A Visit With My Cousin, Jennifer

My cousin from California was staying with me in New York City this weekend and, because I have to go to the Met everyday, I brought her along. Though she is not into the stuffy, art-on-the-walls museum experience, she did say she enjoys both ancient history and sculpture. So my mission was to show her how extraordinary the Metropolitan Museum of Art really is. To me, the most unique thing about the museum is the atmospheric gallery design, meaning the period rooms and the tombs in Ancient Egypt, which allow the visitors a 360-degree experience. We also explored Petrie Court and the Greek and Roman Sculpture Court, and of course, the Temple of Dendur, so Jennifer got her fill of exqusite, magnificently crafted 3-dimensional pieces.

We also came across my favorite Met artist, who I've previously referenced in two posts: (1) and (2). This time, I just photographed his work alongside the actual object.

Relaxing and People Watching in a Comfy Spot

When I'm really tired and need to sit for a while, I go straight to the 19th- Century European Paintings Galleries, where there are several comfy setees situated central to the masterpieces that hang on the walls.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Pollock

Once again, I'd like to thank Google for notifying me of Jackson Pollock's birthday (the website also notified me of René Magritte's birthday a few months ago). After clicking the image on Google's home page, search results for Jackson Pollock showed up, and the coolest website is at the top of the list — www.jacksonpollock.org. Below is the virtual "painting" of a birthday cake that I created:




Probably overlooked by most, as it hangs across from one of Pollock's famous drip paintings, this piece called Pasiphaë embodies a different style entirely. Pasiphaë is a Greek mythological figure.



And then there's Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). True to its name, Autumn Rhythm sings and dances off the canvas. Every experience looking at this piece is different — sometimes the black lines lead the eye in a swirling pattern around the rectangular surface, other times certain segments seem to come out at you, while others fade into the background, and today small portions at a time would vibrate, evoking a switchboard-like manifestation. Whatever the visual sensation, I always enjoy revisiting this piece over and over.

Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs

Because I spend so much time in the Modern Art Wing and I love to walk through the African and Oceanic Art galleries, I have passed this small exhibit on many occasion, always promising to return when I can fully focus my attention here. Well, Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs ends February 1, so it's about time I get in gear and examine these pieces. Placed so appropriately between Oceanic and Modern Art, Kihara's photographs seamlessly bridge the gap between the primitive-looking wooden sculpture of Oceanic Art and the colorful, abstract subjects of Modern paintings.As part of the Black Sunday series, the first few have a kind of Pop Art quality, with the old photo surprisingly broken up by bold, flat color.

DaVinci's Secret Drawings

A Fascinating article about the discovery of hidden drawings on the back of a DaVinci painting, which were recently discovered by French art historians.

The Most Unique of Visits

Today I was invited to lunch with a friend who works at the Met on MONDAY, while the museum was closed! I cannot tell you how excited I was to get the opportunity to visit my favorite place in New York while it was virtually empty.

After lunch, I was able to preview the special exhibition, Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors, which opens tomorrow in the Robert Lehman Wing. A major contrast to the previous Morandi exhibition, Bonnard's lively color pallette and more-than-still lifes are invigorating to the eye. Breaking from tradition, the artist tilts the perspective beyond the typical still life to include the background of a room, and, in my favorites, the outside world through a window.

From there, we walked through the Medieval Arts Wing, across Petrie Court, through African and Oceanic Art to Greek and Roman Art, where I descended to the 81st Street door where I entered. To get a glimpse of the museum unoccupied by visitors was like watching someone sleep, the familiarity is there, but with an innocence or vulnerability not seen in the light of day.

The Uris Center for Education and the Nolen Library

Having entered the museum at the 81st Street entrance on several occasions, I felt it was time to finally explore the Uris Center for Education and the Nolen Library. A treasure for the avid reader and art lover, this public-access library contains volumes of books on art, artists, art history, and world history — there's even an entire children's corner for future art aficionados.

Potpourri

Like any other visit with a friend, today's was a multi-gallery sweep of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is interesting to notice a new thing in each gallery I've visited on more than one occasion — here, I have subtitled each of the following photos with my thoughts:



Similar to the Luce Center for the Study of American Art, a set of glass cases hold the wide array of treasures in the Greek and Roman mezzanine.


...there are even hollow feet! Fragments of ancient statues, urns, jewelry and other miscellaneous items are kept in these cases.


A REAL Etruscan chariot from before the Roman Empire. (I have this problem where I forget that these things I learned in history class actually exist.)


LOVE Braque's The Billiard Table.


Chuck Close blows my mind - (this was my actual thought when I was looking at these paintings).

I'll leave it at that.

Picasso's Blue Period

On the second floor, at the south end of the 19th-20th Century European Paintings Gallery, on the Westernmost Wall, hang five paintings that embody Picasso's Blue period, and prove, unequivocally, that it was quite literally, Blue! I have often heard the term "Blue Period" in regards to Pablo Picasso's art, but before my experience at the Met, I never had a proper definition. From the Pablo Picasso Thematic Essay on the museum's site, I found this passage, which succinctly explains the style and its reasons:

Living intermittently in Paris and Spain until 1904, his work during these years suggests feelings of desolation and darkness inspired in part by the suicide of his friend Casagemas. Picasso's paintings from late 1901 to about the middle of 1904, referred to as his Blue Period, depict themes of poverty, loneliness, and despair. In The Blind Man's Meal (50.188) from 1903, he uses a dismal range of blues to sensitively render a lonely figure encumbered by his condition as he holds a crust of bread in one hand and awkwardly grasps for a pitcher with the other. The elongated, corkscrew bodies of El Greco (1541–1614) inspire the man's distorted features.


(I don't mean to be unoriginal here, but I cannot think of a better way to paraphrase this explanation)... More on the blind man, the following is from the description next to the painting:

"The Blind Man's Meal is one of the Bluest of the Blue Period paintings. By highlighting the blind man's ear and emphasizing his slender hand, Picasso poignantly expressed that touch and sound are the man's only means of perceiving the world around him."

Greek and Roman Galleries

When you enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the lesser known 81st Street entrance, you are one floor below the main galleries in the Uris Center for Education. Once you ascend the staircase into the Greek and Roman Galleries, you'll be greeted by the largest object in that wing — the Ionic capital and shaft of a column from The Temple of Artemis at Sardis. The magnanimous architectural element not only commands attention from the far reaches of the gallery in which it is central, it also provides an excellent backdrop to the beautiful sculptures that populate this wing.



Oh yeah, remember this guy? I saw him on an earlier visit in Petrie Court while I was wandering and reading. I guess I find him intriguing — he is very talented.