365 Days at the Met

 April 9, 2021 Gallery 627 spotlights the rise during the 17th century of two new kinds of subjects for paintings: still lifes and genre scenes.  Interestingly, the signage notes that a number of women artists took to painting still lifes because training for this form did not require drawing and painting the male nude, activities forbidden to women. I don't recognize most of the artists whose works are hung in the gallery, with the exception of a small portrait whose loose brushwork unmistakably marks it as a Franz Hals (and which seems out of place among the other works, I must say). I'm especially drawn to two of the still lifes, for opposite reasons. The first is a small (approximately 21 inches high and 16 inches wide) oil on wood by Clara Peters, a Flemish painter whose dates are approximately 1587-1637.  It shows a variety of flowers, painted in luminous, harmonious shades of red and rose, blue,  yellow, and white, casually arranged in a black vase, all agains...

 April 5, 2021 Although Gallery 626 houses a number of paintings with religious themes, including Lucas Cranach the Elder's painting of Saint Maurice (shown as a Black knight in armor), it centers on 16th century portraiture north and south of the Alps. The signage notes the efforts of painters to infuse these portraits with a vital sense of the sitter's presence. I'm particularly drawn to two portraits by Giovanni Battista Moroni (1524-1578), an artist I'd barely heard of before who came from the town of Albino, near Bergamo. The first work, executed in oil on canvas and measuring about 40 inches high and 32 inches wide, is of Bartolomeo Bonghi, a legal scholar and professor.  Seated sideways in a wooden chair with red (velvet?) upholstery and brass fittings, Bonghi turns to look outward at the viewer,  his face framed by a three-cornered black hat. His reddish mustache and luxuriant beard are similar in color, but differentiated in texture, from the fur collar that to...

  April 2, 2021 Gallery 625 is devoted to 16th century landscapes, both northern and Italian There are interesting works by Patinir,  Piero di Cosimo, and a follower of Bosch, among others, but I want to focus on a painting I've always loved, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Harvesters."   As many times as I've seen the work, I evidently never stopped to read the caption. Otherwise, I would have known that this was one of a series of six paintings commissioned by an Antwerp merchant to decorate his suburban home - a fact that, as much as anything, brings home to me the rising power and wealth of the haute bourgeoisie. Four of the other panels are in that room I adore in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Even at a time when I'm saddened by Charly's illness and the possibility that we will never again enjoy travel together, I realize how lucky I've been to have seen so much, including that wondrous room.   Completed in 1565, the panel, executed in oil on wood...