Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Posted on March 19, 2014 by borysSNORC

My museum snobbery started somewhere in the early 90s, after a visit to the Queensland Art Gallery and seeing a particularly enormous and delightful canvas, depicting a bright yellow Monaro with big fat tyres and black racing stripes, fancifully entitled: “Bitch Magnet”. If smartphones had been invented then I would have taken an obligatory picture of the abomination, but seeing that they weren’t and the internet was yet to be used for anything at all back then, I am failing in my duty to have a representation of it here for your edification. Unfortunately the QAG has always seemed a little lacking to someone with an interest in ancient and medieval history, and as these things go, if you’re interested in seeing culturally significant works more than 200 years old, then the QAC is not for you. We have a bit of a dearth of that sort of thing in Queensland, which is why so many of us plan trips interstate whenever there is an exhibition travelling to one of the souther galleries that isn’t coming our way. I know many people who have coincided ‘work’ trips or family obligation trips with travelling exhibits of the Old Masters or the Renaissance Paintings exhibit in Canberra at the National Gallery. And when we do get something fabulous, like the Afghan Treasure… we are all over that like fat kids on cupcakes, starving little culture vultures that Brisbanites are.

Unfortunately (nah, I can’t back that up) my museum snobbery was only solidified by travelling to some of the most renown galleries throughout Europe in my early 20s in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Florence, Venice, Istanbul, Vienna etc. where I had the opportunity to see many important and famous works of art. Then I went and made things even worse by doing a degree in Visual Arts. And another one in literature and history. Oh well, so be it. But I have digressed before I even began!

Today, I made a pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum of Art – somewhere that has been on my ‘to do’ list my entire life, and it does not disappoint. Around every corner is another stunning gallery filled with famous and familiar names, another unbelievable artefact to examine and contemplate, another unexpected delight. Whether you are into Byzantine mosaic, Asian isomorphic representations, Egyptology, Limoge enamelware, 14th century tapestry, medieval armour, American painting, early modern decorative arts, Renaissance sacredotal painting… it doesn’t matter, they have a bit of everything. I think I spent the entire day stumbling around picking my jaw up off the floor as I wandered past all these names from my text books – Vermeer, Millet, Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Gaughin, Van Gogh, Van Eyck, Rodin, Bruegel, Holbein, Surat, Tiepolo, Lotto, and Unknown (OMG, that Unknown artist dude is crazy talented!). I was just in seventh heaven.

We started off in the impressionist gallery as Mr K has a fondness for Van Gogh that I knew nothing about and ran into all the big names from the period just sitting there on the walls, looking all innocuous and marvellous and alarmingly expensive.

There are two entire rooms filled with Degas paintings of his ballet dancers, his bathing nudes and his sculptures. Any one of these pieces would be a major draw card or centre piece for any gallery in the world, and here they have too many to count! It’s unbelievable and wonderful and perhaps even a little overwhelming, it becomes hard to comprehend exactly what you are looking at, when the normally unique and exclusive, is so almost so plentiful as to be appear nearly commonplace… slight weirdness there.

Predictably I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the Medieval European galleries and took so many photos with my proper camera that I will have to sort when I get back, but a small sample of items I snapped with the iPhone mostly include owls, heraldry, memento mori and some pelican paraphernalia.

Heraldic horse pendants.
Ivory casket, 11th century carved with warriors and dancers.
Another 11th century artefact of an obscure little bed described as the ‘Baby Jesus’ bed’ however no other details were available. Very curious thing.
A later period carved ivory rosary and detail.

Brooch of gold and precious stones, late 16th century.
Brass bowl depicting a pelican in her piety, 14th century.

Then there were the hunting tapestries. I walked into a room and saw these on my left and nearly fell over. I’ve seen it so many times in so many books… just stunning.

Obscure detail of a painted altarpiece – I liked his hat. 🙂 Have a snap of the whole work and the info on it (but that is trapped on CF card until I get home).

