My Favorite Paintings at New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)

One of my favorite museums is the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), of whose early 20th century European painting collections I am particularly partial.

My most favorite was a triptych by the German painter Max Beckmann, the mystical and political Departure (1933-35). These beautifully rendered hallucinatory, menacing, foreboding, and just slightly hopeful and redemptive panels, aptly and sadly captured one of the most horrifying moments of human history. These paintings were the answers to the art's existential question.



Less tense, yet no less disquieting, an early Picasso, Boy Leading a Horse (1905-06) from his Rose Period, also registered with me highly. Without any covering and protection, a slender youth and a lean and graceful horse, both economically outlined and modeled, wandered in an abstract landscape — a pale pink expanse of a barren field under a grave and leaden sky.  The high horizon enabled the pink boy fully merged with the pink field thus a harmony, and that also contributed to make the atmosphere less menacing; rather, a prevalent melancholy and a tinge of sadness permeated the canvas. The subtle and subdued beauty, the quietly riveting drama generated by the contrasting colors and moods, made one's heart ache.




My Favorite Museum Collection Series
>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 139: My Favorite Paintings at The Frick Collection, New York City
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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

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