Museum of Fuiiiine Art, Baybay

At last, I finally made it over to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I wasn't sure what to expect. You don't hear people talk about the MFAB as something spectacular, or rather you don't really hear them talk about it at all. But I had made it a point to go, so with a free ticket from Rodolpho Machado, I coerced myself to take a little trip over to West Boston.

The museum is huge, not well laid out, but full of good art, apart from the building. The museum is located within its original structure, opened in 1876. There are lots of walls and columns and stairways, and really no visibility of the plan. Sir Norman and Foster have just designed a new wing for it that is to be built within the next few years, so perhaps that will modernize the museum a bit. For now, however, it is pretty closed in and lacks a lot of natural light.

I had a chance to run through an exhibit on Napoleon and 19th century French era art/clothing/design. I did literally run. What was more interesting were a couple of exhibits on Japanese art, one entitled the Art of Drama and Desire. This had a lot of the kiyok-e(?) art most associate with Japan. Lots of scenes depicting the brothels and geishas of the "floating districts," home to women of such work. The art was really delicate, for the most part, although there were a couple of pornographic scrolls placed along the back of the show room that were quite unexpected. Apparently, these were shown only at private house gatherings of the artist. Ha, I guess things never change.