Book Description
The official companion book to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum"s hundredth anniversary celebration During her lifetime (1840–1924) Isabella Stewart Gardner was at the heart of Victorian Boston"s liveliest salon. Henry and William James, Henry Adams, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John LaFarge, James McNeill Whistler, BernardBerenson, and John Singer Sargent all gathered at Fenway Court, in the company of works by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Titian, Raphael, Rubens,and Rembrandt. One hundred years after its completion, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains as intrepid and idiosyncratic as its creator. The embodimentof one woman"s vision, the Venetian palazzo turned inside out and its wildly eclectic collection of twenty-four centuries of paintings, sculpture, furnishings, and books nonetheless speak very personally to all who enter. At once grand and intimate, the garden courtyard and the terrazzo galleries invite discovery: every visitor (and there have been literally hundreds of thousands), it seems, has a secret corner of the Gardner.In celebration of its centenary, the Gardner Museum has asked artists and thinkers of our own time to go public with their private visions of the Gardner. In this book, filled with 120 color plates, their voices are joined and juxtaposedwith those of Mrs. Gardner"s contemporaries, allowing readers to see the Gardner"s most beloved works through the eyes of such nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers as William James and Bill T. Jones, T. S. Eliot andHenry Louis Gates Jr., Julia Ward Howe and Sister Wendy. Robert Campbell takes as his subject the museum"s architecture, while Wayne Koestenbaum offers a homoerotic reading of works in the collection. Beautifully designed and extravagantly illustrated, Eye of the Beholder offers a richly textured exploration of one of the world"s great art collections.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"During her lifetime, Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) was at the heart of Boston's liveliest salon. Artists and thinkers gathered at Fenway Court around works by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. One hundred years after its opening, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains as innovative and individual as its creator. The embodiment of one women's vision, the museum speaks personally to all who enter." "In celebration of its centennial, the museum has commissioned new photographs and asked writers of our own time to go public with their private visions of the Gardner Museum. In this book, filled with 180 color plates, their voices are joined with those of Mrs. Gardner herself and her contemporaries, allowing readers to see the museum's most beloved works through the eyes of such thinkers as Henry James, Edith Wharton, Bernard Berenson, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry Adams, Okakura Kakuzo, Robert Campbell, Wayne Koestenbaum, Sister Wendy Beckett, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. We can read what artists such as John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Michelangelo, and Titian wrote about their works." This volume offers the fascinating story of Mrs. Gardner and the evolution of one of the nation's most important art collections, the unfortunate victim of a theft in 1990. It also provides a delightful visual tour of the museum's architecture, gardens, and galleries, as well as insightful short essays on the major themes of the collection, from ancient to contemporary art.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal