Six Centuries of Painting and “Severance”

The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce at the Meadows Museum, SMU, February 23–June 22, 2025

Miguel Trelles, “Philanthropist / Filántropo,” 2000, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.

Peter Paul Rubens, “Head of the Oldest of the Three Kings (The Greek Magus) / Cabeza del mayor de los Tres Reyes (El mago griego),” c. 1620, oil on panel transferred to canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.

Selections from the Museo de Arte de Ponce’s collection, shown at SMU’s Meadows Museum, tell a story of resilience. Closed since the 2020 earthquakes that severely damaged its Edward Durell Stone-designed home in Puerto Rico, the museum remains a cultural beacon, now sharing its masterpieces with audiences beyond the Caribbean. The Sense of Beauty is not just an exhibition — it is a testament to the institution’s enduring mission to connect people through art, offering North Texas a rare encounter with six centuries of European, American, and Puerto Rican paintings.

Like the Meadows Museum’s own founder, Algur H. Meadows, Luis A. Ferré — industrialist, former governor, and founder of the Museo de Arte de Ponce — was inspired by a transformative journey to the Prado in the 1950s. His collection reflects a deep appreciation for Spanish masters like El Greco, Murillo, and Goya, as well as an abiding love for the landscapes and social narratives of Puerto Rico.

The exhibition opens with a profound survey of 16th- and 17th-century Italian and Flemish religious paintings, reflecting the dominant artistic themes of the time. Among them, Peter Paul Rubens’ Head of the Oldest of the Three Kings (The Greek Magus) (c. 1620) captures the Flemish master’s characteristic attention to light and texture. The figure’s fur-lined damask cloak shimmers under masterful chiaroscuro, as if still caught in the candlelight of the era’s great altarpieces.

Moving forward in time, the collection shifts toward secular subjects, showcasing the emergence of landscape as a genre. The Hudson River School’s idealized American vistas, exemplified by the works of Frederic Church, share space with the romantic seascapes of French port painters and the quicksilver brushstrokes of William Merritt Chase’s Hackensack River (c. 1882). The inclusion of these landscapes honors Ferré’s particular admiration for the genre, linking his vision to a global tradition of capturing the sublime.

The exhibition’s French academic paintings exude refinement and precision, immersing visitors in the aesthetic ideals of the 19th century. James Tissot’s In the Louvre (L’Esthétique) (1883-85) reflects the era’s fascination with both classical art and high fashion, presenting an elegantly dressed woman reclining beneath a museum window while another figure studies a sculpture. Jean-Léon Gérôme’s King Candaules (1859) blends mythological drama with trompe-l’œil embellishments, demonstrating the painter’s technical prowess and the period’s fascination with narrative storytelling.

The final galleries shift focus to Puerto Rican artists, contextualizing Ferré’s legacy within the island’s modern art history. Rafael Tufiño’s Vita Cola (1961) offers a sobering glimpse into mid-20th-century Puerto Rican life, depicting barefoot children standing in the doorway of a fragile home patched with an old soft drink advertisement. The piece reflects Tufiño’s social realist approach, influenced by Mexican muralism, as he documents economic disparity with both empathy and critique.

Miguel Trelles’ Philanthropist (2000) takes a more conceptual approach, playing with art historical tropes. A seated figure lounges before a painted portrait of an early modern collector, nodding to the intertwined histories of patronage and artistic production. Trelles, based in New York, continues the diasporic dialogue that defines much of Puerto Rican contemporary art, bridging past and present through layered meaning.

The exhibition underscores Ferré’s original belief: that beauty transcends borders, whether in the dramatic brushstrokes of El Greco or the intimate realism of a Puerto Rican barrio scene. For Texas audiences, this show offers not only a survey of Western art history but also an invitation to consider Puerto Rico’s cultural contributions within that larger narrative. As the Museo de Arte de Ponce continues its journey toward reopening, this collaboration with the Meadows Museum ensures that its collection, and its vision, remain in motion.

****

The Corporate Abyss: A Review of Severance

“The Youthful Convalescence of Kier,” as seen in “Severance.” Via William Poundstone’s “Los Angeles County Museum on Fire”

Streaming on Apple+. Spoilers ahead.

Remember in Fleabag when the main character turns to the camera, as she has done for the entire series, and suddenly her date can see her? The illusion of direct audience engagement is broken — her monologues and asides are no longer addressed to them. It was a clever moment, upending expectations that had become standard in contemporary sitcoms. Ever since The Office (both UK and US versions), the cast turning to the camera to express witty disdain for their work environment had become de rigueur in multi-cam television. To the point that it had, arguably, worn out its welcome and lost its meaning.

That weary trope was one of the reasons I never watched Parks and Recreation. Every attempt to engage with the show felt like encountering a diluted imitation of Ricky Gervais’s original. The Office legitimized millennial ennui about soulless, unfulfilling work, but now, in an era where full-time office jobs are among the few paths to financial stability, the reality of that dissatisfaction has shifted. Today, those “meaningless” corporate jobs are often the only ones that provide wages substantial enough to afford the traditional trappings of adulthood — homeownership, car ownership, even groceries. In a time of increasing wealth disparity, the arbitrage one will endure on their own personhood in pursuit of upper-class belonging reframes the value of their own body.

Severance examines this dynamic of aspirationalism in a broader, though fictional, historical context.

The show, created by Dan Erickson and directed in part by Ben Stiller, operates on a high-concept premise: employees at Lumon Industries undergo a procedure that separates their work selves (Innies) from their outside selves (Outies). This bifurcation is an extreme take on the traditional work-life balance, raising questions about autonomy, consent, and corporate control.

However, as the series progresses, particularly in its second season, it begins to wrestle with the challenges inherent in its own structure. Episode four of season two falters, particularly in its logic — why would even the most powerful supranational corporation send its most suspicious employees into a remote survivalist exercise? It’s akin to a manager forcing a team-building retreat in the Siberian wilderness while secretly watching from twenty feet away. The tension is supposed to build, but instead, the mechanics of the plot strain under scrutiny.

The show’s overarching problem is one shared by many contemporary prestige dramas — one where the constant fracturing of personas and identities makes it increasingly difficult to track which characters did what. Severance has been enjoyable because its practical sets and fine-tuned art direction show instead of tell the viewer what’s going on. There are so many details to pick up on, including the literal paintings in the show. 

Art writer William Poundstone identifies the paintings within Severance as a key part of Lumon’s ideological apparatus, appropriating historical art styles to construct a fabricated corporate mythology. The artworks range from Caravaggio-like to Neoclassical and Romantic flourishes, drawing from traditions that have historically served propagandistic or doctrinal ends. The Youthful Convalescence of Kier, for example, evokes the sentimental convalescent scenes of the 19th century, aligning the company’s founder with religious and historical figures worthy of veneration. By modeling Lumon’s aesthetic language on real-world movements, Severance mirrors how institutions — including political and religious organizations — manufacture legitimacy through imagery. Poundstone connects this to contemporary movements like MAGA and groups such as the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, which have similarly sought to establish a distinct visual and historical lineage to bolster their ideological authority. The paintings in Severance, then, are not merely decorative but serve as instruments of corporate mythmaking, reinforcing Lumon’s self-image as an omnipotent yet benevolent force.

The show constructs an aesthetic language that is rooted in both the utopian past and the dystopian present, a visual ideology that works in tandem with the narrative themes of compliance, psychic enclosure, and corporate mythmaking. It’s not just about a story of severed consciousness — it’s about how history, art, and power are severed, rewritten, and recontextualized for the needs of the present.

By rendering Lumon’s corporate mythology in the visual language of old master paintings, Severance reinforces its world-building with a sense of weight and historical legitimacy. This gives Lumon’s fictional past the patina of authenticity, even as the audience recognizes it as fabricated. This interplay between aesthetics and narrative makes Severance’s critique of corporate mythmaking all the more unsettling — history, after all, is only as convincing as the framework in which it is conveyed.

****

William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor of Glasstire.