MoMA Curator Builds Windy Castles at the Gardner

Tucked away behind the MFA. the Gardner Museum in unarguably one of the most enchanting sights in Boston. Fenway Court, the unassuming building in which Isabell Gardner's eclectic collection of mainly European art and design in housed, has an interior modeled after a fifteenth century Venetian Pallazzo, complete with a courtyard of overflowing flora and fountains and topped off with architectural fragments from around the world.

Paintings by Degas, Botticelli, Matisse, Giotto, Velasquez, Sargent and Holbein adorn medieval tapestries, which in turn cover the walls of the Northern European Hall, the Spanish Chapel the Chinese Loggia and the Dutch Drawing Room. Watercolors by Turner and masterpieces by Rembrandt peek out from behind neoclassical chaises lounges. Writings by Napoleon, T.S. Eliot and Sarah Bernhardt fill all nooks and crannies.

Gardner explicitly displayed her 3000 objects, most of which are un-labeled, in an a-historical, a-national, a thematic and entirely aesthetic arrangement in the hope that they would ignite creativity and imagination. Her success becomes evident immediately upon walking into the museum when you are greeted by an almost cataclysmic whirlwind of colors, styles and textures that is paradoxically accompanied by a sense of serenity; it is as if you yourself are a another piece-albeit not as good looking-absorbed into this vast and dynamic collection.

Any lecturer speaking in the Tapestry Room at the Gardner Museum has Isabella Gardner to thank for endowing the place with a magical feeling that tickles audience's souls and subdues their critical faculties. Had Terence Riley, chief curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at Museum of Modern Art in New York, stood at the podium and screamed out math equations-in German-he probably still would have been a crowd pleaser.

Riley, however, did not exploit his audience's silly bliss, but instead presented a good-natured and pleasant lecture on the primary and secondary uses of architecture at the Gardner. He used various slides of Gardner's objects in order to take the audience on a "stroll" through the collection. Riley's lecture, itself meandering back and forth through ideas, allowed us in weave in and out of the museum's rooms.

Beginning the lecture by declaring himself a Derridean "amateur" at art history, Riley used the collection as tool in order to elucidate some interesting issues in theories of architecture. Although at times his analyses of the works seemed a little farfetched. he did present some intriguing questions about the role of architecture in art.

The MoMA architect structured his talk on the architectural notion that the aesthetic and the utilitarian inevitably intersect and praised the overall architecture of the building by claiming that it does what it has to do well and pleases by its presence. He illustrated this duality by pointing out that the decorative lacy Venetian crenellations in the Pallazzo historically doubled as defenses which could brutally impale potential attackers.

Although Riley insisted that the museum worked as architectural and decorative whole, he never attempted to explain how. However, he did characterize the integration of art and architecture by astutely explaining that the "architecture is binding" and that it "leaks in and out of the art." In his discussion of the architecture a s subject in art, he suggested that architecture adds weightness or gravitas to a science and demonstrated this by claiming that furniture and architectural fragments in Botticell's "Mother and Child Jesus" made the scene less domestic and more dignified. Perhaps more convincing was his point that the prominent buildings in Botticelli's "The Madonna of the Eucharist" creates perspective in the painting and enables the painter to place characters in appropriate locations, thereby mixing humanism and realism Whereas before the importance of figures are placed in the foreground.

Riley also addressed the issue of frames, and did so by returning to his aesthetic/utilitarian dualism. He provided contrasting examples of frames used to project paintings and those used to adorn and enhance them. He emphasized that upon close scrutiny it is evident that some frames are decorated by architectural motifs like columns pediments, and arches thereby aesthetically representing their utilitarian role; some like Vasari's "The Musicians," act as a window through which the protagonists lean out.

Interestingly, Riley pointed out that some works, including a colorful Japanese screen depicting a series of rooms from above, use architecture to create conceptual boundaries, separating events that occur in different times, thereby creating a narrative-almost like frames in a comic book.

Throughout Riley's guided tour of the museum, be often paused for commentary on the acquisitive Gardner herself, accommodating her into his dualist scheme. He stressed that she was both a romantic wanderer who longed for emotional connection with art, as well as a scientific archeologist, who strove to understand art. He emphasized that her collection in intended to educate but is simultaneously an expression of her own artistic senses. Although it might appear to exist in pleasing disarray, it was actually thoughtfully and wittily designed.

Riley's lecture was the first in the Gardner's Eye of the Beholderseries which will continue through June. It will likely be worthwhile to attend other lectures in the series, for even if they are not ground-breaking, they are free for students and allow access to much of the museum, and may, if you're lucky, include a free wine and cheese reception in the Pallazzo.