Visual Arts
The overall impression of this valuable exhibit is to remind us that religious conviction is by no means synonymous with conservatism.
Anka Muhlstein’s book is probably best read as a biography of a hard-working family man and not as a thorough assessment of Pissarro’s art.
Amid the year’s chaos, art was a saving grace, civilizing and humanizing: a much needed blessing that allowed us to breathe, to inhale beauty and perhaps a whiff or two of truth.
Plan to linger over every moment of this revelatory, diverse, and understated special exhibition.
The textile arts have been dissed by so many narrow-minded educators and critics over the years that it is heartening to have two exhibits (and their catalogues) treat the art of the woven with the respect and awe that it deserves.
Was John Singer Sargent just a talented flatterer of his wealthy patrons or was there more to him?
The MFA’s Fashioned by Sargent alludes — only at whisper level — to the fact that many of John Singer Sargent’s clients represent questionable ideals.
Is the artist’s direction of clothing choices — and how he painted the garments — a sufficiently compelling inquiry in which to anchor an exhibit?
The show would have been stronger if more context had been provided, both about women’s lives and the artistic traditions that inspired and influenced artists of the Renaissance.
Visual Art Commentary: Boston and Sargent, For Better, For Worse.
Boston’s veneration of John Singer Sargent is awkwardly implicated in the city’s habit of denouncing modern art.
Read More about Visual Art Commentary: Boston and Sargent, For Better, For Worse.