

Review| August 01 2022 Review: Art of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Art of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, December 18, 2021–, https://www.mfa.org/gallery/art-of-ancient-greece-rome-and-the-byzantine-empire. Gretel Rodríguez Gretel Rodríguez Brown University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Studies in Late Antiquity (2022) 6 (3): 561–569. https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.3.561 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Gretel Rodríguez; Review: Art of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Studies in Late Antiquity 1 August 2022; 6 (3): 561–569. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.3.561 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentStudies in Late Antiquity Search After a two-year reinstallation, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) unveiled the new galleries housing its collection of ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art on December 18, 2021. This restructuring has presented an opportunity to rethink the nature of the collection and the manner in which it is presented to the public. The curators and museum staff embraced the task with creativity, offering a novel interpretation of this important corpus of ancient Mediterranean art.1 The result is doubtlessly a more nuanced presentation of the ancient collections, although a few conceptual and organizational choices have also left room for improvement. The exhibition, comprising five new galleries, has been enhanced by freshly designed displays, structural modifications to the building—including the installation of clerestories to bring in natural light—and the addition of digital technologies such as animations, 3-D models, and soundscapes. Visitors will now explore the arts of the ancient world... You do not currently have access to this content.

Reviewed by: John Singleton Copley in America Richard Saunders Carrie Rebora and Paul Staiti, Erica E. Hirshler, Theodore E. Stebbins Jr., Carol Troyen, with contributions by Morrison H. Heckscher, Aileen Ribeiro, Marjorie Shelly. John Singleton Copley in America. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. Pp. 348. $65. paper; $45. John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) is the most acclaimed of America’s colonial portrait painters, and this welcome publication, along with the accompanying exhibition, brings his career into focus after a considerable hiatus. Although Copley portraits can be found in virtually every major public collection in the United States, the last comprehensive exhibition reviewing his career occurred in 1965–66 at the National Gallery of Art. This earlier exhibition coincided with the publication of a two-volume catalog of Copley’s work by Jules Prown which, despite its black-and-white illustrations, remains the standard reference work on the artist. This present volume is the catalog for an exhibition of the same title opening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and showing in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (September 26, 1995-January 7, 1996), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (February 4-April 28, 1996), and Milwaukee Art Museum (May 22-August 25, 1996). Unlike the exhibition of 1965–66, however, the present show is limited to Copley’s American career. Although this does allow for a more comprehensive look at his American work, it frustrates any attempt to examine how distinctive this work is in light of what came later. Fortunately, however, Emily Neff, curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, chose this moment to simultaneously organize John Singleton Copley in England, a parallel exhibition of Copley’s English pictures (National Gallery of Art October 11-January 7, 1996 and Museum of Fine Arts Houston, February 4-April 28, 1996), and both exhibitions will be seen side by side in Houston. This hefty and exquisitely illustrated catalog follows the current vogue among American museums for publications composed of a series of essays followed by lengthy catalog entries on the exhibited objects (eighty-one in all). The eight essays are divided among seven authors. The first is by Carrie Rebora, one of the primary organizers of the exhibition. Her essay, “Copley and Art History: The Study of America’s First Old master,” is a thoughtful and succinct historiography of Copley literature over the past 170 years. Pointing out that Copley has been the subject of at least one essay, book, or catalog every year for over a century, she nonetheless correctly observes that answers to numerous questions concerning the production, and display of Copley’s work, its market, and the possible political and social meaning, remain elusive. Clearly, the intent of this book and exhibition are to probe possible answers to these and other weighty questions. Rebora sets the stage for the next three essays, which provide the ideological heart of the publication. The first two, “Accounting for Copley” and “Character and Class,” are by Paul Staiti. The third, “An American Despite Himself,” is by Theodore Stebbins. These essays dramatize the polarization of opinion that presently colors current discussions of colonial painting. Staiti approaches the Boston art world from the standpoint of material consumption. His choice of such terms as “merchant elite,” “culture of consumption,” and “anthropological display” [End Page 334] to describe Copley’s sitters and their paintings echo the polemical stance of scholars such as Timothy H. Breen. Staiti sees Copley’s portraits as “the rhetoric—not the record—of self-representation in eighteenth-century America” (55). To some degree what is put forth in his essay “Character and Class,” such as Copley’s use of print sources and the fact that the background elements of portraits were fictionalized, are examples of vintage wine in new bottles. Much more provocative is his speculation that it was the patron, not the artist, who orchestrated decisions about pose and costume in particular portraits. A telling example is his interpretation of Copley’s 1765 John Hancock (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), in which he sees an ascetic, disciplined man who has denied the trappings of wealth and class. Staiti speculates that Hancock dictated how...

The objectives of this research are (1) to study and analyze the current brand management of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, and (2) to analyze the factors affecting the brand effectiveness of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum. This study employs qualitative methods to review effective brand management models for art museums through a literature review and to optimize these models based on the characteristics of the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum. In addition, SWOT analysis is used to examine the internal and external factors and conditions of the target case and to infer the factors that influence brand performance. The research found that: (1) Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum adheres to the principle of supporting service, education as a venue for higher education research. Due to its relatively closed environment and small number of visitors, the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum lacks the attention of society and the public. In addition, competition between art exhibition venues and museums is intense. The Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum recognizes the challenge of maintaining a strong market position. It therefore conducts research on brand development and identity enhancement through targeted approaches to development and marketing management. (2) The factors and problems of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum that can improve brand efficiency are based on the museum's brand management system in four dimensions: quality and academic dimension, personal dimension, symbolic dimension, and organizational dimension, to develop and improve the brand efficiency of the university's art museum, aiming at effectively building its competitiveness and satisfying visitors.

Museum Laboratories: Where Art Meets Science

About the Authors

Catalogue of Arretine Pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Catalogue of Arretine Pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By ProfessorGeorge H. Chase, Ph.D. Quarto. Pp. xii + 112, with thirty plates and two figures. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916. $10. - Volume 33 Issue 3-4

In 2019, as part of the events dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Museum, the album "The Kemerovo Regional Museum of Fine arts" (now the Kuzbass Museum of Fine Arts) was published. This is the first publication about the Kuzbass Museum of Fine Arts — a regional cultural institution of the Kemerovo region, opened in 1969. The album is based on research that reveals the history of the Museum in its fundamental aspects: the origins, the ascetics, the buildings that housed the Museum, and the art collection. В 2019 году в рамках мероприятий, посвященных 50-летию музея, издан альбом «Кемеровский областной музей изобразительных искусств» (ныне Музей изобразительных искусств Кузбасса). Это первое издание о Музее изобразительных искусств Кузбасса (МИИК) — областном учреждении культуры Кемеровской области, открытом в 1969 году. Основой альбома является исследование, раскрывающее историю музея в ее фундаментальных аспектах: истоки, подвижники, здания, в которых размещался и размещается музей, и художественная коллекция.

Books on India and Central Asia - 6. Catalogue of the Indian Collections in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. 11¾×8¾, 150 pp., 86 plates. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1923. - Volume 56 Issue 2

War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, (11 November 2012–3 February 2013), The Annenberg Space for Photography (23 March– 2 June 2013), Corcoran Gallery of Art (29 June–29 September 2013), Brooklyn Museum (8 November 2013–2 February 2014) / Anne Wilkes Tucker and Will Michels, with Natalie Zelt; with contributions by Liam Kennedy, Hilary Roberts, John Stauffer, Bodo von Dewitz, Jeff Hunt, and Natalie Zeldin, War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2012. Distributed by Yale University Press, 612 pp., 179 colour and 364 b/w illustrations, $90, ISBN: 9780300177381. An article from journal RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review (Photography and War), on Érudit.

'Museum With Those Goddesses':Bloom and the Dublin Plaster Casts Fintan Cullen (bio) During the second half of the nineteenth century, as Dublin established its own public art gallery and museum, the display of white plaster casts of well-known Greco-Roman statuary dominated the visitor's first encounter with the collections housed in these new temples of art. The National Gallery of Ireland, in Merrion Square, opened its doors in 1864 while a Museum of Science and Art, which eventually became the National Museum of Ireland, situated only a short distance away on Kildare Street, was accessible to visitors from 1890. Both of these state-funded institutions, in the early decades of their existence, displayed classical casts in their entrance halls or first rooms and such an introduction coloured the whole visiting experience. As museum culture developed in the nineteenth century, many art institutions in Europe and North America displayed authentic classical statuary or casts in their entrance halls or rotundas so as to assuage contemporary fears that the art viewer would be bombarded with the new and/or the unknown. In 1828, the architect of Berlin's Altes Museum, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and the Museum's first director, Gustav Friedrich Waagen, were of the opinion that such a display would 'first delight, then instruct.'1 By the end of the century, such a philosophy extended as far as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This museum opened in 1876 and the classical greeted the visitor there well into the early years of the twentieth century.2 The story is no different in Ireland. This essay will chart the display of Greco-Roman casts in Ireland from their early nineteenth-century appearance in Cork to the National Gallery of Ireland's acquisition of casts in the eighteen sixties. It will end with a consideration of Leopold Bloom's fictitious visit in 1904 to the Kildare Street 'museum with those goddesses' (U 13.1215). The aim is to convey a sense of what was actually available as one wandered into a gallery or museum and as one participated in the newly accessible era of cultural consumption. [End Page 24] Cast Culture Over the winter of 1818 and 1819, under the patronage of the Prince Regent and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an exhibition of 115 casts taken from antique statues, busts, and reliefs went on display in the converted Apollo Theatre on Patrick Street, Cork.3 Although temporary art exhibitions had being mounted in both Dublin and Cork since at least 1780, it could be said that this collection of casts warrants credit as one of the earliest permanent displays of art in Ireland. Many of the casts, made from renowned icons of antiquity owned by the Vatican such as the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere stayed on display throughout the nineteenth century and some are still visible today in Cork's Crawford Art Gallery. The casts were the gift of the Prince Regent, patron of the Cork Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts through the good offices of Lord Ennismore (later, Lord Listowel), President of the Society and at the time Whig MP for County Cork. The Prince had originally been offered the casts by Pope Pius VII in recognition of Britain's help in restoring Napoleon's stolen loot taken from Rome some decades earlier. Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the most celebrated classical sculptor of the day, had been appointed by the Pope to supervise the casting and as an astute propagandist for his own work, the artist included some plasters after his own sculptures such as an allegorical portrait of Marie-Louise, Napoleon's empress, as Concord. Given the fame of the classical and contemporary pieces involved, the gift was indeed a major coup for the city. Within a decade of the gift, that rather over-enthusiastic art critic William Paulet Carey commented that the casts 'form an inestimable treasure for the advancement of his present Majesty's anxious desire, the cultivation of painting, sculpture, and architecture, in the Sister Island'.4 Many years later, the Dublin University Magazine echoed Carey's praise for the gift of the casts: Whatever of dullness had...

<i>La Marguerite</i> by William Morris Hunt

In this article, Kamila Kudkiewicz is dedicated to the question of Polish national museums in the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, the historical territory of Poland was divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Each of these countries had its own laws and policies towards Poles: take, for example, the policies of Russification and Germanization implemented by the Russian and German authorities in their respective territories and, contrastingly, the autonomy granted to Polish Galicia in Austria-Hungary after 1860. Despite the differences between the regions, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Poles founded museums that were perceived to be 'national', whether on a de facto basis - as attested by publications and written sources from the period - or because they had the word 'national' in their very name. Although early initiatives to create museums with the designation 'national' were undertaken in Poland as early as the eighteenth century, actual national museums (or institutions considered to be such) only emerged after 1870. The latter consisted of : the Musee National Polonais (Polish National Museum) in Rapperswil, Switzerland (opened 1870), the Muzeum im. Mielzynskich w Poznaniu (Mielzynski Museum in Poznan, 1881), the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie (National Museum in Krakow, 1883), the Muzeum Narodowe im. Krola Jana III we Lwowie (King Jan III National Museum in Lviv, 1908), and the Muzeum Sztuk Pieknych w Warszawie (Museum of Fine Arts in Warsaw), which was called after 1916 the Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie (National Museum in Warsaw). The most important Polish national museums were established in large urban centres, namely in regional capitals (i.e. Poznan, the capital of Greater Poland in the nineteenth century within the borders of Prussia, and Krakow, the main city of Galicia in the nineteenth century within Austria and later Austria-Hungary), but also in other nations (i.e. Rapperswil in Switzerland). They were founded by city authorities, learned societies, or private collectors. The fact that the museums were established and managed by various entities made their activities very diverse. However, one can observe two main areas of interest for Polish national museums in the nineteenth century: national (Polish) history, on the one hand, and Polish art, primarily contemporary painting, on the other. In some cases, like that of Rapperswil, the dominating elements of the collection were connected with historical elements that, at least initially, were also sentimental, nostalgic, and emotional in character. This sentimentality bespeaks the institution's intended influence on viewers. Elsewhere, the wish to exhibit and promote Polish art prevailed over the interest in objects related to national history (i.e. the Mielzynski Museum in Poznan). And certain museums underwent an evolution in their declared status, from that of a national gallery of painting to that of an institution attempting to show various aspects of Polish culture (National Museum in Krakow). The present analysis of the activity of these museums will focus on the discourse accompanying their creation, the goals set by their founders, and the curation of their exhibitions.