Renaissance art
Renaissance art is the painting and decorative arts of the period of European history, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature and science. Renaissance art, perceived as the noblest of ancient traditions, took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, but transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge. Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age. In many parts of Europe, Early Renaissance art was created in parallel with Late Medieval art. Renaissance art, sculpture, architecture and literature produced during the 14th, 15th, 16th centuries in Europe under the combined influences of an increased awareness of nature, a revival of classical learning, a more individualistic view of man.
Scholars no longer believe that the Renaissance marked an abrupt break with medieval values, as is suggested by the French word renaissance “rebirth.” Rather, historical sources suggest that interest in nature, humanistic learning, individualism were present in the late medieval period and became dominant in 15th- and 16th-century Italy concurrently with social and economic changes such as the secularization of daily life, the rise of a rational money-credit economy, increased social mobility. The influences upon the development of Renaissance men and women in the early 15th century are those that affected Philosophy, Architecture, Science and other aspects of society; the following list presents a summary, dealt with more in the main articles that are cited above. Classical texts, lost to European scholars for centuries, became available; these included Philosophy, Poetry, Science, a thesis on the Arts, Early Christian Theology. Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Islamic scholars.
The advent of movable type printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public. The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, Florence. Cosimo de' Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy. Humanist philosophy meant that man's relationship with humanity, the universe and with God was no longer the exclusive province of the Church. A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello; the revival of a style of architecture based on classical precedents inspired a corresponding classicism in painting and sculpture, which manifested itself as early as the 1420s in the paintings of Masaccio and Uccello. The improvement of oil paint and developments in oil-painting technique by Dutch artists such as Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes led to its adoption in Italy from about 1475 and had lasting effects on painting practices, worldwide.
The serendipitous presence within the region of Florence in the early 15th century of certain individuals of artistic genius, most notably Masaccio, Ghiberti, Piero della Francesca and Michelozzo formed an ethos out of which sprang the great masters of the High Renaissance, as well as supporting and encouraging many lesser artists to achieve work of extraordinary quality. A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through the talented Bellini family, their influential in-law Mantegna, Giorgione and Tintoretto; the publication of two treatises by Leone Battista Alberti, De Pitura, 1435, De re aedificatoria, 1452. In Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, the sculpture of Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni Pisano, working at Pisa and Pistoia shows markedly classicising tendencies influenced by the familiarity of these artists with ancient Roman sarcophagi, their masterpieces are the pulpits of the Cathedral of Pisa. Contemporary with Giovanni Pisano, the Florentine painter Giotto developed a manner of figurative painting, unprecedentedly naturalistic, three-dimensional and classicist, when compared with that of his contemporaries and teacher Cimabue.
Giotto, whose greatest work is the cycle of the Life of Christ at the Arena Chapel in Padua, was seen by the 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari as "rescuing and restoring art" from the "crude, Byzantine style" prevalent in Italy in the 13th century. The painters of the Low Countries in this period included Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, Robert Campin, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes, their painting developed independently of Early Italian Renaissance painting, without the influence of a deliberate and conscious striving to revive antiquity. The style of painting grew directly out of medieval painting in tempera, on panels and illuminated manuscripts, other forms such as stained glass; the medium used was oil paint, which had long been utilised for painting leather ceremonial shields and accoutrements, because it was flexible and durable. The earliest Netherlandish oil paintings are detailed like tempera paintings; the material lent itself to the depiction of
The Fens (Boston, Massachusetts)
The Back Bay Fens called The Fens, is a parkland and urban wild in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was established in 1879. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to serve as a link in the Emerald Necklace park system, the Fens gives its name to the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, thereby to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox; the Fens is a large picturesque park. It is an ancient spot of saltwater marshland, surrounded by dry land, disconnected from the tides of the Atlantic Ocean, landscaped into a park with fresh water within; the park is known as the Fens or the Fenway. The latter term can refer to either the surrounding neighborhood or the parkway on its southern border; when Boston was settled in the early 17th century the Shawmut Peninsula on which it was built was connected to Roxbury by a spit of sandy ground called "The Neck." The adjacent area of marshland to the west was a tidal flat of the Charles River. The area became malodorous with time. For the dual purpose of eliminating the health and aesthetic problem created by the polluted bay waters and creating new and valuable Boston real estate, a series of land reclamation projects was begun in 1820 and continued for the rest of the century.
