Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA

May 2023

Upon entering the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, I was delighted to discover that they were featuring an exhibition on Hokusai, the Japanese artist best known for his painting “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” And even if none of that sounds familiar to you, you’re probably familiar with the painting:

The exhibition did an excellent job of explaining Hokusai’s life in the 18th and 19th centuries, from all the kabuki actors he painted (the equivalent of selling photos of movie stars today) to the work of his assistants (including, famously, his daughter) to the legacy of his manga today (he technically invented manga). It did exactly what an exhibition should do.

Outside of that, I’m honestly struggling to write much about the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Not because it’s a bad museum. It’s got, well, everything you’d expect in a fine arts museum: paintings, sculptures, a little café. But it all feels like every other museum.

Maybe I’ve visited too many museums. Maybe, because I visited this museum in the middle of an admittedly whirlwind tour of Boston, it’s a bit of a blur. There are plenty of beautiful works of art to admire, but very little stood out to me.

On the other hand, museums don’t necessarily exist to surprise us with novelty. They’re repositories of beauty and culture, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a fine example.

Fees: $27 for adults, $10 for kids

Conditions: Rainy, 60° Fahrenheit