Stop 204: Little Salon 


Hi, I’m Steve Locke; I’m an artist who deeply loves this museum. I’ve been an Artist in Residence here, and I’ve also taught at the Massachusetts College of Art. When I’ve brought my students to this museum—which I have, often—I always spend a lot of time with them in this room in particular. Let me show you why. 


From wherever you are, turn to the wall with the two sets of windows. Move towards the windows on the left. Do you see that cut-out figure standing there in front of it, on the floor? She’s next to the fireplace. She’s holding a little dog, and a fruit basket. She’s a fire screen. That notion that a painting isn’t necessarily a thing on a wall is essential to Mrs. Gardner’s collection. It’s such a great lesson for art students. Look at the woodwork on the walls, for example. Each corner of the room has curving panels. Other tall panels are in between. They all have wonderful arrangements of three-dimensional sculpted, carved flowers and vines, set against painted versions of the same thing. A lot of the furniture in the room is both carved and painted too. 


The whole room has this immersive feeling, as if we’re inside a single work of art. So much of the visual effect here depends upon copying something natural, and re-creating it an over-the-top and unnatural way. And then we notice: the tapestries! Each one depicts a formal garden. Like the flowers on the walls, the gardens in the tapestries show us nature as intentionally constructed, and managed. The arrangements of the garden plants in formal gardens are consciously artificial. 


That idea of prizing aesthetics over nature has a lot to do with the sensibilities of Mrs. Gardner’s circle of friends. Aesthetes, or ‘confirmed bachelors’, as many of the men among them were called at the time. As a gay man, this sensibility resonates with me historically. And I see it throughout her collection. That’s one of the things that I love about this museum, and why I think it’s so valuable for art students, for everyone really: the lack of traditional labels allows each of us to project ourselves—with our own backgrounds and ways of seeing—into its world. And to use this museum as our own source of creative inspiration.