Looking at art can be intimidating for the untrained. Is this piece impressionist or surrealist? What, exactly, makes it worthy of hanging in a museum?
“Ultimately, it’s subjective,” Lynette Roth, the Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, told the Gazette in 2023. “I can’t convince you to like something because I say, ‘This is a major artist of the 20th century’ — you might not be interested in that. But my experience has been that it will grow on you as you have more context.”
We asked specialists from the Harvard Art Museums to lend us their expertise to help develop that context. Below, they home in on the tiny details that make pieces of art important.
Sparrows get new perch
“Wall Painting Fragment from the Villa at Boscotrecase,” 10 B.C.E.-1 B.C.E.
These sparrows were painted high up on the wall of a villa near Naples, Italy, about 2,000 years ago. Though they have suffered some paint loss, they are still recognizable and so lifelike; standing in a puddle of water, one is drinking and splashing. The original wall was part of a grand villa made for the emperor’s grandson; the whole structure was buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 C.E. When the villa was discovered and excavated in the early 20th century, the recovered fragments went to various museums and this single piece came to Harvard, where it lived in storage for almost a century. When the curators decided to display this piece of decorated wall in our Roman galleries in 2014, I reattached flaking paint and removed accumulated grime from the surface, revealing the bright colors and the glossy, polished red and yellow surfaces.
The birds would not have been very visible up near the ceiling, they were minor decorative elements. Now that this piece of wall lives in the museum at eye level, visitors can have a close look. I love how the coarsely ground mineral pigments used to paint them glitter in the light, how jumpy and flighty and alert the birds seem.
— Kate Smith, Senior Conservator of Paintings, Head of Paintings Lab
Retracing the creative process
“Leaping Antelopes,” c. 1745
This small drawing from the Kota tradition of painting in India measures just 3½ by 7 inches. It has energetic antelopes leaping across it. As a paper conservator, I am tasked with the physical care of the various types of works on paper. What I love most is any and all evidence of the materials the artist may have used.
This drawing also has equally elegant swirls of ink, as the artist tests out various ink colors and dilutions. You can see many grays but there is also a bright orange squiggle and a chartreuse one as well — colors that don’t make an appearance as an antelope. One gets the impression that the paper is not only a mid-18th-century sheet of sketches where the artist works and reworks the prancing antelopes, but it is also a scratch pad. These details put us that much closer to the artist. Speaking of tiny details, don’t miss the small head at lower left as well. I find these small tidbits both delightful and informative.
— Penley Knipe, Philip and Lynn Straus Senior Conservator of Works of Art on Paper and Head of Paper Lab
Try to look away
“Child from the Old Town,” Ernst Thoms, 1925
Currently on view at the museums is a small painting with a monumental impact. In it, a child’s melancholic gaze is highlighted by the strong play of light and shadow on her forehead and around her mouth. The unnamed sitter is described in the work’s title only as an inhabitant of a city center, which we see behind her sketched thinly in oil paint.
In a period of economic and political instability in Germany after World War I, such areas were often plagued by housing instability and a lack of fresh green spaces for working-class families. By lending such dramatic contour to the young girl’s face — as if a spotlight were shining directly at her — Ernst Thoms makes her palpable and challenges us to consider the material circumstances of workers’ lives.
— Lynette Roth, Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum
Echoes of love verse
“Portrait of Maharaja Kumar Sawant Singh of Kishangarh,” 1745
“Inhabit the garden of love, sing of the garden of love. Nagar says: enter the beloved’s dwelling in the garden of love.”
These are the words of Maharaja Sawant Singh, an 18th-century ruler of Kishangarh, Rajasthan, and a poet under the pen name Nagari Das.
In this portrait, the poet-king stands amidst pink roses in full bloom. Gazing down from the window above is his beloved. But my favorite tiny detail — and the most tender and touching one — is the female attendant holding the door ajar. With just the tip of her bejeweled nose and the edge of her red skirt visible, she reaches forward with a sprig of roses, inviting Sawant Singh to “enter the beloved’s dwelling in the garden of love.”
But these words do not accompany the painting. Rather, they are from one of his poems called the “Garden of Love” (or “ʿIshq Chaman”). Dedicated to the divine passion of Krishna for Radha, the poem is an expression of Sawant Singh’s ardent love for Bani Thani, a poet and singer, who is most likely the woman seated at the window.
— Janet O’Brien, Calderwood Curatorial Fellow in South Asian and Islamic Art
Can you spot the tiny animal?
“Garden Carpet,” 18th century
The Islamic Art gallery currently displays a monumental Persian carpet. Dating back to the 18th century, this wool carpet is adorned with a design inspired by gardens. Although many Persian rugs reference gardens through botanical ornament, this example presents a formal garden layout known as the chahar bagh (four-part garden). Such gardens, planted with fruit trees and separated by axial water channels, were an important part of the palatial and urban complexes of the Islamic era in Iran, Central Asia, and later in India. On this carpet, a wide stream of water, intersected by narrower channels, runs through flowerbeds. Amongst this rich design, a tiny animal, possibly a goat, is asymmetrically placed in one of the flowerbeds. Often invisible to the unaware, the little goat appears to be a token left by the weavers of this carpet. Although we do not know the artisans who produced this carpet following an earlier established design, the tiny animal is a reminder of their existence and the liberties they took to insert their identity, only to be revealed to the keen eye.