The filling of present-day Back Bay was completed by 1882. Filling reached Kenmore Square in 1890 and finished in the Fens in 1900; these projects more than doubled the size of the Shawmut Peninsula. Olmsted's challenge was to restore the spot of marsh, preserved into an ecologically healthy place that could be enjoyed as a recreation area. Combining his renowned landscaping talents with state-of-the-art sanitary engineering, he turned a foul-smelling tidal creek and swamp into "scenery of a winding, brackish creek, within wooded banks. However, in 1910 a dam was constructed at Craigie's Bridge, closing the Charles River estuary to the ocean tides and forming a body of freshwater above the dam. Thus, the Fens became a freshwater lagoon accepting storm water from the Charles River Basin. Soon after, noted landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff, a protégé of Olmsted, added new features such as the Kelleher Rose Garden and employed the more formal landscape style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. An athletic field was added.
In 1941, at the outbreak of United States involvement in World War II, citizens planted a victory garden within the Fens. While these were common in their era, the one in the Fens is now the last continually operating Victory Garden in existence and today is a much-valued community garden of flowers and vegetables. In 1961, a group of East Fenway friends and neighbors gathered to address issues in their neighborhood, they formed. Volunteers took on projects to clean their streets, beautify their surroundings, protect their residents from crime. Soon the group started advocating for improved maintenance of parkland and other elements to ensure a safe, enjoyable neighborhood. In 1983, the Back Bay Fens were designated as a Boston Landmarks; the gardens are now named after Richard D. Parker, one of the original organizers of the garden, who continued to garden there until his death in 1975; because of his efforts, the Victory Gardens in the Fenway are one of only two remaining victory gardens in the U.
S. dating back to World War II. During World War II, President Roosevelt stated. Much of the food grown was sent to the armed forces, the remaining portions were rationed; the City of Boston set up 49 areas to grow gardens, including plots on Boston Common and Boston Public Garden. The Fenway Victory Gardens were established in 1942; these gardens are a central part of the Fenway community and are well known to gardeners across the country. The gardens provide the residents in the Boston neighborhoods with personal space to grow vegetables or flowers, are private; the Agassiz Road Duck House was designed by architect Alexander Longfellow, built in 1897. It was used as a public restroom facility, was closed after a damaging fire in 1986; the Duck House is sited within a prominent landscape in The Fens adjacent to the Agassiz Road bridge—the only building along that roadway. Agassiz Road is a significant pedestrian link between the East and West Fenway neighborhoods though it provides only one-way vehicular circulation.
Much of the building that we see today is original. While the Duck House itself is not a Boston Landmark, its rustic style and relationship to the park makes it an important contributing feature to the Back Bay Fens; the City of Boston has been reviewing possible ways to revive the Duck House with such ideas as a bicycle rental shop or café. Dedicated on December 27, 1925, the Fire Alarm Office is located at 59 The Fenway, near the intersection of Westland Avenue and Hemenway Street, it is a neoclassical limestone building in the shape of a villa, with large ornate bronze entry doors to one side. All fire alarm circuits along with radio and telephone communications for the Boston Fire Department are controlled from this site; the building has an independent generator to provide electrical power in the event of power disruptions. In 1905, the formal entrance to Olmsted's park was switched to the end of Westland Avenue, where the Westland Gate marks a somewhat grand portal to the park; the Katharine Lee Bates monument is a freestanding granite tablet inset with a bronze plaque on Agassiz Road overlooking the Mu
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft
On March 18, 1990, 13 works of art valued at a combined total of $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. In the early hours, guards admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call. Once inside, the thieves tied up the guards and over the next hour committed the largest-value recorded theft of private property in history. Despite efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and multiple probes around the world, no arrests have been made and no works have been recovered; the museum offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to the art's recovery, but in 2017 this was temporarily doubled to $10 million, with an expiration date set to the end of the year. This was extended into 2018 following helpful tips from the public; the stolen works had been purchased by art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner and intended to be left on permanent display at the museum with the rest of her collection. Since the collection and its layout are permanent, empty frames remain hanging both in homage to the missing works and as placeholders for their potential return.
Experts are puzzled by the choice of paintings that were stolen since more valuable artwork was left untouched. Among the stolen works was The Concert, one of only 34 known works by Vermeer and thought to be the most valuable unrecovered painting, valued at over $200 million. Missing is The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt's only known seascape. Other works by Rembrandt, Degas and Flinck were stolen. According to the FBI, the stolen artwork was moved through the region and offered for sale in Philadelphia during the early 2000s, they believe the thieves were members of a criminal organization based in the mid-Atlantic and New England. They claim to have targeted two suspects, although they have not been publicly identified and are now deceased. Boston gangster Bobby Donati, murdered in 1991 as a result of ongoing gang wars, has been cited as a possible collaborator in the heist. Significant evidence suggests that Hartford, Connecticut gangster Robert Gentile knows the location of the works, although he denies involvement.
Around midnight on Sunday morning, March 18, 1990, a red Dodge Daytona pulled up near the side entrance of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum along Palace Road. Two men with fake police uniforms waited for at least an hour in the car trying to avoid being noticed by people leaving a Saint Patrick's Day party nearby. Around 1 a.m. security guard Richard Abath returned to the front desk after patrolling the museum to switch positions with a fellow guard, the only other person in the building. At this time, Abath opened and shut the Palace Road door, claiming he was trained to do this to ensure the door was locked, he claimed. The FBI has not commented on the issue further. At 1:24 a.m. one of the two men outside pushed the buzzer near the door and told Abath they were policemen who heard of a disturbance in the courtyard, requested to be let inside. Abath knew he should not let uninvited guests inside, but he was unsure on whether the rule applied to police officers, he believed them to be police officers based on their uniforms.
With his partner on patrol, Abath decided to buzz in the men. When the intruders arrived at the main security desk, one of them told Abath that he looked familiar and there was a default warrant out for his arrest. Abath stepped out from behind his desk, where the only alarm button to alert police could be accessed, he was asked for his ID, ordered to face the wall, handcuffed. Abath believed the arrest was a misunderstanding, until he realized he hadn't been frisked before being cuffed, one officer's mustache was made of wax; the second security guard arrived minutes and was handcuffed, after which he asked the intruders why he was being arrested. The thieves explained that they were not being arrested, but rather this was a robbery, proceeded to take the guards to the museum's basement, they handcuffed the guards to pipes and wrapped duct tape around their hands and heads. Since the museum was equipped with motion detectors, the thieves' movements throughout the museum were recorded. After tying up the guards, the thieves went upstairs to the Dutch Room.
As one of them approached Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, a local alarm sounded, which they smashed. They attempted to take the wooden panel out of its heavy frame. Unsuccessful at the attempt, they left the painting on the floor, they cut Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee out of the frame, as well as A Lady and Gentleman in Black. They removed Vermeer's The Concert and Govaert Flinck's Landscape with Obelisk from their frames. Additionally, they took a Chinese bronze gu from the Shang dynasty. Elsewhere in the museum, they stole an eagle finial; the finial sat at the top of a Napoleonic flag, which they attempted to unscrew from the wall, but failed. Manet's Chez Tortoni was stolen from its location in the Blue Room. Motion detector records show that the only footsteps detected in the Blue Room that night were at 12:27 a.m. and again at 12:53 a.m. These times match to; the frame for the painting was found on security chief Lyle W. Grindle's chair near the front desk; the thieves made two trips to their car with artwork during the theft.
