Wow! Preview of "Golden" at PEM was Stunning!!!

If you read the Hawthorne Hotel blog even fairly regularly, you will already know I am a big fan of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) here in Salem. I think the museum is spectacular in many ways -- from the way it is designed, to the breadth of the collections, to the great staff, and most importantly in the way they blend art with culture to put things more in context for the viewers.

However the exhibit that is opening there this weekend absolutely blew me away -- it is so spectacularly beautiful that it literally brought tears to my eyes to see it -- actually the term I want to use is BEHOLD, because you cannot just see this exhibit, you must behold it. 

I felt that I was given a huge gift today -- the gift of such beauty and magnitude that it is hard to describe.  While these works are being displayed at PEM, they all belong to Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, who have collected them and have generously allowed PEM to display them for all of us to enjoy.  What a gift to everyone who comes!

There are a couple of images included with this post, but I can only say this about the images -- while they are very well done, they are NOTHING like what you will see in person. You must see how beautiful these lovely works of art are in person. You must see how wonderfully PEM's team has displayed them.  You simply must go.

 Winter Landscape near a Village, c 1610-15.  Hendrick Avercamp (1585 - 1634) Oil on panel. 21 x 37- 1/4 inches.  The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection.  Image courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 Young Girl in Profile, c 1631 - 32.  Jan Lievens (1607 - 32) Oil on panel.  17-2/4 x 15 inches The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington

Sleeping Dog, 1650 Gerrit Dou (1613 - 1675)  6 - 1/2 x 8 - 1/2 inches. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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I must write much more about this exhibit, but I am going to stop right here, and promise you that I will write again. I need to figure out how to really convey what a huge event this was in my life.

I hope to see you here (or there because I will surely go back, several times, to take in all there is to see!)

Juli