Although it tends to be one of the coldest, most miserable months of the year, February is also known as the month of love. This year, the MFA seized the opportunity to bring together true love and broken hearts through an all-month promotion entitled “Love at the MFA.”
The month’s events, designed for soul mates and broken hearts alike, range from inviting visitors to pose in “Cupid’s favorite photo spots” at the museum, to gallery talks about “Broken Hearts” and “Odd Couples,” to an “Arts + Hearts Party,” which took place over Valentine’s Day weekend and included a visit from Boston.com “Love Letters” advice columnist Meredith Goldstein.
The party offered cocktails and appetizers for purchase, but the highlights were Goldstein’s “spotlight talks,” where with the help of MFA Head of Interpretation Adam Tessier, she offered her personal view on various love-themed works of art.
For example, Goldstein’s initial impression of John White Alexander’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil (pictured below) was that the subject was “just really in love with gardening or something.” Later she learned that “as it turns out, there is a head in that pot.”
Tessier elaborated by explaining the tragic backstory behind the painting, wherein Isabella’s brothers murdered her lower-class lover, Lorenzo, after which the painting’s subject bathed Lorenzo’s head in her tears and hid it in a pot, where she planted basil, a plant associated with lovers.
When Tessier asked Goldstein what words of guidance she would have offered to Isabella, Goldstein answered with advice that rings true for any broken hearted college girl of today. “Grief is addictive,” she said, adding, “You can only be caressing that pot for so long.”
The spotlight talks were an amusement and a learning experience for both the audience and the presenters.
“I would look at them without any context,” said Goldstein of the paintings. “It’s been fascinating to see how wrong I am.”
Tessier has also enjoyed the exercise. Though he brings his own expertise to the table, he enjoys hearing Goldstein’s unique perspective.
“Meredith’s take on the works is so interesting – we thought it would be fun to team up for this,” he said, adding that the project was different than what he was used to but a “totally effective” learning method.
Goldstein couldn’t agree more. “It’s a great way to get to know art, because I have a short attention span,” she said.
Visitors that attended Goldstein’s spotlight talks were encouraged to share their experience on social media and to tag their photos with #mfalove for a chance to be featured in a photo gallery on the museum’s website and be entered to win an exclusive MFA experience.
“It’s really cool to see what personal connections people have to the museum,” said Isabella Bulkeley, the museum’s public relations coordinator, of the online initiative. “We love to see people share their time at the museum on social media.”
Admission is free for Northeastern students, so if you haven’t been to the MFA yet this year, now is a great time for a visit. Even if you missed the “Arts and Hearts” party, there are still a number of upcoming gallery talks and love-themed exhibitions on display, including “Court Ladies or Pin-up Girls? Chinese Paintings from the MFA, Boston,” “Hollywood Glamour: Fashion and Jewelry from the Silver Screen,” and a visiting masterpiece: Gustav Klimt’s Adam and Eve. The promotion is meant to be enjoyable for everyone, regardless of relationship status, so there’s no reason not to join in on the #mfalove.