Wednesday we did the MET. (Metropolitan Museum of Art) It is IMPOSSIBLE to "do it" in one day. If I lived in the city, I would go twice a month and do only one section each visit. The place is huger than huge, and encompasses much more than paintings, and honestly, a bit overwhelming. Here is what we enjoyed most.
Mummies from Egypt. There was an exhibit from King Tut's burial ground, including actual mummies. Mummies were a "first" for us! The mummies looked just like the old horror show movies -- all the gauze wrapped in layer after layer. To learn about the embalming (bodies saturated using lots and lots of chemicals indigenous to Egypt) and burial practices (such as providing figurines of "workers" to do the work for the deceased person in their next life) was fascinating.
Picasso - Multiple rooms showcased his work covering his entire career. Each room contained a particular period of work, and as you entered, there was a display telling you what was going on with his personal life during the time he did the work. You think of him as being "cubist style", and he is best known for that, but it was interesting to see how much his early work differed from later work. I also learned he was quite the scoundrel...if I read it right, during one period he had a wife and not one, but two mistresses all at the same time. When did he fit in painting???
American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity - This special exhibit included women's clothing from various eras. It ran the gamut from the French fashions of the Biltmore era (late 1800's) to golf attire in early 1900's, to glamorous art deco style clothing of 20's/30's. Very well done.
Additional exhibits we enjoyed included musical instruments like the gold piano in the bottom photo posted here, American landscapes, French impressionists like Monet, art deco paintings, sterling silver from colonial times including pieces by Paul Revere, US period furniture from all eras displayed in "living room" settings.
One thing that I had never seen done before is that the museum acquired architectural elements from various buildings, and installed them within the museum, and that became part of the exhibit. For example, in one section they displayed European sculpture. Marble columns, walls, pediments etc were dismantled from a building in Europe and then they put the building together again in a huge room within the MET and the sculpture was on display in this re-created "room". Another example: to enter the " American Wing", you walked thru the facade of a colonial building.
The other overall big impression made here was that a huge portion of the holdings were donated by wealthy NY's. Either families donated things they owned (such as ornate art deco mantle from the Vanderbilt upper east side apartment) or wealthy people turned over their personal collections (such as the Picasso works) to the museum to be enjoyed by all.
