The Creative Power of Devotion | Look Closer

What are you devoted to? Does your family come first? Your work? Your faith? We are all devoted to something or someone and so are the artists on this tour. This Madonna and Child was made by Fra Filippo Lippi, an Italian monk. Now when a monk takes his vows he gives up a couple of things. Family, material possessions, and of course sex. Filippo Lippi gave up none of those things. He gambled, committed forgery, and at age 30 he ran away with a nun named Lucrezia Butti. She was posing for one of his religious paintings and he fell in love with her. Together they had a son named Filippino. We believe this could be Lucrezia and Filippino compared to past renditions of the Madonna and Child which were stylized and flat. These figures are fleshy and real. The baby even squirms like a real baby. Filippo's audacity in casting his lover as the mother of God would have been shocking at the time but by painting those he loved most he made this religious story real in a way no painter had before. He gave us a way to see the human in the divine. Meeting the love of your life can transform you. So can a teacher who believes in you and in this case that teacher was the legendary Sir Peter Paul Rubens. Anthony van Dyck was Rubens' star pupil, a child prodigy who threatened to eclipse him. But instead of undermining van Dyck, Rubens used his connections to ensure he would soar. He sang van Dyck's praises to royal houses across Europe and set him up with wealthy patrons. On the eve of his departure from their hometown of Antwerp, van Dyck presented his mentor with this portrait of Isabella Brandt, Rubens' beloved wife and muse. He beautifully captures her lively mind and confidence through her bright eyes and knowing smile. This painting, full of tenderness and admiration, reflects how Rubens saw his wife and that was the best gift van Dyck could give the teacher who changed his life. Our next work looks at devotion, not to a specific person, but to a cause larger than yourself. When you look at this painting by Mary Cassatt, you might think you're looking at a mother and her child and for many years it hung in this under the name Mother and Child. But Mary Cassatt called this Woman with a Sunflower. Notice the sunflower pinned to her dress? It was a symbol of the American suffrage movement, the activists who fought for women's right to vote. Cassatt sold her paintings to fund the movement. So this is more than just a sweet painting about motherhood. It's about changing the political constraints under which women lived. And today, the painting is displayed under its rightful name, Woman with a Sunflower. For our last artist, his work explores the fine line between devotion and obsession. Here we have two of Claude Monet's renderings of the Rouen Cathedral. Across two marathon painting sessions that stretched from winter into spring, Monet chased the interplay of light and shadow across the cathedral's dramatic west façade. He worked on several canvases at once, switching them out every hour so that he could catch that shifting sunlight. Never satisfied, he added layer after layer of paint. The cathedral dissolved and then reappeared. At night, Monet had nightmares that the cathedral was toppling on him. This project pushed Monet into his very limits. He completed 30 canvases in all, devoted to the idea that he could use paint to capture light itself. Look around us. Look at the light in this room. Look at how it perfectly illuminates Monet's masterpieces. It is almost like an altar. I believe this museum is a site of secular devotion. We make pilgrimages here to feel connected to our shared humanity, to see art that transcends space and time. And all of it belongs to you.