Metropolitan Museum of Art - Rebecca Samuels #2

My Trip to The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

"Tomb Effigy of Elizabeth Boott Duveneck"

Gilt Bronze

Frank Duveneck

These are two pictures of the inside, I apologize that I didn't

use my mother's camera because this picture came out terrible.

MY PAPER:

           The next museum I went to go see was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My father and I take frequent trips to New York, but it has been a long time since we went there to NOT see Madison Square Garden. I was in a daze when I realized what I was looking at was the museum. Originally I thought Wadsworth Atheneum was huge. At that moment I learned that it was tiny compared to this New York museum. The detail on the top of the building was very pretty along with the top of the windows. Even the windows were unique. Since I often take the same route around New York, the details on the building seemed very rare and like no other I have seen before. Also at the entrance to the museum there were numerous stairs. When I looked at them, I immediately thought of the entrance-way on Law and Order. People were sitting all over the stairs like they were furniture. My dad and I also noticed the water fountains on both the left and the right of the museum.

            After searching the MetropolitanMuseum of Art’s website, I first learned that “The Met’s” earliest roots come from 1866 in Paris. It was intended to be a “national institution and gallery of art.” On April 13^th, 1870, President John Jay incorporated the Metropolitan Museum. In November of that same year, the museum acquired a Roman Sarcophagus which became the first object in the new museum. March 30^th, 1880, the museum moved to the Douglas Mansion and was then opened to the public. Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould (the architects of the building), designed the building to be a Ruskinian Gothic structure. Today the museum is about two million square feet and it even includes many additions to the building. Each addition had a different architect. (Most of this information was re-worded from the website mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph)

            I’m sure there were many special exhibitions but the place was so big, I wanted to explore it myself! After getting my bags checked we went over to the admissions desk. What I thought was really neat was that before charging us the lady asked if the amount was “okay”. We knew how expensive it was going to be to get in but apparently if you can’t afford that full price, you can pay whatever you have in your pocket (as a donation). It was nice to see that this huge museum allows people to pay whatever they can afford. Anyway, we got these cool pins to clip on to our shirts to say we paid.

            The first exhibit we saw was Egyptian art. This consisted of sculptures, jewelry, and many other things. If you know me at all from reading my Wadsworth blog, you would know that I am more of a painting person. As we walked along I became impatient and irritated because all we were seeing was sculptures, china sets, tools, jewelry, etc. I seemed to walk right through the exhibits I wasn’t really interested in. Next was the walk through the Modern Art room which included funky furniture and even a Dyson vacuum! Then I finally found something that sparked my interest. I entered the room with many of the paintings.

            The painting that stood out the most to me was by Arthur Segal. The medium of this piece of art work is oil on a board. The first thing I noticed about this painting was that Segal got so into it that he even painted the frame! You don’t see that too often. It took me a while to figure out that the name of the painting was “Strasse auf Helgoland II”. This painting was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a gift from the Rolf and Margit Weinberg Foundation. It came from Zurich, Switzerland in 2003—it was painted in 1924 (this was written on the plaque near the painting). Even though there is a lot of black, it still makes the few colors that are present, stick out. Segal was very good with shading and blending.

            Arthur Segal was born to Jewish parents July 23, 1875 in Iasi, Romania. This interests me because I too am Jewish. It is cool to me to know that you can look at a piece of art work and not know anything about the artist but when he/she painted it, their name, and the work’s name. After moving from Romania, to Paris, Italy, and Switzerland, Segal founded his own school in 1923. He was offered a job in Germany in 1925 but had to turn it down due to his religion. He knew that he couldn’t freely show his artwork so he moved two more times. In London, his last place of life, Segal set up another school with his daughter. He was mainly a painter but also an author. Wikipedia mentions that Segal’s work was heavily influenced by impressionism and neo-impressionism, then to expressionism and Dadaism, and then in the end he found his own style. Arthur Segal died in June of 1944 which was exactly a month before his sixty-ninth birthday. (Most of this is my own words from Wikipedia)

            I’ll be honest when I say that this New York Metropolitan Museum of Art trip was completely different than the last museum trip. As the museum was so big, I grew overwhelmed. The map admissions gave me didn’t seem to make any sense anymore. I felt like I was panicking to see everything in the time allotted. There were so many people around and so many cameras visible. No matter where I stood, I felt like I was in the way. All in all, in the end, my anxiety got the best of me. In the end of every science lab the writer must indicate if their experiment was reliable or not. Even though this museum wasn’t necessarily a science lab, I would like to conclude by saying that I don’t think my trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was very successful. But besides the fact I think it was unsuccessful, I still was able to see some cool art works and was able to write a nice paper. 

This next painting is called "Autumn Landscape"

Tiffany Studios

It is Leaded Favrile Glass

This wrinkled glass acheived color by adding tiny 

flakes of glass in the surface

1923

This particular painting was written about in my essay.

It was painted by Arthur Segal in Oil

1924

For the rest of my pictures of THE MET, go here