Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts Sparkles

After a week of snow, rain, ice, sleet, wind, and cold in ye olde Vermont, I decided to escape. I’ve got lots of frequent-flyer miles so thought “long weekend in Mexico City,” which I’ve never visited. Lots of art, it’s warm, and there’s no snow. Schedules and deadlines upheaved my planning, alas. I did indeed escape but to Boston, a place with marginally less snow, rain, ice, sleet, wind, and cold but, still, less. I hadn’t been to the Museum of Fine Arts in a year or so. I always love my visits there, and after days of temperatures near zero, Boston’s 20 degrees feels tropical. And I found sparkle and sheen where I least expected it.

I hadn’t seen Alan Michelson’s two new bronze, platinum-gilded sculptures, The Knowledge Keepers, installed in November on each of two empty plinths that stand in front of the MFA, flanking the granite steps to the main entrance. They’re attractive, intelligent complements, and some will say retorts, to Appeal to the Great Spirit, Cyrus Dallin’s 1912 sculpture of a Native American man, on horseback and nearly nude, his head and arms raised to the sky in prayer. Appeal to the Great Spirit stands plunk in the center of the plaza at the MFA’s front steps.

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Brian T. Allen

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

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After a week of snow, rain, ice, sleet, wind, and cold in ye olde Vermont, I decided to escape. I’ve got lots of frequent-flyer miles so thought “long weekend in Mexico City,” which I’ve never visited. Lots of art, it’s warm, and there’s no snow. Schedules and deadlines upheaved my planning, alas. I did indeed escape but to Boston, a place with marginally less snow, rain, ice, sleet, wind, and cold but, still, less. I hadn’t been to the Museum of Fine Arts in a year or so. I always love my visits there, and after days of temperatures near zero, Boston’s 20 degrees feels tropical. And I found sparkle and sheen where I least expected it.

I hadn’t seen Alan Michelson’s two new bronze, platinum-gilded sculptures, The Knowledge Keepers, installed in November on each of two empty plinths that stand in front of the MFA, flanking the granite steps to the main entrance. They’re attractive, intelligent complements, and some will say retorts, to Appeal to the Great Spirit, Cyrus Dallin’s 1912 sculpture of a Native American man, on horseback and nearly nude, his head and arms raised to the sky in prayer. Appeal to the Great Spirit stands plunk in the center of the plaza at the MFA’s front steps.