— Aysin Yoltar-Yildirim, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art
Coin signed by its engraver
“Decadrachm of Syracuse,” Kimon, 405-400 B.C.E.
This silver coin minted in ancient Syracuse is truly remarkable. It is a superb example of miniature engraving. Although it is one of the largest ancient Greek denominations ever minted — worth 10 drachmai — it is only a third bigger in diameter than a U.S. dollar. Yet, the engraving is incredibly detailed: a four-horse chariot on the obverse — unfortunately not well-preserved on this specimen — and the head of the nymph Arethusa complete with a hairnet and jewelry on the reverse. Even more special is the fact that the engraver of the die — the punch used to strike the coin — signed his work! The letter K on the headband just above the forehead is his initial, and his full name is inscribed on the dolphin below her neck: KIMON. This is extremely rare. We only know of a few ancient die engravers by name and Kimon is the most famous and accomplished. There is something so moving about being able to refer to the artist by name, although we know almost nothing else about him. It is a link with this person who lived somewhere around Sicily over 2,400 years ago.
— Laure Marest, Damarete Associate Curator of Ancient Coins
An instant classic
“Marsha,” Dawoud Bey, 1998
Depending on the generation you were born into, you might recall the 2003 Outkast music hit “Hey Ya!” that chorused “shake it like a Polaroid picture.” Believe it or not, this diptych is also a Polaroid picture, but considerably larger. One of these “instant” photographs is closer to 20 inches by 24 inches in size and was literally pulled from its even larger traditional view camera, only a handful of which were ever made and distributed across the globe. The emblematic “squash” of chemistry along each side is an artifact of the sophisticated dye diffusion process.
A light-sensitive sheet is exposed inside of the camera. That same sheet is then squeegeed against a second sheet (coated with dye-receiving material) through reagent pods and motor-driven spreader rolls as the sandwich is pulled out of the camera. After roughly 1½ minutes pass, the two sheets are masterfully peeled apart and the second sheet exhibits the recorded image in color. Like magic! Today, the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments has one of the original 20×24 cameras.
— Tatiana Cole, Conservator of Photographs
Secret preserved in ancient mirror
“Large Eight-Lobed Mirror with Relief Decoration,” eighth century
While examining an eighth-century Chinese bronze mirror under the microscope, I discovered impressions of a long-lost textile hidden among the layers of red, green, and blue corrosion. These pseudomorphs formed over centuries during burial, as the organic fibers decayed and were replaced by copper corrosion perfectly preserving the fabric down to individual fibers. They offer a rare glimpse into ancient textiles that would otherwise be lost to time.
Besides being fascinating, these textile pseudomorphs help recover part of the mirror’s lost narrative. We have no archaeological context to tell us where the mirror was found, who owned it, or how it was placed in the grave, but the impressions left behind speak volumes. Found on both the front and back of the mirror, the pseudomorphs suggest the object was once carefully wrapped in cloth. This was an object owned by a living person who valued it in both life and death.
Finding this unexpected human connection to the past moved me, and the fact that it was not the original textile that survived, but traces of it, preserved through a chemical transformation, makes it all the more compelling.
— Susan Costello, Conservator of Objects and Sculpture
Transported to Pollack’s studio
“No. 2,” Jackson Pollack, 1950
This is a painting that is close to untouched condition with minimal conservation work, as if it has just left Betty Parsons Gallery. In this detail we can see the painting is stapled from the front to hold it onto a wooden stretcher. The canvas has drips and splashes of paint, and a single blue thread marks the selvedge. There is another selvedge on the opposite side, telling us this was the full width of the canvas roll. Knowing this, we can work out the steps of the painting’s creation. Pollock unrolled the canvas on the floor, and splashed paint onto the surface in his characteristic method. When he was finished, he cut the painting from the roll and, not wanting to lose any of the image, he stapled the canvas onto the stretcher from the front, sometimes through the paint. Almost all artists fold the canvas over the edge of the stretcher and attach it from the sides of back where it is out of sight, but that was not important to Pollock. This cluster of clues tells us so much from so little — it takes us from where we stand in the gallery back in time to watching Pollock at work in his studio.
— Narayan Khandekar, Director of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies and Senior Conservation Scientist
Art meets mechanics
“Light Prop for an Electric Stage,” László Moholy-Nagy, 1930
This icon of the Busch-Reisinger Museum is the pinnacle of László Moholy-Nagy’s experiments at the Bauhaus. Throughout his tenure as faculty at the influential school of art and design, Moholy-Nagy envisioned how to bring his sculpture to life. It was only in 1930 — two years after leaving the Bauhaus — that he was able to realize his vision with the help of the German electronics company AEG, an engineer named Stefan Sebok, and a mechanic named Otto Ball. Through this collaboration, the Light Prop was able to come to life and move. Since then, the sculpture has struggled with malfunctions and damages, leading to many of its original parts being replaced. Except for the motor from Boston Gear, it’s nearly impossible to determine if a part is a replica. One easily bypassed detail, however, is original to the sculpture: a metal plaque on its platform that features Otto Ball’s name and logo. For me, this subtle trace is crucial not only for understanding the Light Prop’s history, but for recognizing that this groundbreaking sculpture has involved many hands across its many lives.
— Peter Murphy, Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum