Boston and the MFA: A True Palimpsest?
In order to give full credit to the weight of the MFA, we must look at how this central icon anchors the cultural dynamism of the city that houses it. The idea of Boston as a palimpsest (a place or situation where the layers of history are superimposed with its present to form the basis of its identity) is reaffirmed through the modern discourse that exists in and around the MFA in its modern character.
The Museum of Fine Arts as a cultural epicenter has served the city since its opening in 1876. Museums in general have a tendency to bring people of all classes and backgrounds together in celebration of the past, and the quintessence of the MFA is certainly consistent with that goal. At the time that it was opened, the museum was very much located in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay, in Copley Square (as pictured). Richard Sennett comments,
“[Hannah Arendt’s] views of the public realm have powerfully influenced urbanists to think of the city as something more than a mosaic of local communities, the whole greater than the sum of its parts, that greater whole to be located whenever and wherever a city establishes a vibrant, dense center” (Blackwell City Reader).
This quotation supports the claim that, while Boston is a demographically diverse city, and one that is home to a slew of universities and other institutions of higher education, there is something constant inherent in the nature of the Museum that stabilizes the city. While the museum has since been relocated, the purity of its mission has not been corrupted.
Boston is one of the more historical cities in the United States, for its role in the American Revolution. The scholarly developments that cropped up throughout the greater Boston area in the 19th and 20th centuries, too, contribute to the unique past that is so tangible along the streets of the city. The MFA in and of itself is a memorial, a tribute, to the ever-evolving past and present of Boston. The museum, one could argue is almost its own time-capsule—there is so much within its walls that does not change, and yet, the crowds that come and go are constantly bringing new perspectives to the inner environment.
By the very nature of a museum, the MFA is itself almost a symbol of Boston as a palimpsest: it is one presently accessible place that encapsulates not just its own history, but the history of several other worlds. In the space of the museum, the past and the present interact with one another to educate the public, to enrich them culturally, but also to create a place that embodies a Boston community on the basis of art appreciation.