Thank you so much! So glad Ann’s post connected us. Also, I just read your description, and I see your live on a farm in NH. I shall be on a NH farm in a few weeks. Not sure how far off it is from you, but I’m participating in the Frost Farm conference on August 16-18.
Yes, we live in Canterbury, north of Concord. The Frost farm is in Derry, south of Manchester, about 45-50 minutes away from us, unless they do the conference up north? There is a Frost site in the White Mountains that has or had some poetry events. I hope it’s a wonderful conference!
Yes, it’s a bit far from you. I will be going to Derry, and this will be my second time attending. My friend/classmate won the prize this year so I am excited that she will be there. And I am bring a birthday cake because the conference is happening right before my 50th birthday! 🎂
I recently bought Rembrandt is in the Wind after seeing it recommended several times over the last few years, including a friend who passed away just a couple months ago. Would love to hear your thoughts/corrections on the problematic chapter!
It is a very fast read. Good for those who do not know much art history. Bazille and Trotter are problem chapters, but one is worse than the other. All the other artists are quite interesting and the styles of each chapters are quite different.
Okay, I have three essays on deck in mid-finish stage. One is about that problem chapter, the other is about my Austen retreat, and the third is about a Filipino event happening this weekend. I will try to crank all three out. One is time sensitive, one is overdue, and the other is helpful to your point and comes nicely on the heels of this Gardner/Ramsey post.
This post awakens memories. I grew up within day-tripping distance of Boston, where my mother often took me to the Gardner and regaled me with the story of its visionary founder. I must have seen the stolen paintings a number of times, but was too young to appreciate them. With many years of art tourism behind me, I now understand the uniqueness of the Gardner and the story that it tells. There is nothing like it.
Oh, what wonderful memories with your mother! Yes, there is nothing like the Gardner. Most other museums are institutions with changing curators as years pass; however, the way the Gardner was created, there is only one creator for the life of the museum: Isabella, herself. The building is odd until you realize how much care she took into placing each work. I love this place so much—and likely because I discovered it on a solo student trip at a formative time in my teenaged years.
Zina, This tribute to Isabella Stewart Gardner and her museum is exquisite! I love and admire how you interweave your personal story with her life, the physical space of the museum, the art, and the delicate themes of a woman's grief and her assertion of her particular vision of beauty. I've always heard this was a museum to visit, and now you've shown me why. Seeing the Sargent portrait at a distance through your camera is also a treat. ISG's arms hang like a great royal necklace of the age of the Tudors. I appreciate the close-up all the more for the distant view.
Thank you for this glorious post in every way. Peace to your friend Laurie's family.
Hi Tara, Thank you so much! Yes, I highly recommend the Gardner Museum. There is nothing like seeing art there is person. I am so glad you enjoyed reading this and that it may have peaked your interest in visiting. ❤️
A great piece. During the pandemic the streaming services were rife with documentaries about art forgers and thieves, for some reason, but they were great distractions. One was about the Gardner museum (This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist). Fascinating. Not so much the robbery itself, as that seems in hindsight almost inevitable considering the lax security, but the odd investigation that followed, with its many theories about who committed the theft and what happened to the art.
I just happened to read Chandler’s The High Window this week, which involves the theft of an 18th century coin so rare it couldn’t be sold openly, like the stolen paintings. In the absence of a real-life Philip Marlowe, the best that can be hoped, I suppose, is that some of the paintings ended up in a shady private collection and one day will be recovered.
Hi Frank, Thank you so much. Sounds like I need to read some Chandler! Also, every old school Bostonian with Sicilian blood seems to know from the cousin of a friend that the Rembrandt is in a hot trailer in Randolph, just south of the city. 😂 The Ramsey book I mention just a good job describing the different fates in store for famous stolen art. He mentions this particular care where a mother incinerated the art to save her son: https://abcnews.go.com/International/rotterdam-art-heist-stolen-masterpieces-incinerated/story?id=19703350
What an amazing story, Zina! Thank you so much for sharing! While reading, just as I was thinking, "I'd love to get some art book recommendations from her," boom- before I could finish the thought you were listing them. Thank you! Just a couple days ago, I went over to my Mom's to help out with an art project she had set up for my niece and nephew. I used to sketch in high school like you, but once writing and music took over, I brushed the visual arts aside. But as I was painting at my mom's, I realized how calm I was and how singularly focused my brain was. It bounces around between so many different thoughts, I forget what it is like for my fight or flight to turn off. I've decided to pick back up the visual arts a bit again as well. I agree, I think it makes one a better writer, a better creator (and communicator) in general. I loved the inclusion of your sketch in this post, please keep us updated on your journey with getting back to creating art <3 Your posts are always so inspiring and thought-provoking. I appreciate your work!
