365 Days at the Met

May 1, 2018 It's vases, vases everywhere in galley 161, but their interest value is redeemed for me by the fact that most were produced by Greeks living in southern Italy. Maybe it is my imagination, but many of the images seem to possess a vigor that was less noticeable to me in works from Greece proper;  the use of more white in the palette also makes them distinctive. I'm struck, too, by a group of small terracotta statuettes depicting stock figures from Greek theater. These were actually found in Greece, and why they're in this gallery, whose theme is Greek expansion into Italy, isn't altogether clear to me. But the figures of comic actors that show old men really are funny! They are short and bearded, with protruding bellies, and their penises and balls peek out from under their tunics. One has a finger in his mouth, another seems to be stifling a giggle (or maybe a yawn).  Today's object, though, isn't Greek at all but was made by the Daunians,...

April 30, 2018 Gallery 160 has a relatively small number of works from the Hellenistic period and is dominated by a portion of a huge column taken from the temple of Artemis at Sardis. The column, with its Ionic capital, was originally about 60 feet tall; the fragment in the museum, while less than a third that size, is still imposing. There are also some large kraters for mixing wine and water and ceremonial vessels for holding water that come from Puglia, a reminder of southern Italy's Greek past. I wish we were going to Paestum or Segesta on our upcoming trip; Agrigento will have to suffice. I realize that I need to revise my impression of Hellenistic art as highly emotionally expressive. Some is, some isn't. I see a lot of continuity with the classical tradition, with its emphasis on idealized forms and emotional reserve. I also can't help but contrast the relatively brief efflorescence of Greek art (a few hundred years) with the millennia spanned by Egyp...

April 26, 2018 With Gallery 159, it's back to vases, lots of them, all red-figured and most if not all from the 5th century B.C.E. A little time away has been restorative, and I am able to admire the fineness of the work - especially when I put my reading glasses on. I plan to write about one of the first works I see, which I immediately recognize as Thetis giving the new armor to her son, Achilles. Maybe I want to write about it just because I do recognize it. But then I see a small black oil jar, only about 5 inches high, that charms me no end. On the body, it depicts a woman in profile. She is nude excpt for a headband and a garter around her thigh; her torso is very slim, but her arms and thighs and breasts are well developed, her pubic hair just suggested. She is bending over to pick up (or perhaps put down) a garment that is partly draped over the back of a cushioned chair facing her. The caption explains that the object beside her on the floor is a vase for holdi...

April 25, 2018 Gallery 158, with objects largely from the 4th century B.C.E.,  is blessedly free (almost) of painted vases. (I was chagrined when Janet Mindes asked me the other day whether I prefer black-figure or red-figure vases, adding that they are really very different, and I didn't have an answer for her.) Instead, there are many marble statues and steles that served as grave markers; some wonderfully elaborate  gold earrings, including a pair depicting what I took to be a boy riding a dolohin but really showing a cupid-figure riding a dove (oh well, I didn't get that close a look at them); and slver objects, including one that looks for all the world like a strainer -- and is! (But what a strainer- was it actually put to household use or employed mainly in rituals, I wonder?)  I'm tempted to write about. a small terracotta statuette of two girls playing a game in which one rides piggyback, her left foot lifted above the ground, simply because it is so pl...

April 19, 2018 Gallery 157 is yet another gallery with dozens of kylixes (drinking cups), amphoras (jars), kraters (vessels for mixing water and wine), and other kinds of ceramics. The ones I like best are, for the most part, ones that "break the mold" in form or design. There's a wonderful cup shaped like a cow's hoof, on the exterior of which are painted a cowherd and his dog keeping watch over the cattle. Another cup is in the form of a black man's head; the cup is mostly black, but a red glaze makes his curly hair and lips really stand out, although almost as a caricature, by our standards. (Apparently, black people were known to the Greeks from Homeric times on.) There are a few more conventionally-shaped ceramics I like for their unusual subjects. One shows a man and a woman reclining on a long couch. It's a welcome change from so many scenes of Greeks fighting Amazons, satyrs pursuing women, and so on. Today's object is  a krater about 2...

April 18, 2018 This galley (156) also contains a large number of vases, along with marble statues, bronze statuettes, and other objects, mostly from the 5th century B.C.E. I pat myself on the back for immediately recognizing a depiction of Hermes, with his winged sandals and traveler's hat, but am quickly put in my place when the figure I think is Athena turns out to be Apollo. Oh well.... I admire the vases, but I don't for the most part love them, and I'm trying to figure out why. Partly it may be the subject matter, which often depicts violence -- fights between warriors, violence towards women. (Poseidon was quite the lech, I learn.) But it's also that most of them  don't evoke much feeling of any kind in me. This isn't true of today's object, a marble funerary stele some 3 feet high from about 450-400 B.C.E.  Carved in relief against a plain ground, it shows in profile a little girl who is holding to her chest a pet dove, which is crooked ag...

April 12, 2018 This gallery (155) contains literally dozens of 6th century B.C.E. ceramics, and after a certain point, I find it hard to pay close attention to them any more. I do recognize a number of motifs: Theseus killing the Minotaur (who looks more human than I'd expected); the judgment of Paris (though I can't tell from their depictions which goddess is which); fighting warriors; Dionysus, etc.  I'm intrigued by the presence of "eye-vases" in which the principal scene is framed on either side by a large round eye. Apparently, these eyes were meant to ward off evil; they call to mind the beads painted to resemble eyes on my Turkish keychain, which presumably serve the same function 2500 years later. (I wonder: Does the much older Eye of Horus have the same significance?  But I look it up and see that the Eye of Horus is a symbol of royal power, protection, and health. Similar, but not really the same.)  The gallery has a  number of bronze pieces a...