Before leaving, they visited the guards once more, telling them "You'll be hearing from us in about a year," although they were never heard from again. The guards remained handcuffed until poli
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone not associated with the group. Bounties are most issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object, they are in the form of money. By definition bounties can be retracted at any time by whomever issued them. Two modern examples of bounties are the bounty placed for the capture of Saddam Hussein and his sons by the United States government and Microsoft's bounty for computer virus creators; those who make a living by pursuing bounties are known as bounty hunters. Written promises of reward for the capture of or information regarding criminals go back to at least the first century Roman Empire. Graffiti from Pompeii, a Roman city, destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, contained the following message: A copper pot went missing from my shop. Anyone who returns it to me will be given 65 bronze coins. 20 more will be given for information leading to the capture of the thief. A bounty system was used in the American Civil War.
It was an incentive to increase enlistments. Another bounty system was used in New South Wales to increase the number of immigrants from 1832. Bounties were sometimes paid as rewards for killing Native Americans. In 1862, a farmer received a bounty for shooting Taoyateduta. In 1856 Governor Isaac Stevens put a bounty on the head of Indians from Eastern Washington, for ordinary Indians and for a "chief". A Western Washington Indian, chief of the Snohomish, obligingly provided a great many heads, until the Territorial Auditor put a stop to the practice due to the dubious origins of the deceased. In Australia in 1824, a bounty of 500 acres of land was offered for capturing alive the Wiradjuri warrior Windradyne, the leader of the Aboriginal resistance movement in the Bathurst Wars. A week after the bounty being offered the word "alive" was dropped from the reward notices, however he was neither captured nor betrayed by his people. Bounties have been offered on animals deemed undesirable by particular corporations.
In Tasmania, the thylacine was relentlessly hunted to extinction based on such schemes. Gray wolves too were extirpated from much of the present United States by bounty hunters. An example of the legal sanction granted can be found in a Massachusetts Bay Colony law dated May 7, 1662: "This Court doth Order, as an encouragement to persons to destroy Woolves, That henceforth every person killing any Woolf, shall be allowed out of the Treasury of that County where such woolf was slain, Twenty shillings, by the Town Ten shillings, by the County Treasurer Ten shillings: which the Constable of each Town shall pay out of the next County rate, which the Treasurer shall allow." Since after the Restoration criminality was increasing, the dissatisfaction with the penal system led to the implementation of the rewards. £10 were promised to anyone who gave information about a robber or burglar and a pardon was granted to convicts able to provide evidences against their accomplices. Between 1660 and 1692 Parliament introduced a series of statutes that offered rewards up to £40.
Under William III the rewards became a systematic element in the fight against crime, an alternative to erase the most dangerous threats to the community. The first example of permanent reward was in 1692, when £40 were offered for the discovery and the conviction of offenders who committed serious property crimes: highway robbery and housebreaking, coining and other offences; the trial judges became fundamental to the administration of the rewards system because the statutes put them in charge of apportioning the reward among the persons who claimed to have participated in procuring the conviction. As it was written in the legislation of 1692 "...in case any Dispute shall happen to arise between the persons so apprehending any the said Thieves and Robbers touching their right and title to the said Reward that the said Judge or Justices so certifying as aforesaid shall in and by their said Certificate direct and appoint the said Reward to be paid unto and amongst the Parties claimeing the same in such share and proportions as to the said Judge or Justices shall seem just and reasonable" In the 18th century the government episodically offered rewards by proclamation: in 1720 a royal proclamation offered £100 for the unmasking of murderers or highway robbers, sometimes worth as much as £100.
