Tag Archives: art

Events

Why Do We Need Art Museums?

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WHY DO WE NEED ART MUSEUMS?
with Natalie Dykstra
Tuesday, May 21 5:00 PM

In 2014, Jeffrey K Smith wrote “The Museum Effect” in which he put forth the case that museums, libraries and cultural institutions educate and civilize us as individuals and as societies. He suggested that visitors who spend time with their thoughts elevated, leave the institution as better people in some meaningful fashion than when they entered.

We will discuss this idea with Natalie Dykstra, the acclaimed biographer, of CHASING BEAUTY, about the life and legacy of Isabella Stewart Gardner, one of the first female art collectors in America. “Isabella Stewart Gardner is best known today for the Boston museum that bears her name, but as Dykstra makes clear in her luminous new biography, the Gilded Age doyenne was herself a figure to be reckoned with. A daughter of wealth who married into more, the flamboyant Gardner quickly became the queen of haute bohemia — and in the process, one of America’s most serious collectors. A lively portrait of a moment, a woman and the power of art”. – NYT 

Was Gardner doing essential work in the cultural education of her fellow Americans or just satisfying her own wanderlust by spending money on expensive indulgences?

Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, has recently made the NYT Editor’s Choice.  Natalie Dykstra, professor emerita of English at Hope College in Michigan, is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and has served as a board member of the Biographers International Organization since 2020. 

Archive, Events

Art As A Prescription For Culture

How have the arts been impacted by the pandemic? What have been the challenges and the triumphs?

Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director of the Mass. Cultural Council  is joined by Catherine Carr Kelly, Executive  Director of Central Square Theater and collaborator on the Starlight  Square project. Why are the arts a key asset to the  economy? How much do they contribute to its economy?

Recorded 12/21/2021

The Arts As A Prescription For Culture 1
The Arts As A Prescription For Culture 2

Cambridge Forum’s purpose is to inform, explore, entertain and challenge preconceptions on a wide range of current and timeless subjects. Forums are recorded live with audience participation, and freely distributed to the world through NPR, GBH Forum Network, and CF podcasts.

Cambridge Forum classics

Portrait of the artist as an old man

In this Cambridge Forum Classic, Paul Tucker, professor emeritus of art at UMass, offers a striking new view of Monet, the quintessential impressionist showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.

Monet created more than 2,500 paintings, drawings, and pastels that radically altered the way art was made and understood. Tucker reflects on the artist’s oeuvre as an evolving enterprise that evolved over his lifetime and was driven by Monet’s steadfast belief in the power of art to express ideas.

Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man: Paul Tucker
Claude Monet, Morning on the Seine, near Giverny (detail), 1897

Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see.

Claude Monet

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Exhibition: Monet and Boston: Legacy Illuminated

April 17–October 17, 2021

Claude Monet, Grainstack (Sunset) (detail), 1891. Oil on canvas. 

Recorded in 1998 at Cambridge Forum

Paul Tucker, a professor emeritus of art at the University of MA, is one of the foremost authorities on Monet, the quintessential impressionist. He offers a striking new view of the artist, showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.