Caspar David Friedrich

The Met’s retrospective of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) ) did just what a museum retrospective should do: it presented key major works in historical context and gave an overall view of the artist’s development from his early work to his finish. It’s a show unlikely to be replicated, as most works are held by German […]

Siena at the Met

“Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350” confirmed the view arrived at on our recent trip to Italy, including Siena, that Sienese painting is a cul de sac in the history of art. The exhibition’s first gallery is centered on the Met’s prize Duccio and I cynically wonder if the show was not conceived as a […]

Black Art

We had a fortuitous 30-hour immersion in Black culture: the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of art from the collection of Alicia Keys and Swizz B; Hell’s Kitchen, the Alicia Keys musical on Broadway; and Harlem Renaissance at the Met. I reviewed the play elsewhere, but the two art shows were an interesting complement to each other. […]

Manet/Degas

New York: Hot on the heels of its blockbuster Van Gogh (Cypresses) exhibition, the Met has trotted out two of the big four “Impressionists” to draw more crowds and open their wallets. (I put “Impressionists” in quotes because neither Manet nor Degas would have accepted the classification, and their styles differ significantly from the light-infused, […]

Van Gogh’s Cypresses

I approach a themed show at the Met with some skepticism: are the curators making, let alone creating, a point in order to justify amassing loans for a blockbuster show? From a museological viewpoint, it is no longer enough, or professionally justifiable, to say, “Here are a lot of van Goghs for your viewing pleasure” […]

Homer at the Met

Ever since the George Floyd tragedy, cultural and media institutions have been making up for a century of neglect by spotlighting Black-related art and artists. The relatively staid Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has ridden the wave, first with a new “Afrofuturist” period room, then a dossier exhibition around Why Born Enslaved!, a […]

Paintings at the Met – before 1500

602. Gold Ground Best: Lorenzo Monaco, David (1405-10). David strikes a commanding pose, holds a ‘cither’ realistically on his knee, and has the most human face in the gallery. The gold background sets off the beautiful green, pink and blue of David’s robes. Worst: Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni, St. Catherine Disputing and Two […]

Paintings at the Met – 19c.

Without being pretentious but in an effort to look at familiar art more closely, I herewith embark on a project to evaluate the Met’s collection gallery by gallery, selecting the best and the worst – or, rather, my favorite work and least favorite, for I do not confuse my opinion with quality. (To see a […]

Valentin de Boulogne

The Met’s second big fall show opened last week, and as usual it is big: something like 40 of the 60 known paintings by Valentin de Boulogne – from the Louvre, above all, plus the Vatican, Indianapolis and several venues in Rome and Florence – have been gathered and, unfortunately, hung together. Unfortunate, because so […]

Jerusalem

A quick but labored walk through the Met’s newest blockbuster exhibition, Jerusalem (1000-1400), made me wonder if I was ‘arted out,’ if I was going to museums out of habit or sense of duty and no longer able to truly enjoy myself. Yes, there were a few things that caught my eye, but for the […]