When a statutory reward overlapped a proclamation, prosecuting or convicting of a highway robber could be worth £140 a head, £240 for a pair or £420 for a three-person group. These were huge sums at the time when an artisan earned about £20 and a labourer less than £15 per year. Supplementary reward was part of the administration of the law for six years with the death of George I it came to an end. After two years, in February 1728 a new proclamation reinstated the £100 reward by respecting the original terms. Private parties were free to offer rewards in addition to rewards by proclamations this practice was taken up by governmental departments and local authorities. In 1716, Robert Griffith was indicted for stealing from Thomas Brooks, one silver watch, value £51, one gold watch, value £18, from Mary Smith, she offered a reward of £ 15 to anyone. The reward was received by Mr. Holder, after he brought Mrs. Smith the silver watch, stolen. In 1732 Henry Carey offered a reward of 2 guineas for the securing of Richard Marshall, 3 more for his conviction.
Marshall together with Mary Horsenail and Amy Mason were indicted
Massachusetts
Massachusetts the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, New York to the west; the state is named after the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the east side of the area, is one of the original thirteen states. The capital of Massachusetts is Boston, the most populous city in New England. Over 80% of Massachusetts's population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history and industry. Dependent on agriculture and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts's economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, higher education and maritime trade. Plymouth was the site of the second colony in New England after Popham Colony in 1607 in what is now Maine.
Plymouth was founded in 1620 by passengers of the Mayflower. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, including interchangeable parts. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution; the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a powerful commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements.
In the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U. S. state to recognize same-sex marriage as a result of the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families. Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, with the largest financial endowment of any university, Harvard Law School has educated a contemporaneous majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet", in reference to the high concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and quality of innovation which have emerged in the vicinity of the square since 2010. Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most regarded academic institutions in the world.
Massachusetts' public-school students place among the top tier in the world in academic performance, the state has been ranked as one of the top states in the United States for citizens to live in, as well as one of the most expensive. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett derived from a Wôpanâak word muswach8sut, segmented as mus "big" + wach8 "mountain" + -s "diminutive" + -ut "locative", it has been translated as "near the great hill", "by the blue hills", "at the little big hill", or "at the range of hills", referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular the Great Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton. Alternatively, Massachusett has been represented as Moswetuset—from the name of the Moswetuset Hummock in Quincy, where Plymouth Colony commander Myles Standish, hired English military officer, Squanto, part of the now disappeared Patuxet band of the Wampanoag peoples, met Chief Chickatawbut in 1621; the official name of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts".
While this designation is part of the state's official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has powers within the United States as other states, it may have been chosen by John Adams for the second draft of the Massachusetts Constitution because unlike the word "state", "commonwealth" at the time had the connotation of a republic, in contrast to the monarchy the former American colonies were fighting against. Massachusetts was inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, these tribes were dependent on hunting and fishing for most of their food. Villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. In the early 1600s, after contact had been made with Europeans, large numbers of the indigenous peoples in the northeast of what is now the United States were killed by virgin soil epidemics such as smallpox, measles and leptospirosis.
Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed ap
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is the fifth largest museum in the United States. It contains more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than one million visitors a year, it is the 60th most-visited art museum in the world as of 2017. Founded in 1870, the museum moved to its current location in 1909; the museum is affiliated with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. The Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1870 and was located on the top floor of the Boston Athenaeum and most of its initial collection came from the Athenæum's Art Gallery. Francis Davis Millet, a local artist, was instrumental in starting the Art School affiliated with the museum, in appointing Emil Otto Grundmann as its first director. In 1876, the museum moved to a ornamented brick Gothic Revival building designed by John Hubbard Sturgis and Charles Brigham, noted for its massed architectural terracotta, it was located in Copley Square at St. James Streets.
