365 Days at the Met

January 24, 2022 When I first peered into gallery 753, I saw a wall lined with paintings of men in military uniforms and thought to myself, "A whole gallery devoted to portraits of military officers of the American Revolution."  Indeed, there are a number of such portraits,  Typically, the men are shown at full length and striking rather grand poses, with one arm outstretched and a small scene of a battle with which they were associated depicted in the background.  In fact, the contents of the gallery are somewhat broader in scope (there's a  Copley study for his famous "Watson and the Shark," for example),  but the central theme is, in fact, the Revolution.  An introductory placard  reminds us that women and enslaved people were excluded from the Founding Fathers' vision of liberty and equality. Once again, I feel I'm being clobbered by politically correct verbiage, and I think, "Who doesn't know this?" But then, I realize that the Met has

 January 13, 2022 I was more than a bit dismayed to find that gallery 752 is a large space housing nine pieces of furniture - items of relatively limited interest to me - all made in New York of mahogany and dating from about 1750 to about 1820.  Still, by the end of the visit, I'd found aspects of the gallery and its contents that were thought-provoking.    The furniture includes four chairs, a handsome and gracefully proportioned chest-on-chest, a "bureau desk" that may have been used for beauty routines involving wigs and combs, and three card tables. The first thing that strikes me is that playing cards must have been a major diversion in the pre-television era.  But then it occurs to me that donors may have been willing to divest themselves of relatively small pieces like card tables, especially as card-playing became less popular, while holding onto larger, more impressive tables and chests.  Today's object is one of the card tables, this one made in New York Ci

January 10, 2022 Today was very cold, and I was tempted to stay in.  But I donned multiple layers and actually felt quite comfortable, except for my fingertips. I was reminded of the saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Of course that's not true; though cold, it was sunny, but  it would have been dreadful had there been precip of any kind.  Still, I was glad I persuaded myself to go - motivated in part by the knowledge that it is supposed to be even colder tomorrow.   Gallery 751 houses part of yet another collection I didn't know the Met had - American folk art.  Seventeen paintings, which include portraits and landscapes that date mostly from the 1700s and the first half of the19th century, line the walls. These include a Edward Hicks "Peaceable Kingdom"  - perhaps inevitably, since I learn that Hicks painted 62 of these!  There are also a few sculptures and several pieces of furniture,  one of which I covet: a sleek Shaker pine benc

January 6, 2022  Display cases containing silver candlesticks, beakers, punch bowls, porringers, tankards, spoons,  coffee and tea pots, and many other objects from the Colonial period line the side walls of gallery 750, while in the center is another display case largely devoted to works made by Paul Revere. The gallery gleams! Introductory signage notes that colonists prized their silver, whether made here or imported, and that silver was a signifier of status. I have to admit that  while I like many of the items very much, I'm mostly intrigued  by what the objects indicate about colonial society. (I might note, though, that even if I were more attuned to the aesthetic qualities of the objects, I'd still be put off by the Met's failure to define the obscure technical terms like "gadrooning"  and "strapwork" that the signs use to describe the objects' decorative features. A relatively minor complaint, I know, but really, the museum could do better.)

  December 31, 2021 Gallery 749 evokes  another "Who knew?" response. The gallery is devoted to painting and other arts of  Mexico from the late 1600s to about 1800.  The paintings of religious subjects that line one of the gallery's walls don't excite me; they look like the works of artists from the hinterlands. But other objects amaze me with their fine craftsmanship. The iron workmanship, exemplified by a pair of stirrups and a pair of spurs dating from 1738 and 1750, respectively, is so elaborate that, despite my many visits to the Arms and Armor galleries, I have absolutely no idea what these objects are; I speculate that the cruciform stirrups housed little shrines and that the spurs were children's toys.  That I'm so far off is humbling. I'm impressed, too, by two lovely groupings of wooden statuettes from Guatemala depicting the Calvary and Mary and Joseph adoring the Christ child.  Made around 1790 and about 2-3 feet high, the statuettes are brill