An Afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

On Wednesday I went into NYC and spent the entire afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was most interested to visit the newly renovated "American Wing."

I admit to being a bit frightened by the idea of a renovation because I always like the American Wing the way it was, which was a little bit unusual. Paintings covered most of the walls nearly up to the ceilings. The only other museum I can recall that was like this was the old Barnes Museum in (or near) Philadelphia. I couldn't find a picture of an old American Wing gallery but here is a picture from the Barnes:

The new American wing is laid out with the more usual museum galleries. This can be observed in the backgrounds of pictures I took of some of the sculptures. (more about the pictures below) This new layout is certainly acceptable, but I left wondering what used to be in all the space it now occupies.

I probably spent my first three hours in the American Wing, briefly passing through Armor and a few other rooms before I got there. After that I wandered through the early European (mostly Christian) paintings spending an hour there but somehow missing Rembrandt and Vermeer (and others, I'm sure). Then I headed over to the European Impressionists for my final hour.

As I went I took pictures of things I liked or attracted my attention with my little camera. On some the focus is less than perfect. (I discarded the few where it was terrible.) Most of the pictures of artwork are accompanied by photos of signs idenitifying the work usually after, but maybe sometimes before. On some works I took detail photos, mostly to highlight detail (duh!) or paint (and this mostly in the Van Goghs). Here are a few examples (The pictures below are clickable links to the larger image itself).

I really like the Heart of the Andes (even though the direction of the waterflow bothers me a bit). Of course it is larger than many of the other painting displayed. But it is not so easy to tell this from my picture, except that it has the most detail pictures in my collection. (Two are shown here but there are two more in the full collection.)

I took this one above of a (real, not a painting) 16th century (I think) Spanish Courtyard mostly because it reminded me of a Parador in Ubeda, Spain, that my wife and I stayed in many years ago.

There is a great documentary called The Art of the Steal

I might try to view it sometime. I did get a kick out of the line in the trailer about Barnes going for quality over quantity.

Some years ago I was visiting the Clark Insitute in Williamstown, Mass. (Wow! In getting that link I see that all or nearly all of their Renoirs, and other stuff too, are out on loan for a three year tour. To experience the greatness of this collection, one really must wait now until 2014.) and I had a question about one of the paintings. So I found some docent guy who was just finishing a lecture and asked him. He must have really liked my question as he asked how long I would be at the museum, and finding out that he would have sufficient time he thought, he said he would go research it in their pretty extensive library and come out and find me. He found me but not the answer to my question but we talked for quite some time anyway. I don't know whether I said it or he did but I've long felt that the Clarke has the best of the collections of those formerly based upon a private collection. (I'm leaving out the NGA here which Mellon was initially largely responsible for.) Frick, Norton Simon, Getty, and Barnes are ones that I've visited that come to mind. Anyway I remember my researcher friend putting down Barnes as a competing collector who basically bought up all the stuff the Clarkes didn't want. And thinking about the collections I had to agree with him. Barnes has many more Renoirs for example, but all are largely inferior to all that Clarke has, IMHO anyway. (But of course, I'd take the worst of the ones the Barnes has for my living room!)

ML/NJ

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