PART TWO
After lunch, I threw myself into the arms of W. M. Chase. The first room was multiple views of his studio, filled with luxury textiles, object d’art, the various exotica he used for props, and the women he liked to paint. His self-portrait – with rumpled hair, and a truly luxuriant mustache – has a glowing saffron background and a nonchalant dash of red.
Whistler befriended Chase, but their association ended after Chase’s’s portrait of him. Like Velasquez’s of Innocent X , it was apparently troppo vero.
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Chase’s wife, daughters and female students often posed for him. The painting of his daughters playing ringtoss compares unfavorably to Sargents’s brooding The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, but hey, the Indian yellows and phthalo blues in Chase’s portrait of Dora Wheeler are the definition of lush,
and his nudes are as tempting as Bourgereau’s.
This exhibition has many paintings of his studio, his students and his family, and his focus on the pleasures of daily life endeared him to me.
Around 4pm it was time to sit and pulled out my sketchbook. I plonked myself on the comfortable couch in front of Washington and sketched the answer to one of the first jokes I ever heard (What color was George Washington’s white horse?). Fell into drawing for, it turned out, over an hour. When a voice spoke over my shoulder I jumped. It was the guard going off his shift, wanting to see what I’d been doing. He approved. I was not so happy.
Upstairs to cruise the Sargents. I fervently hope his life gave him as much happiness as his work has given me. Paused in front of a oil study of a model he used for multiple works in Boston. Stood and sketched quickly. This time, I was happier.
Now it was 6pm and I was hungry. Thought I’d have dinner in the atrium. Walked through the doors and into music blasting at ear bleed levels – Mustang Sally, Lady Marmelade, 24K Magic. What the what? It was first Friday and a dance party for patrons, mostly middle-aged and older, was in full swing. Booty’s were primly shaking and uncoordinated white people awkwardly danced. I fled. I was going to take my chances on the mean streets when a docent assured me the museum’s upscale restaurant was out of earshot.
All righty. Seated by the elegant hostess who wore discreet black sequins, wide leg velvet cargo pants, and a marvelous slouch chapeau. I ordered the seared duck, only later aware of the irony of this choice in a museum that was featuring a retrospective of the illustrator of Make Way For Duckings. It was…chewy, but so is jerky and I was hungry.
No difficulty summoning an Uber. Back in the hotel, I watched the weather channel and fell asleep wondering whether a blizzard in Boston is anything like what Laura Ingalls Wilder described.
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