Chasing Beauty

The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner

De: Natalie Dykstra

Narrado por: Maggi-Meg Reed

Duración: 15 h y 57 m

Resumen del Editor

The vivid and masterful story of Isabella Stewart Gardner—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—an American original whose own life was remade by art.

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.

An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.

Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.

But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.

From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Natalie Dykstra and Zoe Pagnamenta (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

The details of the portraits

I enjoyed the entire book the reader did an excellent job describing the paintings and other objects in the museum

A chronology

I liked this book very much. It is a long timeline well told. Essentially an exhaustive list of who’s who, where they are, and what they did, principally Mrs Jack, as she was called. It is completely factual, with pages of references and citations in the back. Skillfully recounted by the narrator.

Depth of story

Fabulous uplifting novel
Interesting historical aspects.
The span of generations who remained connected thru many years was an example of accomplishment .

Her life

Interesting life she led for sure told in a different way than usual biography very well done

A brilliant life brilliently presented

What an epic life Isabella Stuart Gardner lived! Many lives. Natalie Dykstra paints a masterful portrait of a throughly modern and relatable individual. An ambitious, independent, energetic, accomplished, connected, and successful woman in a time, like ours, when these qualities could make a woman suspect. Yes, she was born into wealth, but what she chose to do with that wealth, how she lived, and who she associated with, was extraordinary in her time and a model for ours. Like Isabella Stuart Gardner’s legacy museum, this ambitious work is brilliantly curated and a flowing effortless pleasure to experience.

The Penultimate ISG Biography

If you enjoy biography, this book knocks it out of the park. Dykstra brings to us a beautifully written book about the captivating woman, who was, Isabella Stewart Gardner.

It is extremely well researched and accomplishes the difficult task of emoting the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of its subject. It is so much more than facts and figures.

The narrator was fantastic, too…perfectly suited for this book. Highly recommend.

Interesting up to a point — too many trips to Europe

I enjoyed the descriptions of objects but not the many social obligations. This could have been shorter. As a museum person I hoped for analysis of what she bought and why she put these collections in the arrangements she did. It seemed that at times she just bought what was available and not really to complete a collection. I have seen this museum before the thefts, and I am glad she collected what she did but it would have been lovely to have her reasoning expressed.