Read short essays by CNA staff, fellows, and interns, and the larger MFA community to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at the Museum and our research center. These insightful essays offer a glimpse at the work the CNA does to foster meaningful connections that enhance the field of Netherlandish art.
Dutch Musical Paintings
Jessica Sternbach
One of the most inexplicable sensations in my life is the feeling of music rushing through my body. Whether it’s the pounding of bass notes moving…
Tasting Paintings: Young Woman Eating Sweets
Laura Eliza Enríquez
What does a painting taste like? In Young Woman Eating Sweets (1680–85), Dutch artist Godfried Schalcken depicts the alluring figure of a girl caught…
Art, Classical History, and Evidence of Use in Rare Books of the CNA Library
Anna Zhang
Whether it be a children’s picture book or a textbook on ecology, thanks to libraries, the modern publishing industry, and the internet, today we can…
Early Depictions of the Four Continents in Rare Books in the CNA Library
Lillian Bittman
The CNA Library features more than 20,000 monographs, catalogues, and rare books—some dating as far back as the 15th century—assembled by the late art…
An Elegant Party Making Music
Aagje Lybeer
“We weep with the weeping, laugh with the laughing, and grieve with the grieving. These movements of the soul are made known by movements of the body…
Africa, Infrastructure, and Empire in Rubens’s Portrait of Mulay Ahmad
Braden Lee Scott
Painted around 1609, Peter Paul Rubens’s portrait of Mulay Ahmad depicts an African man from the waist up, standing before a city and a massive…
Spending Time with Sculpture
Emily Hirsch
How do you start writing a paper, an e-mail, or a letter? Often our first thoughts are not the final product we want other others to read. Instead we…