365 Days at the Met

 August 3, 2023 Over the next visits, my plan is to return to galleries I missed the first time around because they were closed. Gallery 136, today's destination, was being re-hung on my first go-round (five years ago!) and was then reopened with what I took to be a temporary exhibition. It turns out to be a semi-permanent display whose theme is "The African Origins of Civilization." I think I understand the purpose of the exhibition - to elevate the esteem in which sub-Saharan art is held - but for me, it raises many questions. The introductory signage makes the point that homo sapiens originated in Africa, as did the effort to express abstract ideas in visual terms and to add beauty to material creations. The signage further notes that from the Classical period onward, European artists adhered to the canon of human proportions developed by the ancient Egyptians. Western connoisseurs generally did not discern similar connections between the art of Egypt and that of sub-S