It was built entirely of brick and terracotta, imported from England, with some stone about its base. In 1907, plans were laid to build a new home for the museum on Huntington Avenue in Boston's Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, near the recently-constructed mansion that would become the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Museum trustees decided to hire architect Guy Lowell to create a design for a museum that could be built in stages, as funding was obtained for each phase. Two years the first section of Lowell’s neoclassical design was completed, it featured a 500-foot façade of a grand rotunda. The museum moved to its new location that year; the second phase of construction built a wing along The Fens to house paintings galleries. It was funded by Maria Antoinette Evans Hunt, the wife of wealthy business magnate Robert Dawson Evans, opened in 1915. From 1916 through 1925, the noted artist John Singer Sargent painted the frescoes that adorn the rotunda and the associated colonnades; the Decorative Arts Wing was built in 1928 and expanded in 1968.
An addition designed by Hugh Stubbins and Associates was built in 1966–70, another by The Architects Collaborative in 1976. The West Wing, now the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, was designed by I. M. Pei and opened in 1981; this wing now houses the museum's cafe, meeting rooms, a giftshop/bookstore, as well as large exhibition spaces. The Tenshin-En Japanese Garden designed by Kinsaku Nakane opened in 1988, the Norma Jean Calderwood Garden Court and Terrace opened in 1997. In the mid-2000s, the museum launched a major effort to expand its facilities. In a seven-year fundraising campaign between 2001 and 2008 for a new wing, the endowment, operating expenses, the museum managed to total over $500 million, in addition to acquiring over $160 million worth of art. During the global financial crisis between 2007 and 2012, the museum's budget was trimmed by $1.5 million and the museum increased revenues by conducting traveling exhibitions, which included a loan exhibition sent to the for-profit Bellagio in Las Vegas in exchange for $1 million.
In 2011, Moody's Investors Service calculated that the museum had over $180 million in outstanding debt. However, the agency cited growing attendance, a large endowment, positive cash flow as reasons to believe that the museum's finances would become stable in the near future. In 2011, the museum put eight paintings by Monet, Pissarro, Sisley and others on sale at Sotheby's, bringing in a total of $21.6 million, to pay for Man at His Bath by Gustave Caillebotte at a cost reported to be more than $15 million. The renovation included a new Art of the Americas Wing to feature artwork from North and Central America. In 2006, the groundbreaking ceremonies took place; the wing and adjoining Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard were designed in a restrained, contemporary style by the London-based architectural firm Foster and Partners, under the directorship of Thomas T. Difraia and CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Architects; the landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol redesigned the Huntington Avenue and Fenway entrances, access roads, interior courtyards.
The wing opened on November 2010 with free admission to the public. Mayor Thomas Menino declared it "Museum of Fine Arts Day", more than 13,500 visitors attended the opening; the 12,000-square-foot glass-enclosed courtyard features a 42.5-foot high glass sculpture, titled the Lime Green Icicle Tower, by Dale Chihuly. In 2014, the Art of the Americas Wing was recognized for its high architectural achievement by being awarded the Harleston Parker Medal, by the Boston Society of Architects. In 2015, the museum renovated Tenshin-en; the garden, which opened in 1988, was designed by Japanese professor Kinsaku Nakane. The garden's kabukimon-style entrance gate was built by Chris Hall of Massachusetts, using traditional Japanese carpentry techniques; the Museum of Fine Arts possesses materials from a wide variety of art cultures. The museum maintains a large online database with information on over 346,000 items from its collection, accompanied with digitized images; some highlights of the collection include: Egyptian artifacts including sculptures and jewelry Dutch Golden Age painting, including 113 works given in 2017 by collectors Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo and Susan and Matthew Weatherbie The gift includes works from 76 artists, as well as the Haverkamp-Begemann Library, a collection of more than 20,000 books, donated by the van Otterloos.
