(Click the image for the full painting)There's a GREAT article in the Boston Globe today about the Gauguin masterwork "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" which is visiting the MFA's sister museum in Japan and causing all sorts of awe-struck wonder:
One woman in the throng of admirers stood in front of the painting and cried. Another had just driven 2 1/2 hours from Osaka to be among the first to get close to it. "I felt goose bumps in my skin," she said after she did. A third, in halting English, struggled to explain the significance of the work, a dark and ambitious meditation on the meaning of human existence. "The picture purifies us," she said exuberantly. "It gives us power and energy."
The Globe story delves deeper into this quasi-religious fervor over the painting noting:
Though the enormous painting is set in Tahiti and has never been seen before in Asia, the Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players. Gauguin's work is much loved in Japan, where it has a special resonance, with its subtle references to Buddhism, its embrace of the natural world, and the deep Zen-like riddle of its title...To enhance the visual experience, the Nagoya museum created an unusual viewing setup: Visitors ascend a few steps to stand on a raised platform, as though approaching a venerated shrine
Two thoughts:
1) When was the last time a painting visiting the MFA in Boston caused this kind of jubilation? Even Hopper's "Nighthawks" which took a trip to the MFA two years ago wasn't set up over a raised platform!
2) It's stories like this one that make me glad the Globe is still around: revealing, thoughtful, international but with a Boston focus.
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