The Met is massive, This is my fourth? fifth? visit to the place and it marks the first time I managed to get off the first floor. I planned my visit: I wanted to see the Vermeer exhibit, the photography of Robert Franks exhibit and, of course, the Egyptian temple that is housed there.
When I got there, I saw two more things that I decided to check out: the Art of the Samurai exhibit and the sculpture of the Young Archer, which is attributed to Michelangelo.
I decided this time to START with the exhibits on the second floor. So I scurried up the stairs... okay, I took the elevator... besides anyone who knows me would have a hard time picturing me scurrying. The exhibits on the second floor were the Franks exhibit and the Art of the Samurai.
The Franks exhibit.
In the 1950's, Robert Franks received a grant to travel across America, in order to photograph everyday life across the country. He chose 80-90 of them to be published in a book titled
The Americans. This book was an instant hit and made Franks an artistic star.
The photos in this exhibit come from the book and from other photo shoots around the world. They are amazing, Definitely a must see. When you enter the gallery, you see Franks' earlier work from Peru, France and Spain (among other places), then, in order that they appear in the book, photographs from
The Americans are displayed. Finally, snippets from his later work in film are shown.
An excellent exhibit It runs until January 3rd.
The Art of the Samurai
While an interesting exhibit, this was a bit of a letdown for me. The first half of the exhibit is devoted to the development of the sword in Japan. After a while, I got tired at looking at all the swords. It's not my thing.
Later on in the exhibit, though, the armor and tapestries and fascinating. The armor was highly decorated, and the helms, in particular, are neat, with all their embellishments. The tapestries? Beautiful.
This exhibit runs until January 10th.
Then I went to the first floor where I saw The Young Archer. It's a beautiful piece, though it's not as... um... manly and big as, say, David. Interestingly, the exhibit addressed this, discussing how this was probably very early in Michelangelo's career, and might have been a youth or maybe an depiction of Apollo.
Vermeer
In 1609, the Dutch, led by Henry Hudson, explored the region that would become New York City. To celebrate this, The Dutch government shipped Vermeer's
The Milkmaid over to the Met. Vermeer was active at the time of the exploration and later founding of New Amsterdam.
The Met took this painting, along with the Vermeers in its own collection and a few paintings from other Dutch masters of the time, and turned it into an astonishing exhibition. The Vermeers, with their use of light and their technical brilliance were amazing, as were the painting and drawings of the other artists.
The only problem is that the exhibit was PACKED. Clearly, I should have done this one first.
This exhibit only runs until the end of them month. If you are in NYC, you owe it to yourself to see this one.
Finally, I went to the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. It was built around 15 BC. It's an actual Egyptian Temple, given to the MEt by Egypt after the Army Corps of Engineers helped with the construction of the Aswan Dam. IT is the only Egyptian Temple int he Western Hemisphere. Whenever I'm at the Et, I always stop here.
I'm not the Egyptophile that my sister Erin and my good friend Michele are, but I do love it.
After that, I had spent a little over two hours there, and the crowds were starting to get to me so I left.
The Met is an amazing place: so huge. I don't think you CAN do it justice in one day. You need to pick and choose what you want to see. But always leave some wiggle room, because I promise you, once you get there, a special exhibition or two that you didn't about will jump out and scream "Visit me!" Give in to the impulse.