Day 223 - Lansdowne Room
I will have to come back to gallery 514 at a later point. Through a wavy glass window in gallery 512, I can make out that gallery 514 is a period room and that it has a splendid chandelier and large tapestries hanging on deep red walls. But that's about it, and the space - broken record alert - is dimly lit.
Gallery.515 is very large room, perhaps 60 feet long and 25 feet wide, with a 20-foot high ceiling. An empty bin that, under normal circumstances, would contain handouts with information about the room and its contents, is labeled "Lansdowne House," so I Google "Lansdowne House Met Museum"on my cell phone and am rewarded with quite a lot of information. Begun in 1765 and designed by the architect Robert Adam (I've heard of him!) for Prime Minister John Stuart (for whom J.S. Mill was named?), the building occupied a corner of Berkeley Square. Stuart sold the unfinished house to the earl of Shelburne, later marquess of Lansdowne, a leading politico, and the house was completed for him in 1768. So this house was designed for prominent aristocrats, and it shows that. The Met acquired this room when the building was converted to a private club in 1930; the room was on a wing otherwise slated for demolition.
The room turns out to be, once again, a dining room, and again I wonder how many people could have been seated at what must have been an immensely long table - and how many cooks and servants it would have taken to keep the diners provisioned. Three good-sized windows line one of the short walls, and a large crystal chandelier hangs from the elaborately paneled and stuccoed ceiling. The room must have been quite light-filled and for that reason cheerier, in its original setting; at the Met, the windows look out on a painted backdrop, an evening scene with a cloud-shrouded moon, so it's always crepuscular.
What's most notable about the room is its classical decor. This is evident in the two large, weight-bearing fluted Corinthian columns at one end of the room, the numerous fluted pilasters that line the walls, the restraint of the carving surrounding the marble fireplace, the symmetry of the architectural details and furniture arrangements, and especially, the ten larger than life-size statues of Greek gods, goddesses, athletes, and other figures that flank the room. These statues include two representations of Aphrodite (I think) in different degrees of undress at either end and eight statues set into niches along the two long walls. Originally, the room contained ancient marble statues acquired by Lord Shelburne in Italy; all but one of the statues here are plaster casts. I initially take the statue I like best to be Athena, but it turns out to be a portrait statue; in any case, the folds of her robe and cloak are impressively executed. I can't help remarking that while a dying Amazon and Venus bare their breasts, the male athletes all wear discrete fig leaves.
The coolness of the room (cream-colored statuary and pale green walls, little lighting) leaves me rather cold as well. But it does make me think about the the significance that classical art held among 18th century aristos. Surely, in decorating their homes with classical images they were proclaiming their own good taste to anyone who visited them - and to themselves. Perhaps, too, they liked to see themselves as full and equal counterparts of the Greeks in the realms of politics, philosophy, science, and so on.
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