I spent quite a bit of time wandering through the arms and armour display and took incalculable photos of the armour, details of each, photos of rapiers, firearms, crossbows and lord knows what else. These are just some happy snaps of some 16th century armour.

I thought this was really interesting, it is apparently a Medieval recreation of Roman armour and would have been used for reenactment or dramatic purposes. Very cool.

I took many, many photos of the firearms and crossbows which I will have to post to the Lochac firearms guild FB page when I get home.
This is a 15th century Italian pietre dure table made for the Farnese family, and a detailed shot of the inlaid stone work.

An or nue piece that was stunning in real life, but this picture isn’t as finely focused as I am hoping my other images of it are.
And a French Limoge enamelled casket from the 13th century.Seriously, these were just a few of the amazing things I saw today and managed to grab happy snaps on my phone of them.

Some more paintings – Salome with John the Baptist’s head (will edit in artist later), a Tiepolo and a Van Eyck altarpiece.

I loved this depiction of the Saints in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, by an unknown spanish painter of the 15th century. It shows all the saints lined up in neat rows and the Trinity in the top centre of the piece and dead centre is HELL… dum, dum, da! Complete with evil hellfish/beast/leviathan thing. Love it!

Then I wandered around the corner and found a beautiful, and very famous, Cranach. And a couple of Vermeers, one of which is an Allegory for Catholicism I think. Then a lovely Venus and Cupid done by Rubens, and a couple of Rembrandts, one of which is a self portrait… just so many amazing and famous works everywhere you turned.

This was pretty incredible, there is a section downstairs under the European Painting gallery that houses entire rooms laid out with Louis XIV furniture and is quite reminiscent of the sort of thing you see in Versaille or the Shonnbrun or other great castles in Europe.

And after that it was time to hit the gift shop and hightail out of there, for today at least. My sticker was tattered and well used, as were my feet. Everyone else seemed to deposit theirs on a board on their way out each day… so much for the cool little fold over tin tokens that were iconic of the MET for many years.

And the best bit about the MET is, I am here all week and I haven’t even touched the Egyptian, Asian, Classical, American Painters or oh, so many different galleries to get through yet! I think this might well be the only reason I needed to come to New York.

Tudor Cosmo Covers

Posted on January 6, 2014 by borysSNORC

Vikings Exhibition at Australian Maritime Museum

Posted on November 27, 2013 by borysSNORC

Took a couple of days in Sydney, ostensibly to go check out the ‘Vikings Beyond the Legend’ exhibition currently being hosted at the Australian Maritime Museum, but happily also to catch up with a handful of friends whom I didn’t even know were in Sydney for these days! Fortuitous turn of events, indeed.

Anyway, the Viking exhibition. I was very much looking forward to it as my knowledge of viking history is somewhat rudimentary and I was hoping this would prove an opportunity to, you know… learn some ‘stuff’. The artefacts on display were amazing… there were some remarkably well preserved items showing a wide range of decorative arts from throughout the period, from jewellery (broaches, necklaces, bangles, beads, etc.,) to swords, daggers, shield bosses, combs, and other domestic items of anter and bone.

However, I was really disappointed with the information labelling each item. Objects were listed by their type, material, geographical location and NO indicators of what time frame they came from. Bizarre. I really don’t know what the curatorial team were thinking… apparently the entire exhibit came ‘as is’ from Sweden, having been designed, staged, labelled and presented as you see it everywhere it goes. So they have given each item a blurb that reads what the item is, what the item is made from, and where the item is found, but no information on what period the item originates from?! Seems, the introduction info stating that the Norsemen viking era ranged from the 8th -11th centuries is sufficient for most punters. So if you’re a history student, a bit of a research buff or a re-enactor who might want more information… you’ll kind of have to treat this exhibit like Wikipedia – a jumping off point to go exploring for more information on your own time.

