Today I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by myself and I had a great time. I spent more than five hours there, and of course even though I saw tons of stuff — mostly temporary exhibitions since I’ve seen many of the permanent exhibits before — there was a lot I didn’t get to see. I lingered for quite a while at some exhibits, and in other places I went through pretty quickly.
In order, I saw:
- the Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
- Lisbon’s Hebrew Bible
- Victorian Electrotypes: Old Treasures, New Technology
- Art in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1515: Paintings and Drawings from the Museum’s Collections
- lunch in the cafeteria (OK, didn’t see this, I ate this)
- Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York
- English furniture, rooms, decorative arts, etc. (probably my favorite part of this visit, because I’ve been very much interested in British history lately)
- The American Wing
- Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine
- The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini (just opened last week; very crowded!)
- Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz
- Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe
- and finally, the Met’s newest high-profile permanent exhibition, the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, the highlight of which is the Damascus Room, a formal Islamic reception room that has been transported to the Met.
I also stopped along the way at one of my favorite paintings at the Met: The Storm, by Pierre-Auguste Cot.
It was a really nice afternoon. Visiting the Met is like traveling around the world, and through history. I adore it. I’m glad I live in the city that has the Met.
