Exhibitions Archive
The Illusions of Eighteenth-Century European Portraiture
From ancient times to the present day, portraiture has been a medium in which individuals could create an illusion of themselves in a very selective and proscribed manner. This installation features four portraits, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Elizabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, and Pompeo Batoni, which suggest that portraits are always a construction of some sort, though the attentive viewer can uncover their secrets.
Early Caricature and Self-Parody in France and England
Aggressive Art
This installation explores the culture of caricature and features five late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century prints, including works by James Gillray and Honoré Daumier.
American Art from the Huber Family Collection
Embracing Elegance, 1885–1920
This exhibition features over thirty examples of American impressionist and realist pastels, drawings, and paintings by some of the leading artists active at the turn of the twentieth century, including Cecilia Beaux,Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Robert Henri, John Singer Sargent, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir. Collected by Jack Huber, Dartmouth Class of 1963, and his wife, Russell, these works reveal a range of responses to the dramatic cultural and artistic developments of the era—from the brilliant colors and broad handling of the impressionists to the grit and verve of the urban realists.The predominant aesthetic in this collection, however, is the period taste for refinement and tranquility as seen in serene landscapes, poetic still lifes, and, especially, images of elegant women in repose.
Portraiture of the Roman Empire
Faces of Antiquity
Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life
This traveling exhibition and publication are drawn from the Hood Museum of Art’s George Maciunas Memorial Collection of works by Fluxus artists, enriched with loans from the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University, and the Walker Art Center. Intended to provide a fresh assessment of Fluxus, the installation is designed to encourage experiential encounters for the visitor. The 1960s–70s phenomenon that was Fluxus resists characterization as an art movement, collective, or group, and it further defies traditional geographical, chronological, and medium-based approaches. The fundamental question—“What’s Fluxus good for?”—in fact has important implications for the role of art today. The function of Fluxus artworks is to help us practice life; what we “learn” from Fluxus is how to be ourselves.
Prints from Dürer to Rembrandt
Envisioning JerusalemMedieval maps typically located Jerusalem at the center of the world, reflecting its fundamental importance as the biblical universal city in both Old and New Testaments. According to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic beliefs, prophets and patriarchs from Abraham to Muhammad are said to have trodden its grounds, and all three monotheistic faiths consider it to be a holy city. Jerusalem has also been the site of religious and political conflicts from the Babylonian era onward, imbuing it with additional sacred and secular significance.
As early as the fourth century, Christian pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem to visit the places associated with the final days of the life of Jesus as they were portrayed in the Gospels—beginning with his triumphal entry and culminating in the Crucifixion. After the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, a vast market emerged for descriptions and representations recording such devout journeys. These materials contributed to the dissemination of common impressions of the pilgrimage experience.
Because only a few actual European artists traveled to the Holy Land during the Ottoman occupation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, people relied on imaginary depictions of Jerusalem’s legendary monuments and landscape. Some featured ancient buildings in the background, while others presented more familiar settings inspired by local scenery. In nearly every instance, the surroundings were grand in scale and elaborately rendered.