I received Chasing Beauty by Natalie Dykstra with a to be scheduled museum visit from my daughter for my birthday this year! Looking forward to reading and viewing!
Your writing has illuminated a life that I knew nothing about. I feel so keenly for her loss of her son and subsequent inability to have children. Her numerous statues of the Madonna and Child with the Baby Jesus nursing are so poignant in light of those losses. The stipulations of the museum are fascinating. I can sympathize with wanting everything just so and not wanting it altered but having that hit against the reality that we cannot exert control of that sort, not in life or in death.
Thank you so much… oh I took pictures of some of the art that depicted women and children. There is one particular candle holder. A woman with lots of children under her cloak. I will try to find it…
Just sent you through messages. Perhaps I should write a separate post for everyone detailing a walk through of all the mother and child art that Isabella collected. It’s really fascinating because I think they may be at regular intervals spread out in the museum, and we know she took great care to place things a certain way and not have them moved.
This is excellent in timing and in the scope of everything you wove together in it. It includes many important things about that odd museum, including the history of that oh-so-strange art heist.
Thank you! I was stunned to see when Gardner died and realized I had a built in deadline for writing this post. There was so much I wanted to say about the heist, but I was talking to the four women last week about the options that were likely. Being impossible to sell honestly it’s not usual for art to be destroyed. It’s too much of a liability. It’s also hard to maintain the humidity and temperature to preserve the art. A better option is that it’s just floating around the black market in a dark exchange. Like, hey I got a Rembrandt worth x million—how much drugs can I get for it. The exchange is probably much less than the actual worth. And of course maybe the best option is that it’s in the house of someone who knows something about art. The art then could be recovered in good shape.
It is an odd museum. Not like the MFA or Met, but in a way such a nice scale and so much to see.
You did a good overview. Can't cover everything. I read a lot about the museum and the theft and the speculations about where the art might be a few years ago by browsing the Internet. Someone did some investigations about the connections of the art thieves and interviewed people who had ideas about where it might be, including in a shed in some mobster's back yard in a Boston suburb. Nothing definitive.
This is a wonderful post—amazing observations, and the way you move through time from your high-school self to middle age is just lovely!
Thank you so much! So glad Ann’s post connected us. Also, I just read your description, and I see your live on a farm in NH. I shall be on a NH farm in a few weeks. Not sure how far off it is from you, but I’m participating in the Frost Farm conference on August 16-18.
Yes, we live in Canterbury, north of Concord. The Frost farm is in Derry, south of Manchester, about 45-50 minutes away from us, unless they do the conference up north? There is a Frost site in the White Mountains that has or had some poetry events. I hope it’s a wonderful conference!
Yes, it’s a bit far from you. I will be going to Derry, and this will be my second time attending. My friend/classmate won the prize this year so I am excited that she will be there. And I am bring a birthday cake because the conference is happening right before my 50th birthday! 🎂
Beautiful, Zina! I feel as if I was there. Will recommend to my readers...
Thank you so much, Anne! ❤️
I recently bought Rembrandt is in the Wind after seeing it recommended several times over the last few years, including a friend who passed away just a couple months ago. Would love to hear your thoughts/corrections on the problematic chapter!
Have you read the book?
Not yet! I’ve heard it can be read quickly, so I’m hoping to read it before school starts.
It is a very fast read. Good for those who do not know much art history. Bazille and Trotter are problem chapters, but one is worse than the other. All the other artists are quite interesting and the styles of each chapters are quite different.
Okay, I have three essays on deck in mid-finish stage. One is about that problem chapter, the other is about my Austen retreat, and the third is about a Filipino event happening this weekend. I will try to crank all three out. One is time sensitive, one is overdue, and the other is helpful to your point and comes nicely on the heels of this Gardner/Ramsey post.
This post awakens memories. I grew up within day-tripping distance of Boston, where my mother often took me to the Gardner and regaled me with the story of its visionary founder. I must have seen the stolen paintings a number of times, but was too young to appreciate them. With many years of art tourism behind me, I now understand the uniqueness of the Gardner and the story that it tells. There is nothing like it.
Oh, what wonderful memories with your mother! Yes, there is nothing like the Gardner. Most other museums are institutions with changing curators as years pass; however, the way the Gardner was created, there is only one creator for the life of the museum: Isabella, herself. The building is odd until you realize how much care she took into placing each work. I love this place so much—and likely because I discovered it on a solo student trip at a formative time in my teenaged years.
Zina, This tribute to Isabella Stewart Gardner and her museum is exquisite! I love and admire how you interweave your personal story with her life, the physical space of the museum, the art, and the delicate themes of a woman's grief and her assertion of her particular vision of beauty. I've always heard this was a museum to visit, and now you've shown me why. Seeing the Sargent portrait at a distance through your camera is also a treat. ISG's arms hang like a great royal necklace of the age of the Tudors. I appreciate the close-up all the more for the distant view.
