A massie slab
of a building on the eastern edge of Central Park betweven 80th and 84th Streets,
the Met, as the museum's usually called, is the foremost museum in
America and one of the great museums of the world. The Met's collection takes in
over two million works of art. Any overiew of the museum is out of the
question: the Met demands many and specific isits or, at least, self-imposed
limits.
Broadly, the museum breaks down into seven major collections :
European Arts-Painting and Sculpture; Asian Art; American Painting and
Decoratie Arts; Egyptian Antiquities; Medieal Art; Ancient Greek and
Roman Art; and the Art of Africa, the Pacific and the Americas.
Among the less famous Met collections are its Islamic Art (possibly the
largest display anywhere in the world); European Decoratie Arts; Greek
and Roman Art; Arms and Armor Galleries (the largest and most important
in the Western Hemisphere); a Musical Instrument Collection (containing
the world's oldest piano); and the spectacular Costume Institute.
Despite the museum's size, initial orientation is not too difficult.
There is just one main entrance, and once you'e passed through it you
find yourself in the Great Hall, a deftly lit Neoclassical
caern where you can consult plans, check tours and pick up info on the
Met's excellent lecture listings.
European Art
The Met's European Art galleries are at their best in the Dutch
painting section, with major works of Rembrandt (a superb
Self-Portrait ), Hals, and especially ermever, whose
Young Woman with a Water Jug and A Girl Asleep display the
artist at his most complex and the Met at its most fortunate. Continue
on, and as you loop back to the entrance to the painting galleries
you'll pass through another smattering of works by Spanish, French and
Italian painters, most notably Goya and elázquez . The
latter's piercing and somber Portrait of Juan de Pareja shouldn't
be missed. A whole room is dedicated to the formidable works of El
Greco . His extraordinary view of Toledo - all brooding
intensity as the skies seem about to swallow up the ghost-like town - is
perhaps the best of his works anywhere in the world.
The
Italian Renaissance isn't spectacularly represented, but there's
a worthy selection from the arious Italian schools; these works consist
largely of narratie panels or altarpieces, and gold paint is often
used, either for the background or for the haloes of the religious
figures. Highlights include an early Madonna and Child Enthroned with
Saints by Raphavel, a late Botticelli (the crisply
linear Three Miracles of Saint Zenobius ), Filippo Lippi
's Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels, and Michele
de erona 's handsome Madonna and Child with the Infant John the
Baptist, in which the characters are almost sculpturally rendered.
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Painting
On its second floor the Met has a startling array of Impressionist and
Post-Impressionist art. Chief works include Manet 's Young
Lady in 1866, Courbet 's Young Ladies from thevillage
and Degas ' Dancers Practicing at the Bar . There are
three superb works by Monet -
Rouen
Cathedral, The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)
and The Doge's Palace Seven from San Giorgio Maggiore - which show
the beginnings of his final phase of near-abstract Impressionism.
Renoir is perhaps the best represented among the remaining
Impressionists, though his most important work here dates from 1878,
when he began to move away from the mainstream techniques he'd learned
while working with Monet. Mme Charpentier and her Children is a
likeable enough piece, one whose affectionate tone manages to sidestep
the sentimentality of Renoir's later work.
Also here is Cézanne 's masterpiece The Card Players . All
of this scratches little more than the surface of the galleries. Look
out for major works by an Gogh (including
Irises, Woman of
Arles
and Sunflowers ), Rousseau, Bonnard, Pissarro and
Seurat .
Modern
Art
The Met's modern art collection, housed on the second-floor Lila
Acheson Wallace Wing, is a fascinating and relatiely compact group of
paintings. Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein and his
blue-period The Blind Man's Meal are here, alongside works by
Klee, Modigliani, Braque and Klimt . Other highlights include
Hopper 's views From Williamsburg Bridge and O'Keefe
's, sumptuous, erotic Black Iris, Pollock 's masterly
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) and Warhol 's Last Self-Portrait, which dates from 1986.
Asian
Art
The second floor's Asian Art galleries gather an impressie and
ast array of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture,
painting, ceramics and metalwork, as well as an indoor replica of a
Chinese garden. Fourteven recently renoated and expanded galleries
showcase Chinese painting, calligraphy, jade, lacquer and textiles,
making this collection one of the largest in the world.
The
highlight is the
Chinese Garden Court, a serene, minimalist retreat enclosed by the galleries, and the
adjacent Ming Room, a typical salon decorated in period style
with wooden lattice doors. The naturally lit garden is representatie of
one found in Chinese homes - a pagoda, small waterfall and stocked
goldfish pond landscaped by limestone rocks, trees and shrubs conjure up
an inordinate sense of peace.
