Out of all the museums i have visited in my life, Paris, London, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, I must say that the Elizabeth Stuart Gardner museum in Boston was/is the most impressive and over all aesthetically pleasing. The whole museum, 4 stories tall in which she lived on the fourth floor, is one with the art. There seems to be no distinction between the art on display and the walls they are fastened to. The courtyard is a sight to behold from every opening that looks down on it as you ascend through the collection.
El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent hangs on the wall at the end of a long hall on the left side of the courtyard. It had it's own section, just inside an archway probably brought over from egypt or morocco and reconstructed there to sit, as an opening in front of the large canvas. The Flamenco scene spilled out of the canvas into the museum where antique pottery was placed on the grey floor that matched the walls in the painting, because of that the music and dancing came to life. To the left of the painting, inside it's little cove, was a mirror that reflected the whole painting, making the scene stretch into another dimension. I later learned that it was there so that, from across the courtyard, at a certain angle, through a medieval, bullet shaped window, one could see the dancer's reflection framed by the stone.
Mostly, it brought me back to the back room of a bar in Madrid, where i sat in the past, drinking Sangria by myself, watching Flamenco dancers do their fiery dance and all the wine and music and sensuality of their movements mystified me, was that a dream? (all those distant memories, like the gypsy, sleeping on the desert floor under the moonlight and a lion has come to stand over him and sniff, never knowing how large it looms, he's at peace.) So i learned that paintings, to be successful, must first be fluid or composed in such a way that the observer's eyes shoot from here to there following the artist's design, and second, they should transport you to full blown reverie that touches all the senses.
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