Thank you for this glorious post in every way. Peace to your friend Laurie's family.
Hi Tara, Thank you so much! Yes, I highly recommend the Gardner Museum. There is nothing like seeing art there is person. I am so glad you enjoyed reading this and that it may have peaked your interest in visiting. ❤️
It did! :-)
A great piece. During the pandemic the streaming services were rife with documentaries about art forgers and thieves, for some reason, but they were great distractions. One was about the Gardner museum (This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist). Fascinating. Not so much the robbery itself, as that seems in hindsight almost inevitable considering the lax security, but the odd investigation that followed, with its many theories about who committed the theft and what happened to the art.
I just happened to read Chandler’s The High Window this week, which involves the theft of an 18th century coin so rare it couldn’t be sold openly, like the stolen paintings. In the absence of a real-life Philip Marlowe, the best that can be hoped, I suppose, is that some of the paintings ended up in a shady private collection and one day will be recovered.
Hi Frank, Thank you so much. Sounds like I need to read some Chandler! Also, every old school Bostonian with Sicilian blood seems to know from the cousin of a friend that the Rembrandt is in a hot trailer in Randolph, just south of the city. 😂 The Ramsey book I mention just a good job describing the different fates in store for famous stolen art. He mentions this particular care where a mother incinerated the art to save her son: https://abcnews.go.com/International/rotterdam-art-heist-stolen-masterpieces-incinerated/story?id=19703350
What an amazing story, Zina! Thank you so much for sharing! While reading, just as I was thinking, "I'd love to get some art book recommendations from her," boom- before I could finish the thought you were listing them. Thank you! Just a couple days ago, I went over to my Mom's to help out with an art project she had set up for my niece and nephew. I used to sketch in high school like you, but once writing and music took over, I brushed the visual arts aside. But as I was painting at my mom's, I realized how calm I was and how singularly focused my brain was. It bounces around between so many different thoughts, I forget what it is like for my fight or flight to turn off. I've decided to pick back up the visual arts a bit again as well. I agree, I think it makes one a better writer, a better creator (and communicator) in general. I loved the inclusion of your sketch in this post, please keep us updated on your journey with getting back to creating art <3 Your posts are always so inspiring and thought-provoking. I appreciate your work!
I have the same thing happen when I do art. My brain stops bouncing around.
It was a welcome surprise reprieve! :)
I received Chasing Beauty by Natalie Dykstra with a to be scheduled museum visit from my daughter for my birthday this year! Looking forward to reading and viewing!
Oh wonderful! Anything about ISG is fascinating. I hope you like the book! I haven’t read that one.
Your writing has illuminated a life that I knew nothing about. I feel so keenly for her loss of her son and subsequent inability to have children. Her numerous statues of the Madonna and Child with the Baby Jesus nursing are so poignant in light of those losses. The stipulations of the museum are fascinating. I can sympathize with wanting everything just so and not wanting it altered but having that hit against the reality that we cannot exert control of that sort, not in life or in death.
Thank you so much… oh I took pictures of some of the art that depicted women and children. There is one particular candle holder. A woman with lots of children under her cloak. I will try to find it…
I would like to see it!
Just sent you through messages. Perhaps I should write a separate post for everyone detailing a walk through of all the mother and child art that Isabella collected. It’s really fascinating because I think they may be at regular intervals spread out in the museum, and we know she took great care to place things a certain way and not have them moved.
This is excellent in timing and in the scope of everything you wove together in it. It includes many important things about that odd museum, including the history of that oh-so-strange art heist.
Thank you! I was stunned to see when Gardner died and realized I had a built in deadline for writing this post. There was so much I wanted to say about the heist, but I was talking to the four women last week about the options that were likely. Being impossible to sell honestly it’s not usual for art to be destroyed. It’s too much of a liability. It’s also hard to maintain the humidity and temperature to preserve the art. A better option is that it’s just floating around the black market in a dark exchange. Like, hey I got a Rembrandt worth x million—how much drugs can I get for it. The exchange is probably much less than the actual worth. And of course maybe the best option is that it’s in the house of someone who knows something about art. The art then could be recovered in good shape.
It is an odd museum. Not like the MFA or Met, but in a way such a nice scale and so much to see.
You did a good overview. Can't cover everything. I read a lot about the museum and the theft and the speculations about where the art might be a few years ago by browsing the Internet. Someone did some investigations about the connections of the art thieves and interviewed people who had ideas about where it might be, including in a shed in some mobster's back yard in a Boston suburb. Nothing definitive.