Science, Sights and Sound

By Brion O'Connor

Beautiful music elevates our understanding of life's rhythms and inspires our imaginations. All the arts can do the same, as can science. Those disciplines tweak a different artistic yearning, giving a richer texture to our perceptions of the world.

For a little variety, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (617.267.9300; mfa.org) features two remarkable shows that capture the breadth of artistic vision — Degas to Picasso: Modern Masters (January 18–June 18) and David Hockney Portraits (February 28–May 14). Degas to Picasso spans a breathtaking period of painting and sculpture, from 1900 through the turbulent 1960s, all culled from the MFA's collection. The 100 works on display from British painter Hockney highlight the insightful, personal watercolors of the influential late-20th-century artist.

The Museum of Science (617.723.2500; mos.org), by the Charles River , has unveiled the world premiere of Star Wars: Where Imagination Meets Science (through April 30). Visitors can marvel at the ground breaking innovations of George Lucas and his collaborators — from Luke Skywalker's hovering Landspeeder to his faithful robot companion R2-D2 — while learning how this wildly creative world first portrayed on the silver screen in 1977 might compare with reality in the future.

Elsewhere in the state, Gentile Bellini and the East, an exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (617.278.5107; gardnermuseum.org), focuses on East-West relations during the late 15th-century (through March 26). Harvard University 's Arthur M. Sackler Museum (617.495.9400; artmuseums.harvard.edu) immerses visitors in the works of one of the country's most pivotal post–World War II artists in the exhibit Frank Stella 1958 (through May 7). Nearby, Harvard's Fogg Art Museum features To Delight the Eye, an exhibition of 35 French paintings and drawings donated by Harvard alum Charles E. Dunlap (through March 12). In North Adams , at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (413.664.4481; massmoca.org), artists explore the fine, and often blurred, line between animals and humans in Becoming Animal: Contemporary Art in the Animal Kingdom (through February).