“Museums provide places of relaxation and inspiration. And most importantly, they are a place of authenticity. We live in a world of reproductions – the objects in museums are real. It’s a way to get away from the overload of digital technology.”
Thomas P. Campbell
Thomas P. Campbell
Studying abroad is always a big adventure. There are many things to see and do that are very different from what we see and do in our own countries, and these differences are part of the charm of foreign travel. One activity which people often do when travelling overseas is to visit the famous museums of the country they are touring. They do this because they wish to learn more about the region’s history and culture, and because they wish to see world-famous exhibits that cannot be seen anywhere else.
Museums are without doubt a storehouse of a particular nation’s history and culture. Through their exhibits, they chart the course of the country’s development. Museums often describe a nation’s journey from prehistory to modernity, and this description is enriched by the display of historical artifacts such as tools, weapons, clothes and jewelry. A good example is the mfa in Boston. You can obtain valuable insights into the American history. It is always easier to appreciate a place if you know something of its past, and museums certainly help us to do that.
A further attraction of museums is that they often contain special collections, which are rarely, or even never, allowed to be displayed abroad. This may be because they are too valuable or perhaps too delicate. Many of the works of world-famous artists fall into this category. If one wishes to see the Mona Lisa with one’s own eyes for instance then a visit to the Louvre in Paris is necessary.
Revolutionary Boston
By 1750, Boston had grown into a prosperous and cosmopolitan town of about 15,000 people. The closest major American seaport to England, it was an important hub for Atlantic trade, in close touch with the Europe and the Caribbean. Wealthy merchants built elegant homes and filled them with expensive objects, both imported from England and made here. Like other ports in the English colonies, Boston was overwhelmingly influenced by trends in London, and many ways it resembled a provincial British town.
But there was a difference: Though the colonists were subject to British laws, they had no representation in the British parliament. During the 1760s, parliament attempted to assert more direct control in North America, mostly to increase tax revenue. The burden of “taxation without representation” came to seem intolerable to many. Boston became a hotbed of discontent and unrest. As the situation escalated, revolutionary groups like the Sons of Liberty began to encourage open insurrection. This gallery captures the paradox of the moment. The furniture, portraits, and silver here would have been much at home in eighteenth-century England; yet the people in the portraits – including Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams – helped spark something very new.
Globalism
Globalism is not a new phenomenon. It began 500 years ago, when ships carrying explorers connected the entire world as never before. Situated between Asia and Europe, the colonial Americas were literally at the center of the first large-scale, worldwide trading network. And through that network, the colonies became the crossroads of a new global artistic culture.
In the Americas, the movement of people and objects brought up-to-date fashions from Europe and Asia, which intermingled with local artistic traditions to create vibrant new styles. The shipment of raw materials, such as mahogany from Caribbean and silver from Europe and Latin America, not to mention Chinese tea and West Indian sugar, changed the tastes of Americans. From Quebec City to Lima, from Boston to Mexico City, the regional styles that developed out of these interchanges came to define the cosmopolitanism of the colonial Americas and the European empires that controlled vast territories throughout the hemisphere and across oceans.
The Japan Society of Boston – Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics
Takashi Murakami is one of the most imaginative and important artists working today. The exhibition reveals how Murakami’s contemporary vision is richly inflected by a dynamic conversation with the historical past, framed by a creative dialogue with the great Japanese art historian, Professor Nobuo Tsuji. Together, Murakami and Professor Tsuji have chosen the objects on view in the exhibition, including paintings and sculpture created by the artist in direct response to Japanese masterpieces from the MFA’s collection.
All the great cities of the world are home to museums, many of which are national museums that showcase the best of a nation’s heritage. Many of these museums also contain collections that are unique, and unable to be experienced anywhere else. It is this blend of cultural heritage on display and uniqueness that attracts people to museums. For international students a visit to a foreign city is always enhanced by time spent in that city’s museums.
With love from Boston,
Sibel
With love from Boston,
Sibel
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