Art in 2024: Dogs, Dinosaurs, Madonnas, and More

I’ve written a lot about Christmas as a time for reminiscence so, in my last piece for 2024, I’ll look at art I’ve seen this year that’s moved me the most. Memories of Lotusland, the botanical garden in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, warm me on cold, icy, snowy, gray Vermont days, but man does not live on sun, chic, succulents, and bromeliads alone. I’d never written about a botanical garden before, and beyond Lotusland’s lush, sculpted landscape are serious scholarship and conservation. It preserves hundreds of rare, often unique plants. We mortals can’t beat God’s aesthetics, either.

I called it “an unforgettable experience,” and at only 37 acres, it’s a gem of many colors and gardens of all types. Its founder and patron, Ganna Walska, was a self-made woman and should be the subject of a Hollywood movie. She was a hothouse flower with a vision and with grit. Lotusland’s probably the only animal, mineral, and vegetable in Montecito that isn’t rich. It’s a not-for-profit, has good governance, a new master plan, and a capital campaign underway. I love Santa Barbara. I’d move there in a minute, but don’t have the wiles to marry a dumb, rich duke or know the lyrics to “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” both verses and all the refrain.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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I’ve written a lot about Christmas as a time for reminiscence so, in my last piece for 2024, I’ll look at art I’ve seen this year that’s moved me the most. Memories of Lotusland, the botanical garden in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, warm me on cold, icy, snowy, gray Vermont days, but man does not live on sun, chic, succulents, and bromeliads alone. I’d never written about a botanical garden before, and beyond Lotusland’s lush, sculpted landscape are serious scholarship and conservation. It preserves hundreds of rare, often unique plants. We mortals can’t beat God’s aesthetics, either.

I called it “an unforgettable experience,” and at only 37 acres, it’s a gem of many colors and gardens of all types. Its founder and patron, Ganna Walska, was a self-made woman and should be the subject of a Hollywood movie. She was a hothouse flower with a vision and with grit. Lotusland’s probably the only animal, mineral, and vegetable in Montecito that isn’t rich. It’s a not-for-profit, has good governance, a new master plan, and a capital campaign underway. I love Santa Barbara. I’d move there in a minute, but don’t have the wiles to marry a dumb, rich duke or know the lyrics to “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” both verses and all the refrain.