The donors are establishing a dedic
American Alliance of Museums
The American Alliance of Museums the American Association of Museums, is a non-profit association that has brought museums together since its founding in 1906, helping develop standards and best practices and sharing knowledge, advocating on issues of concern to the museum community. AAM is dedicated to ensuring that museums remain a vital part of the American landscape, connecting people with the greatest achievements of the human experience, past and future. AAM is the only organization representing the entire scope of museums and professionals and nonpaid staff who work for and with museums. AAM represents more than 25,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, 4,000 institutions and 150 corporate members. Individual members span the range of occupations in museums, including directors, registrars, exhibit designers, public relations officers, development officers, security managers and volunteers; every type of museum is represented by the more than 4,000 institutional members, including art, science, military and youth museums, as well as public aquariums, botanical gardens, historic sites, science and technology centers.
At the 2014 American Alliance of Museums conference, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced there are now at least 35,000 museums in the US. An informal meeting was held at the National Museum in Washington, D. C. on December 21, 1905, for the “purpose of discussing the advisability of endeavoring to establish an association of the museums of America.” 1906: Foundation 1911: Directory of North and South American museums published 1923: Headquarters established in Washington, D. C. 1925: Code of Ethics for Museum Workers adopted 1925: $2,500 grant from the Carnegie Corporation for research on museum fatigue 1927: Laurence Vail Coleman, President 1958: Joseph Allen Patterson, President 1961: Museum directory published 1964: Museums included in the National Arts and Cultural Development Act 1966: National Museum Act passed 1968: Belmont Report recommends developing accreditation program to help support museums, Kyran M. McGrath, President 1969: Accreditation program created on recommendation of a committee chaired by Holman J. Swinney 1969: 1975: Richard McLanathan, President 1971: The Public Museum of Grand Rapids and fifteen additional museums are the first accredited 1976: New constitution adopted 1978: Lawrence L. Reger, President 1980: Museum Assessment Program created on recommendation of a committee chaired by E. Alvin Gearhardt, with MAP supported through a cooperative agreement with IMS, the Institute of Museum Services 1986: Edward H. Able, President 2003: Launch of the Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal 2006: Year of the Museum – 100th anniversary of AAM 2007: Ford W. Bell, President 2009: First Comprehensive Strategic Plan “The Spark” adopted 2012: Name changed to "American Alliance of Museums" 2015: Laura L. Lott, President Media&Technology is a Professional Network of the American Alliance of Museums, a leading museums organization in the United States.
The M&T Network is the AAM link between museums and media technologies. As such, it identifies and advocates appropriate uses of media technologies in helping museums meet the needs of their diverse publics. Membership is limited to institutions or individuals that are members of AAM; the mission of the M&T is "to identify and advocate a broad variety of program uses for media and technology in helping museum professionals meet the needs of their diverse publics". "The Spark" is the first comprehensive strategic plan in AAM’s recent history. It articulates a vision for museums, the field and AAM; the mission highlights AAM's commitment to leadership, advocacy and service."The Spark" contains four goals: excellence, advocacy and alignment. Hermon Carey Bumpus, director of the American Museum of Natural History William M. R. French, director of the Art Institute of Chicago William Jacob Holland, director of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Frederic A. Lucas, director of the American Museum of Natural History Frederick J.
V. Skiff, director of the Field Museum of Natural History Edward S. Morse, director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Henry L. Ward, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum Benjamin Ives Gilman, secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Oliver C. Farrington, Field Museum of Natural History Henry R. Howland, director of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences Newton H. Carpenter, executive secretary of the Art Institute of Chicago Paul M. Rea, director of the Charleston Museum Frederic Allen Whiting, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art Chauncey J. Hamlin, president of the Buffalo Society of Natural Science and a founder of ICOM Fiske Kimball, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Paul J. Sachs, associate director of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Herbert E. Winlock, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Clark Wissler, curator of the Department of Anthropology, Yale University David E. Finley, director of the National Gallery of Art and chairman of the National Trust for Historic Preservation George H. Edgell, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Albert E. Parr, director of the American Museum of Natural History William M. Milliken, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art Edward
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