An Evening at The Met
Jan. 24th, 2004 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is basically an opera house for paintings and sculptures. About the size of four city blocks, it sits on its stone haunchs on the East side of Central Park facing Fifth Avenue, the wooded expanse of the park pressing close behind it.
On a frigid evening, ignoring a head cold, I ventured into the Met's vast expanse and hunted down my friend CW who had secreted herself within the two story book store we were meeting in. Luckily for me, she decided to poke her nose out while I stood searching the incoming crowd. Together we zig-zagged our way through rooms filled with paintings spanning every period from early medieval times to the 1900s. Pausing in front of scenic New York State and Northeastern landscapes by painters such as Thomas Church and Thomas Cole. CW is a huge fan of the Hudson River School - a group of painters specializing in semi-detailed almost photographic oil paintings of Hudson River landscapes. She comes once every three or four weeks to the museum to just wander amongst the paintings.
For me - we wandered into the Impressionist area, my favorite of the periods. While I prefer the National Gallery in London's Impressionist collection - The Met does have an impressive grouping - specifically of Degas. Sitting in the center of the Degas room is the famous or infamous sculpture of the young ballerina with her cloth dress and shoes that Degas cast in wax and was later bronzed - since wax apparently deterioates over time. From a recent PBS special on Degas, I knew that this sculpture had caused quite the stir when he first exhibited it. So much of one that it was the only sculpture Degas dared to exhibit, the others he hid. He had used a real model to form it and she had modeled for him in the nude, no more than 13 years of age. Ballerinas in Degas' time were known to attract patrons in order to fund their dancing and expenses. Often matrons (mothers) would elicit the support of wealthy men - literally selling their daughter to them for a year's worth of rent and expenses. At early ages young girls would enter the Paris Ballet, sending wages home, and if they were lucky? Find a rich patron to cover their living expenses in Paris. The little ballerina that Degas molded from wax reminded the public of this occurrence and word spread that becoming a ballerina was akin to well...becoming a woman of ill-repute. Horrified, Degas stopped exhibiting his sculptures and continued in private. He had a great respect for the difficulty of the art and spent hours sitting in rehearsal halls, opera houses, and greeting rooms drawing, sketching and painting the dancers in motion and out. Degas was ahead of his time as a painter - amongst the first to do lithographs and prints, often making more than one copy then adding watercolor, oil, pastel and creating a painting. He used photography and then would add color to it. Degas played with numerous techniques - expanding his range as he did so. The Met has collected several of these in the two rooms covering Degas. What I adore most about the impressionists is how they examine the grace of movement with but a bit of paint - letting our eyes fill in the detail. The impressionist's version sometimes seems almost more beautiful and graceful than the original. A flurry of color here, a hint of paint, a dot, a line, and you see a ballerina dancing or a man and woman walking through a park.
We ended our journey wandering through rooms - first the engraved wooden rooms of the Studio Galleria (sp?) - these rooms have stone tile floors, and wooden walls with detailed engravings of books, instruments, flowers -taken from a house in 18th century Italy. The wood a deep mahogany, the engravings in redwood, blondwood, darkblack wood - paintings in wood. This is CW's favorite part of the museum. One room was a chapel with stained glass and a tile altar with Italian fresco. I'd never really seen these rooms before, hidden in cubby hole like entrances at the far southern end of the museum.
Finally, weary from walking for two hours, we moved to one of my favorite areas - the Egyptian tomb like structure that I can never remember the name of, housed in a huge windowed greenhouse at the northern end of the Museum. The air having a damp somewhat heavy smell of a warm climate.
We sat on stone benches and chatted about things.
Evil bosses. Taste. The President - whose mannerisms and facial expressions eerily remind CW of the evil boss. CW suggested I read the transcripts of the US President's speech - where, he apparently has some interesting things to say. She's not overly fond of him, but concedes that she's in no position to judge his actions - since she's not president nor believes she should be. From there the conversation drifted backwards towards tast and I explained how I'd recently made an idiot of myself online attempting to defend personal taste in books and writers...
As is more often than not the case in life, a piece of wisdom can come from an unexpected source, tonight CW shared this bit with me, concerning the appreciation of art:
"I don't attempt to defend my tast, particulary in art, to others or rile against someone else's tasts, tast in art is so subjective. I only comment on it if someone asks me - why I like something. I don't bother defending it. I'm not going to change their mind and they aren't going to change mine."
True. I think that's one of the reasons CW remains a close friend, even though we don't always share the same tasts, we do share a tolerance for having different tasts. She likes the more realistic oil painters, while I prefer the Impressionists. She likes Everwood, while I prefer Joan of Arcadia. She prefers Smallville, I prefer Angel. (Although I do watch both Smallville and Angel.) Tast is I think a private thing, something personal that says so much more about the individual than it does the object of art itself. Why we like what we like is not always something we ourselves understand. It can often be a gut level response. Something about what we are viewing hits an emotional place in us, calls to that place, and we respond. How we respond is bound to be different than anyone else. It does not make their response less valid or real, any more than their response makes ours less real. There's no right or wrong way to respond to a piece of art. It's a subjective thing and special thing, sacred in the very fact that it is so unique to each and every person. While sharing it is wonderful, keeping it private sometimes is wonderful as well.
On a frigid evening, ignoring a head cold, I ventured into the Met's vast expanse and hunted down my friend CW who had secreted herself within the two story book store we were meeting in. Luckily for me, she decided to poke her nose out while I stood searching the incoming crowd. Together we zig-zagged our way through rooms filled with paintings spanning every period from early medieval times to the 1900s. Pausing in front of scenic New York State and Northeastern landscapes by painters such as Thomas Church and Thomas Cole. CW is a huge fan of the Hudson River School - a group of painters specializing in semi-detailed almost photographic oil paintings of Hudson River landscapes. She comes once every three or four weeks to the museum to just wander amongst the paintings.
