During a snowy day in February 1903, a new type of museum opened its doors in Boston. Despite its natural gray exterior, the institution then known as Fenway Court organized an amazing cache of international antiquities and art ranging from Roman times to the present day. The museums were still emerging in the United States, but it worked differently: its paintings, prints, sculptures, mosaics, tapestries, furniture, rare books and other objects were all displayed together in palatial rooms surrounding a lush a lush garden palace of Venetian style which challenged Boston's time. And, until his death in 1924, the controversial founder of the museum lived among his treasures on the top floor.
Renamed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum After his death, the institution was the work of the life of an extremely powerful woman who seemed to trigger a scandal and inspire admiration in equal parts. Its complex and revolutionary history is explored in an expert way in Natalie Dykstra Chasing Beauty: Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifeA largely sought -after and engaging biography that reveals the many layers of the researcher, the boss and the provocative pleasure traveler. The world has changed enormously during the life of Gardner, which started before the American civil war, and it changed with it. But through all this, Dykstra clearly indicates, the mission of Gardner was to seek, find and share beauty.
Gardner was born in 1840 into a rich family from New York booming. After studying in Paris, she married one of the richest and most eminent singles of Boston, John Lowell “Jack” Gardner. (A 1965 biography, Mrs. Jack By Louise Hall Tharp, takes the name of her husband as inspiration for her title in an archaic convention which is fortunately corrected in Dykstra de Dykstra.) The transition from Cosmopolitan New York and Paris to the more conservative society of her adopted city was difficult to Gardner, but she could kiss it and even wow it from the gossip and the attention that her extravagant person may Adopt and even the Courramme, on the part of the party and attention that his extravagant person and professional exploits could adopt there, from the party, the extravagant person and his professional exploits Boston Globe Column of gossip on a rumor case in 1888 on the first page of the newspaper for the great opening of its museum more than a decade later. After a series of tragic losses, including the death of his only son – Dykstra includes moving extracts from the letters of condolence of the time – Gardner devoted himself to traveling as a means of living and acquiring art later.
The couple spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a month's travel in places like Egypt, Japan, China and the art centers of Europe. Along the way, Gardner bought many exquisite objects that would end up populating his museum. Dykstra transmits Gardner's true curiosity about other cultures while highlighting economic crises, travel trends and political practices that allowed him as well as other American elites essentially looting global art collections for their own museums and emerging collections in the United States. On these occasions and in others, the author carefully criticizes Gardner while placing it in a particular context which helps us to understand it even more clearly.
One of the most impressive aspects of the book is its use of primary sources, especially since Gardner has published very little publicly on itself and asked that its private correspondence be destroyed after its death. However, Dykstra emits a multitude of letters, newspapers and other materials from the orbit of Gardner to rebuild the multifaceted character of his subject, larger than life. As a notable supporter of music and literature in addition to visual art, Gardner was extremely well connected and the press releases of long -term friends like Henry James and John Singer Sargent offer attractive overviews in their distinct personalities while they elucidate the intimacy between the boss and the artist.
Above all, the main merchant of Gardner in Europe, Bernhard Berenson, kept the letters of his employer. They reveal her visceral and insatiable hunger for art while working to develop her collection. Whether in the face of import taxes, the construction of delays or burning criticism of everything, from his appearance to his ambition, Gardner bristles and ends up triumphing over everything that is on his way. What kind of woman was she? Dykstra leaves us room to decide for ourselves.
Anyway, like so many people in its time, I finished the book with respect for the unshakable vision of Gardner. In a rare surviving letter that she wrote to a friend towards the end of her life, she wrote: “There are years, I decided that the greatest need for our country was art. We were a very young country and we had very few opportunities to see beautiful things. So I determined to make my life the work of my life if I could. ” And Dykstra's book brings us into the fascinating journey of Gardner to show us how.
Chasing Beauty: Isabella Stewart Gardner's life (2024) by Natalie Dykstra is published by Mariner Books and is available online and via independent booksellers.