The other weird thing I found odd about the exhibit (and I don’t want to sound like I did not enjoy it – because I did, the items were simply beautiful), was that they didn’t seem to know who their audience was. Several items were there very much designed to attract the attention of children – display on Norse mythology and viking boat building, for example were very much designed for school aged children with interactive computer touchscreens spoon feeding the kids with some history and culture. But then other displays had information written on backlit horizontal surfaces at waist height behind an artefact that anyone less than 5′ tall wouldn’t have a hope in hell of trying to read. Many of the information panels were at coffee table height, again aimed at kids, which meant you walked through the whole thing looking down, and other items were arranged in a free form manner – no obvious or direct ‘flow of traffic’ which visitors could follow to ensure they saw all the items on display. Whole thing felt like the curatorial staff were trying to hard to do something different and basically threw out all the tried and true exhibition practices that had stood the test of time. Bit annoying.

These two images were taken from Överhogdal tapestries, (no portion of the actual Överhogdal tapestries were accompanying this particular exhibit – the images were included to demonstrate the richness and vividness of Norse textiles and decorative arts), and they depict the destruction of Ragnarök, effectively the Norse version of the apocalypse. I snapped some pics of them as they may provide interesting designs that could be adapted for embroidery projects down the track.

I was really hoping there would be plenty of information about the viking propensity for beads. I have bought myself some tortoise broaches at Pennsic War earlier this year and have been wanting to start collecting some beads to go with them – but literally didn’t know where to start, so was glad to see that there were so many sets of beads on display at this exhibition. It think these collections give a good feel for the types of beads that Norse women have have worn. However, once again the weird arse exhibition practices have deserted us, and the labels on the various strings of beads came with no information regarding the possible wealth or rank of their potential owners, nor any indication of the time frames they most likely derived from… So, they could have been daily wear for the middle class or ceremonial wear for the aristocracy, and somewhere from the 8thC to 11thC or anywhere in between. More research required.

The broaches they had on display were pretty amazing. There were several sets of tortoise broaches, animal head broaches and these enormous box broaches. They must have weighed a tonne, I can’t imagine wearing them … they were about 3″ across, 1′ high and made of solid iron or bronze. I imagine hanging those of the front of your garment would not have been kind to the bustline over time, especially when age and gravity are already not exactly your friends in that department.

This thing (above) is a broach and button and looking at it on the screen right now – it’s showing up about actual size. Again, one helluva chunky bit of bling to be wearing about. Might have been nice to have some of the weights of these actual items listed in with the descriptions, but seeing that they weren’t even accompanied by estimated time periods, sigh… further information like the weight of the item is just wishful thinking. This gorgeous little cup is about the size of a modern shot glass. It has a Jellinge style zoomorphic design engraved/carved into it and was stunningly well preserved for something that is potentially 800-1200 years old (so vague!). I wish I had been able to get closer to it (or that there was decent photos of it in the catalogue) as I think I’d like to have a go at making one of these. By the time we got to the end of the exhibit I was desperately wanting to see the catalogue to discover if that be where all the missing information that I desperately wanted to see, was lurking. But, no such luck.

The Director of the exhibition, Gunnar Andersson, was also the editor/author of the catalogue and yet again, actual dates of the artefacts were deemed not necessary! The photography in the catalogue was a bit ho-hum… so, I didn’t end up buying a copy, which is a bit unusual for me. Ordinarily exhibition catalogues are the ducks nuts – full of tidbits of information that are hard to come by on the internet or only found by digging around in wordy and boring journal articles. But not so much on this occasion!

All up I am glad I took the trouble to see the exhibition, and given it is not coming to BrisVegas, the trip to Sydney was well worth it* – some of the items on display were simply magnificent to view firsthand. However, I was rather disappointed that the curatorial ‘vision’ for the exhibition, felt like it was trying just a little too hard to be different and didn’t seem to be appropriately aimed at any particular audience – bit too grown up for the kids; yet lacking in suitable referencing for serious scholars.

*not to mention the unexpected bonus Ansell Adams exhibition
that was also on at the Maritime Museum while we were there.