For me - we wandered into the Impressionist area, my favorite of the periods. While I prefer the National Gallery in London's Impressionist collection - The Met does have an impressive grouping - specifically of Degas. Sitting in the center of the Degas room is the famous or infamous sculpture of the young ballerina with her cloth dress and shoes that Degas cast in wax and was later bronzed - since wax apparently deterioates over time. From a recent PBS special on Degas, I knew that this sculpture had caused quite the stir when he first exhibited it. So much of one that it was the only sculpture Degas dared to exhibit, the others he hid. He had used a real model to form it and she had modeled for him in the nude, no more than 13 years of age. Ballerinas in Degas' time were known to attract patrons in order to fund their dancing and expenses. Often matrons (mothers) would elicit the support of wealthy men - literally selling their daughter to them for a year's worth of rent and expenses. At early ages young girls would enter the Paris Ballet, sending wages home, and if they were lucky? Find a rich patron to cover their living expenses in Paris. The little ballerina that Degas molded from wax reminded the public of this occurrence and word spread that becoming a ballerina was akin to well...becoming a woman of ill-repute. Horrified, Degas stopped exhibiting his sculptures and continued in private. He had a great respect for the difficulty of the art and spent hours sitting in rehearsal halls, opera houses, and greeting rooms drawing, sketching and painting the dancers in motion and out. Degas was ahead of his time as a painter - amongst the first to do lithographs and prints, often making more than one copy then adding watercolor, oil, pastel and creating a painting. He used photography and then would add color to it. Degas played with numerous techniques - expanding his range as he did so. The Met has collected several of these in the two rooms covering Degas. What I adore most about the impressionists is how they examine the grace of movement with but a bit of paint - letting our eyes fill in the detail. The impressionist's version sometimes seems almost more beautiful and graceful than the original. A flurry of color here, a hint of paint, a dot, a line, and you see a ballerina dancing or a man and woman walking through a park.
We ended our journey wandering through rooms - first the engraved wooden rooms of the Studio Galleria (sp?) - these rooms have stone tile floors, and wooden walls with detailed engravings of books, instruments, flowers -taken from a house in 18th century Italy. The wood a deep mahogany, the engravings in redwood, blondwood, darkblack wood - paintings in wood. This is CW's favorite part of the museum. One room was a chapel with stained glass and a tile altar with Italian fresco. I'd never really seen these rooms before, hidden in cubby hole like entrances at the far southern end of the museum.
Finally, weary from walking for two hours, we moved to one of my favorite areas - the Egyptian tomb like structure that I can never remember the name of, housed in a huge windowed greenhouse at the northern end of the Museum. The air having a damp somewhat heavy smell of a warm climate.
We sat on stone benches and chatted about things.
Evil bosses. Taste. The President - whose mannerisms and facial expressions eerily remind CW of the evil boss. CW suggested I read the transcripts of the US President's speech - where, he apparently has some interesting things to say. She's not overly fond of him, but concedes that she's in no position to judge his actions - since she's not president nor believes she should be. From there the conversation drifted backwards towards tast and I explained how I'd recently made an idiot of myself online attempting to defend personal taste in books and writers...
As is more often than not the case in life, a piece of wisdom can come from an unexpected source, tonight CW shared this bit with me, concerning the appreciation of art:
"I don't attempt to defend my tast, particulary in art, to others or rile against someone else's tasts, tast in art is so subjective. I only comment on it if someone asks me - why I like something. I don't bother defending it. I'm not going to change their mind and they aren't going to change mine."
True. I think that's one of the reasons CW remains a close friend, even though we don't always share the same tasts, we do share a tolerance for having different tasts. She likes the more realistic oil painters, while I prefer the Impressionists. She likes Everwood, while I prefer Joan of Arcadia. She prefers Smallville, I prefer Angel. (Although I do watch both Smallville and Angel.) Tast is I think a private thing, something personal that says so much more about the individual than it does the object of art itself. Why we like what we like is not always something we ourselves understand. It can often be a gut level response. Something about what we are viewing hits an emotional place in us, calls to that place, and we respond. How we respond is bound to be different than anyone else. It does not make their response less valid or real, any more than their response makes ours less real. There's no right or wrong way to respond to a piece of art. It's a subjective thing and special thing, sacred in the very fact that it is so unique to each and every person. While sharing it is wonderful, keeping it private sometimes is wonderful as well.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Sounds wonderful!
Date: 2004-01-24 10:13 am (UTC)My favorite artists are, btw, Kandinsky, Seurat and Pollock.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 11:10 am (UTC)This sounds like a wonderful way to spend a few years to me. Thanks for posting this sk; I haven't been to the Met in almost ten years now, and it was a lovely piece to read.
Why we like what we like is not always something we ourselves understand. This is especially true for me. Sometimes I can retrieve an explanation; but sometimes I don't know exactly why a piece has resonance. Or in finding faces to draw. Sometimes here I'll know when I'm does because the subconscious part will come forward and blend into the redition of the photo to yield something more, or at least differnt than either alone. This is true of authors also; my likings narrow but eclectic. Brust? and Powers? and Mckillip? And why does McKillip work so well for me and leave others feeling distanced or that the writing is overblown. Very subjective, and a bit of a mystery.
I actually like hearing about different likes and perceptions; I have no desire to convince, but rather a desire to understand, and explore the mystery, which is for me one of life's great joys.
Thanks again.