Back to Calendar

Spotlight Tour: The Good Life, with Emily Feng ’25

A smiling young woman, wearing a brown long-sleeve shirt and dark pants, sits in a red armchair in a library, gesturing toward a painting that appears to float overhead. In the painting, people in Roman clothes gather in a lofty and statue-filled classical setting.
One of the works Emily Feng will spotlight is Romans of the Decadence (1847), by French artist Thomas Couture.

Tour

In-Person
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

This event does not require registration; see further details below.

Informed by her study of philosophy, Emily Feng ’25 will explore diverse works of art and material culture through questions about the good and moral life. Looking at a given work, she will ask if the good life is the same thing as the moral life and ponder whether these possibilities might come apart. Stops on this tour, which moves backward through time, are Romans of the Decadence, a small version of an enormous painting Thomas Couture exhibited to great acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1847; a 10th-century Persian bowl inscribed with sayings of the Prophet Muhammad from the Samanid period; and Standing Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, a large Buddhist sculpture made in China during the Sui dynasty (581–618).

Spotlight Tours offer a chance to explore the collections of the Harvard Art Museums through the eyes of a Harvard student. Free and open to the public, these tours start outside the museum shop on Saturdays and Sundays at 11am and 2pm. Drop in and join the conversation! And find out what the Student Guides are up to anytime on Instagram @harvardarthappens.

Please check in with museum staff at the Visitor Services desk in the Calderwood Courtyard to request to join the tour. Tours are limited to 18 people and are available on a first-come, first-served basis; no registration is required.

The Harvard Art Museums offer free admission every day, Tuesday through Sunday. Please see the museum visit page to learn about our general policies for visiting the museums.

This program is supported by the Ho Family Student Guide Fund.

The Ho Family Student Guide Program at the Harvard Art Museums prepares students to develop original, research-based tours of the collections. Through their training, Student Guides gain knowledge of the collections and develop skills in critical thinking, visual analysis, public speaking, and leadership.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance.