Nine "Secrets" about the History of the Met's Department of Asian Art. «In preparing a history of the Museum's Department of Asian Art, which this year celebrates its centennial by showcasing its unparalleled collection through a range of exhibitions, gallery talks, and other offerings, I have uncovered a number of little-known facts and many "secrets" that are not widely known to the public.
Here are nine of the most fascinating.» The Avery Collection of Chinese Porcelains (now galleries 612–619 in the Department of European Paintings). Photographed ca. 1907 1. For the first forty-five years of the Museum's history (1870–1915), there was no separate department for the arts of Asia—it was all part of the Department of Decorative Arts. The Heber Bishop jade collection (now gallery 206). 2. Indian sculpture display (now gallery 207). 3. Left: Sigisbert Chretien Bosch Reitz. 4. The Top 10 Secrets of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Have you ever taken a tour of the secrets of the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
Well, that’s exactly what you’re going to get here. 15 Unexpected Things in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Secrets of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - February 28, 2013. You could lose yourself in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In fact, if you’re lucky, you will lose yourself, straying off the beaten track of masterpieces and discovering impossibly gorgeous and obscure objects to carry away in your mind’s eye. Maybe you’ll end up in front of an enormous winged lion from Mesopotamia, carved from alabaster nearly 3,000 years ago. Perhaps you’ll find yourself gazing upon a 1950s Balenciaga evening dress and wondering how it would fit you. Or peering over the threshold of the elegant Damascus room in the museum’s newly refurbished Islamic Art department, imagining how 18th century noblemen sipped their tea on red plush cushions while they listened to the water play in a mosaic fountain.
The Met is one of New York’s most public places, but it is also full of hidden, private pleasures — open secrets that are silently shared by those who love it and visit again and again. The NYC that Never Was: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Unfinished Areas. One of our favorite fun facts about the Metropolitan Museum of Art is that it’s still unfinished (and that it grew over time, so you can still see earlier versions inside).
Here are tidbits about where to see these incomplete portions today and how they came to be. The original museum, built by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould in a Victorian Gothic style, quickly outgrew its space and Richard Morris Hunt was hired to design an expansion for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hunt, who had just designed the Administration Building for the Chicago World’s Fair, created an Exposition style building, stretching from 79th Street to 85th Street and from Fifth Avenue to the foot of Cleopatra’s Needle, which would surround the museum’s original Gothic home.
Hunt, who had worked for Napoleon III as Inspector of Construction, was used to having wealthy clients (he designed numerous mansions in New York City) and did not factor money into the cost of his design. The Met sought a second opinion. Rule, Britannia: A Preview. Photo courtesy of the author «Paris is always lovely, but this spring I decided to cross the English Channel for my latest lecture series, a move that has surprised those who know my work on French painting.
My roots in British art actually go back to my undergraduate years, when I spent a few summers in Oxford. London, a short coach ride away, offered total immersion in British painting—in addition to the equally exciting possibility of a Princess Diana sighting!» Met Founds Research Institute Centered on Lauder’s Cubist Gift. The Manet Effect - Artist's Network. The name Edgar Degas is forever synonymous with pastel, but he was not the only French Impressionist to be utilizing the medium.
Édouard Manet, whom Degas first meets while copying a Velazquez painting at the Louvre, did a considerable amount of work in pastel. Some of the best examples are on display alongside Degas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Portrait of George Moore (1873–79; pastel on canvas, 21 3/4 x 13 7/8 inches) by Édouard Manet. H. O. Manet & Degas: The two men shared much in common: Both were from aristocratic Parisian families and neither had been highly influenced by the popular en plein air movement going on at the time. Is it Drawing or Painting? When looking at the Manets, it was not always clear that they were pastels until you moved in closer. Pastel on Canvas: If you plan on experimenting with pastel on canvas, I recommend testing how individual brands of pastel react to the surface.
Subscribe to Pastel Journal magazine. The Experimentation of Degas. Having the opportunity to visit any art museum is a pleasure.
There’s always something to be learned. While art books and magazines serve a great purpose in providing visibility to many pieces of artwork that would otherwise be left in obscurity, they cannot equal the joy of viewing original artwork in person. It’s easy in a museum to tell which viewers are painters. They are usually the ones with their noses in a painting inspecting how the pigment was applied. This insight into technique and style can provide permission for a painter to take chances in their own work, leading to new creative possibilities. Metropolitan Museum Launches 82nd & Fifth App in 12 Languages, Based on Award-Winning Online Series Featuring 100 Works of Art and 100 Curators They Inspired.
(New York, August 8, 2014)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art launched today a new iPad app, 82nd & Fifth, in which 100 curators from across the Museum talk about 100 works of art from the Met's collection that changed the way they see the world—one work, one curator, two minutes at a time.
Eleven Museum photographers interpret the curators' audio commentaries visually. The app is presented in English, Arabic, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, said: "82nd & Fifth is a project that speaks directly to my interest in connecting the Met's collection to a broader audience.
In a world filled with constant information, these two-minute, authoritative commentaries provide powerful, compelling content in quick doses. The 82nd & Fifth app is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Conservation Through a Gamer's Eye. Ashira Loike, Assistant Administrator, Department of Objects Conservation; and Beth Edelstein, Associate Conservator, Department of Objects Conservation «What happens when gaming students are let loose on the Met's collection?
We found our answer to this question this past spring when staff from the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation collaborated with a group of intrepid and creative students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The students were supervised by their professor, Elizabeth Goins, in a course titled "Interactive Design for Museums," part of RIT's Museum Games & Technology Initiative. The Artist Project. Digital Underground. Digital Underground.
Met Museum Presents Blog. Download 422 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You could pay $118 on Amazon for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalog The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. Or you could pay $0 to download it at MetPublications, the site offering “five decades of Met Museum publications on art history available to read, download, and/or search for free.” If that strikes you as an obvious choice, prepare to spend some serious time browsing MetPublications’ collection of free art books and catalogs. You may remember that we featured the site a few years ago, back when it offered 397 whole books free for the reading, including American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885–1915; Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomical Drawings from the Royal Library; and Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Related Content: MetFamilyMap. Family Itinerary: NEW YORK SPRING SPECTACULAR. A Piece of Peace. Audio Guide. The Audio Guide web app is not available on desktop computers. To access the Audio Guide web app, please visit this page on any Internet-enabled mobile device. You may also navigate to it from the homepage of our mobile website, or by selecting the Audio Guide option on select object pages on the mobile website.