14th - 18th Century Paintings at the MET

After the special exhibit of Doug + Mike Starn, and the Antiquities, I allocated my time to the paintings section, both ancient and in 20th century.

Starting with the end of Gothic period and the beginning of Italian Renaissance, we were greeted with devotional pieces, serene and other worldly.



Below few examples are those in line with Fra Filippo Lippi and Botticelli, who valued line more than shades and volumes.  They might strike someone as old fashioned but its distinctive style can be compared to the modern day mannerism therefore they need no apology and who can deny their beauty?


Madonna and Child with Donors, c. 1365, Giovanni da Milano


Saint Lawrence Enthroned with Saints and Donors, Fra Filippo Lippi


Portrait of a Woman (l), probably 1450s, Master of the Castello Nativity; Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, c. 1440, Fra Filippo Lippi; Portrait of a Woman (r), 1430s, Attributed to Paolo Uccello


Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Child, early 1460s, Giovanni Bellini


The Birth of the Virgin, 1467, Fra Carnevale (Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini)


Saint Justina of Padua, 1490s, Bartolomeo Montagna (Bartolomeo Cincani)


With Titian, El Greco and Caravaggio, we entered a new era definitely.  We now see the works in the height of the Renaissance period and these masters presented highly realistic but not slavish or high stylized dramatic take of daily life or biblical events.


Portrait of a Man, c. 1515, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)


The Lute Player, probably c. 1597, Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi)


View of Toledo, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)


The Vision of Saint John, 1608–14, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)

Works by Rubens, Van Dyck always made me a little disoriented timeline-wise.  I often mistakenly place these works in a later period, because the way they handled the subject matters and their fluid techniques. They also possessed certain polish I personally more associate with 18th century paintings.


Portrait of a Woman, Probably Susanna Lunden (née Fourment, 1599–1628), Peter Paul Rubens


Self-portriat, possibly 1620-21, Anthony van Dyck


Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan, 1633, Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)

Even some early Rembrandt (above) had such qualities but most of his works drew us to a world which was very realistic but much more earthy.  His characters breathed and sweated.


Man in Oriental Costume (''The Noble Slav''), 1632, Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)


Hendrickje Stoffels (1626–1663), mid-1650s,  Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)


Woman with a Pink, c. 1660-64, Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)


Minerva, 1635, Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)

In contrast, Vermeer's characters posed in their frames calmly and the time was suspended.  We were afraid to disturb the delicate tranquility.  The protestant country's still life genre paintings had same effects as well.


Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, c. 1662, Johannes Vermeer


Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware, 1635, Willem Claesz Heda

Rounding up this century's output, I selected two pieces by Velázquez.  His works in a way were similar to those by Rembrandt but were less robust and little stranger. The modernity of his self-portrait was staggering. 


María Teresa (1638–1683), Infanta of Spain, 1651-54, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez


 Portrait of a Man, c. 1630-35, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez

Goya, though was active in 18th Century, continued Velázquez's effort seamlessly.  The sense of doomed darkness in the most repressive regime during the time was palpable.


Manuel Osorio  Manrique de Zuñiga, possibly 1790s, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes


Majas on a Balcony, Attributed to Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

In the more enlightened sphere, we are in the most delicate theatrical world of Watteau.  Immediately, the delicacy and intrigues of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro resonated. It was poignant to think that such illusion of idyllic world will be shattered half a century later, during the French Revolution (1789–1799).


Mezzetin, c. 1718-20, Jean Antoine Watteau


The French Comedians, 1720-21, Jean Antoine Watteau

In my next post, I'll discuss paintings and a couple sculptures from 19-20th century.

Because the time constraint and because my believe that the MET was not really in the league with, say the Louvre, I failed to plan my visit and didn't bother to consult the floor plan handed to me when I asked for German painting section, and only after having exited at the end of the day, I realized that I had regrettably missed paintings by those titans like Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Memling, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hieronymus Bosch, Hans Holbein the Younger. However, the consolation was that I had seen them in my three previous visits and they will serve as an enticement for me to go back, as if I need any.

>> New York City Report, September 2010, Part XII: 19th and 20th Century Art at the MET  
<< New York City Report, September 2010, Part X: Art from Ancient Worlds at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Banned Books in Mao's China

Growing up in Mao's China, I read very few books with literary values when I was a kid, except for certain books stamped as "For Denouncing Purpose Only" my father was able to keep due to his work in Culture Bureau of the province.

I remembered he read Pushkin to me, in Chinese translation, not the Russian he was also fluent at, since I knew no such language and had declined my dad's offer to teach me Russian. How stupid I was!

Back to the books, I remembered also an old copy of "The Sorrow of Young Werther" but I never dared to touch it because the morbidity associated with it. 

When I was in middle school, that country had finally opened up and I started to read more literature written by Tolstoy, Balzac, Chekhov and Shakespeare.

China still has banned books, either due to political reason or if the books were deemed pornographic.

When I was in college, Danielle Steel's Family Album was included in banned pornographic books. At the same time, I read a Chinese translation of 1984 borrowed from my university library.  Apparently, Chinese authorities believed that the Big Brother applied to the Soviet Union only.

I also want to expand a little of this discussion.  When I was again in college, the student union wanted to play video of Gone With The Wind to celebrate International Women's Day.  Somehow, our nervous university authority heard of the plan and persuaded or ordered the union to change the plan.  Instead, we were treated with glorious The Blue Lagoon, with scantly-clad Brook Shields and all.

Music and songs were often capriciously manhandled as well.  In the 1970s, before and after a movie, audience had to stand up and sing The East Is Red a song compared Mao Zedong to the sun, and Internationale, a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.  How time has changed.  Internationale has been more or less banned now in the People's Republic of China.

My rumination proves that banning ideas and speeches is as foolish as it is irrational.


Devils' Dance © Matthew Felix Sun

Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Devastating Novel "The Land of Green Plums" by Herta Müller
- Ashamed of Oneself - Reading Book "Never Let Me Go"
- Molotov's Magic Lantern: A Journey In Russian Histoy by Rachel Polonsky and Some Journeys of My Own
- David Malouf's Ransom
- Review of "As Above, So Below" by Rudy Von B. Rucker

Art from Ancient Worlds at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ever since the opening of the new Greek and Roman Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 20, 2007, I longed to visit it.  Finally, I got chance to admire the beautiful hall, as well as incredible collections there.  In the same trip, I also concentrated on Byzantine works, which I had not paid much attention in my previous visit.  For a museum as big as the MET, I had to strategize and concentrate on a portion of its vast collections in order to really look at the art, instead of just greetings and then moving on.

I found this introductory video online and it can guide my dear readers who are not familiar with this project.




At the entrance hall to the Greek and Roman wing, visitors can see most imposing statues and columns.







Below pictures are only the corridors to the big display rooms at the end and smaller ones on the sides. 





Greek sculptures from all periods are included and I can spend hours and hours in these rooms.






Marble head of a youth from a relief, Greek, late 4th century B.C., Said to be from Rhodes

Beyond the beautiful sculptures so identified with Greek culture, there were many other objects with high historical, cultural and artistic values.  I particularly love the weird small sculpture below, like the Female Figure with strange profile and the Harp Player in the strange pose, and terracotta and metal artifacts below:


Marble female figure, Cycladic, Final Neolithic, c. 4500-4000 B.C.


Marble female figure, Cycladic, Final Neolithic, c. 4500-4000 B.C.


Marble seated harp player, Cycladic, Early Cycladic I-Early Cycladic II, c. 2800-2700 B.C.




Terracotta neck-amphora (storage jar), Greek, Attic, Proto-Attic, second quarter of the 7th century B.C.






Terracotta krater, Greek, Attic, Geometric, c. 725 B.C.


Terracotta neck-amphora (jar) with twisted handles, Greek, Attic, c. 440 B.C.




Two Bronze Helmets, Greek, South Italian, mid-4th-mid-3rd century B.C.




Terracotta sarcophagus rim, East Greek, Clazomenian, last quarter of the 6th century, B.C.


Gold phiale (libation bowl), Greek, 4th-3rd century B.C.

Roman Art obvious continued Greek tradition but also developed in the directions of its own distinction.  Beyond the usual busts closely associated to Roman arts, I love those murals and mosaics very much.




Marble head of a Greek General, Roman, 1st-2nd century A.D.


Marble head of an athlete, Roman, Antonine period, c. A.D. 138-92, Copy of a Greek bronze statue of c. 450-425 B.C.


Marble Sarcophagus, Roman, about A.D. 220-230


Roman Portrait of a young boy












Bronze medallion of Mantinea - BETOYPIOC, bust of Antinous, favorite of Hadrian_TOIC APKACI, horse Mantinea, A.D. 130-137



Byzantine Art collection is relatively small and I had hard time to locate them - they were underneath the main staircases facing the entrance hall.  There were some incredible fabrics from that period and Byzantine Egypt but my batteries went dead before I could capture some images.









I had been to the Egyptian wing before but somehow, I totally missed the gigantic reconstructed Temple of Dendur, Egyptian, Dendur, Nubia, Roman period, ca. 15 B.C.  They were quite well preserved - mysterious and imposing, yet not uninviting, due to the bright light in this room.














The last portion of the artifacts from ancient worlds I want to include in this post mostly contained gold masks and crafts from South America, Mexico, Columbia, etc. They were stunningly rich and slightly grotesque.  Most interesting thing to me was that they resembled some huge bronze masks I saw in Sanxingdui, Sichuan Province, China.  Perhaps, there were some hidden connections since that particular civilization emerged and disappeared mysteriously as well and didn't resemble much of other part of Chinese culture.  Strange indeed.









>> New York City Report, September 2010, Part XI: 14th - 18th Century Paintings at the MET
<< New York City Report, September 2010, Part IX: Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City