January 22, 2005
What a neat museum!
Today my boyfriend and I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It's a really interesting place. It's extremely different from most modern museums--I hadn't known that Gardner had requested that things stay exactly as she put them. And they have, for almost 100 years. This makes the museum much more personal than many. For the most part, the pieces aren't arranged by place or time of creation, but rather in a manner designed to help visitors use their imaginations. This, combined with the infrequency of those informative little plaques that accompany all the works in most museums, was somewhat disconcerting at first. I think it was useful for me, though. A good challenge. In most museums, I tend to read virtually all of the information given, and sometimes spend more time reading the captions than actually looking at the art. (I'm a very word-oriented person, in case you haven't figured that out.) So not having that option at this museum was good for me.
Oh, and the courtyard is just magnificent. If you are ever in Boston, go. Just the courtyard alone is worth it.