Art the Metropolitan Museum of Art Currently

Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art currently presents three fascinating special exhibits including one on cubism, another on Renaissance tapestry, and a third on ancient Assyrian art. Each of these three special exhibits is different, and exciting in its own way. The exhibit on Renaissance tapestry is entitled "Grand Design" and focuses on the work of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Some of the tapestries are lavish and intricate, such as the "Seven Deadly Sins." Having never before encountered tapestries from this era, I was stunned at the workmanship and marveled at the amount of time it must have taken to weave these incredible patterns. As if on cue, the museum's curator had prepared several information panels informing viewers about the process of tapestry making, its history, and its relevance during the Renaissance. Van Aelst had produced tapestries for Europe's elite, including the Medici family. This made me ponder the nature of globalization, and how Europe was uniting itself with commercial activities many centuries prior to the advent of the euro. In fact, subsequent tapestries in the collection, such as "Customs and Fashions of the Turks," shows that the world was becoming smaller and smaller as the age of exploration commenced. Even though many of the tapestries depicted world trade and various cultures, there were also several that either showed Biblical scenes or scenes from classical mythology. The Biblical tapestries were from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The neoclassical imagery made many of van Aelst's tapestries seem ahead of their time, as the revival of interest in Greco-Roman architectural imagery and mythology boomed in the nineteenth century. It is worth noting also that some of the tapestries seemed cryptic and almost out of place, such as "A Horseman Abducting a Woman," which had an unfinished and dreamlike quality.

Moving onto the exhibit entitled "Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age," I was immediately mystified by the sublime artifacts presented. Hundreds of items, ranging from tiny pieces of jewelry to massive statuary, stared at us from the past. Just as the tapestry exhibit showed how the Renaissance era ushered in a new order of global trade, the Assyria to Iberia exhibit demonstrated that world trade had been going on for at least a millennia prior to that. Middle Eastern cultures and their highly advanced arts and technologies were carried through established trade routes and reached Western Europe. Thus, the Mediterranean became a melange of cultures. Gazing at the artwork of ancient Assyria, one can envision traces of influence from Greece, Egypt, and Babylonia. For example, the Ashurnasirpal statue on loan from the British museum bears resemblance to Babylonian figures, as does the Cylinder Seal showing a man grasping an ostrich after killing it with his bow and arrow. One of the most striking pieces in this collection was the demon Pazuzu, with its four wings and frightful face. Likewise, a furniture fitting depicting an animal resembling a lion attacking a human being has an erotic dimension that cannot be denied. It was shocking to see the geographic range of where the pieces were from, and it showed how vast the trade networks were in the classical era. This exhibit also showed how the arts evolved concurrently with, yet largely independent of, Greece and Rome. Furthermore, some works in this collection showed how Assyrian art influenced ancient Rome. For example, the headless statue of a man with jewelry is reminiscent of classical Roman statuary but was created centuries before the peak of the Roman Empire.

The Leonard A. Lauder collection of cubist art includes work from some of the most famous artists in this genre: Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Leger, and Pablo Picasso. This collection was more diverse than expected, and showed the evolution of the cubist aesthetic from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century. The works of art in this collection included some unusual pieces such as Braque's "Terrace at the Hotel Mistral" from 1907. This painting is more colorful than the bulk of Braque's portfolio. It almost resembles a stained glass window. In terms of color palette, "The Castle of La Roche-Guyon" has some rich jewel tones but has fewer dark outlines to the forms. Most of Braque's other works in the collection have an earth tone or even a monochromatic look to them. His signature cubist still life paintings were on display, too, such as the "Violin and Sheet Music." Juan Gris's palette is likewise dull and earthy with a few notable exceptions like "Checkerboard and Playing Cards," and "Still Life with Checked Tablecloth." Like Braque, Gris seemed infatuated with the concept of breaking down visual reality and rendering it in untraditional ways. Cubism permits the artist to present the world as it is, from multiple dimensions and perspectives, rather than from the biased eye of a single viewer. Some of Leger's paintings veer on the totally abstract, which causes the viewer to start questioning the boundary between what is representative art, and what is simply in the imagination of the artist. Picasso is remarkable in that his work transcends the gap between the represented and the abstract. Classically trained, Picasso has developed many paintings revealing naturalistic forms. When he presents those forms in cubist manner, the result is a minimalist rendition in which the human body and its surroundings are stripped of extraneous features. For instance, "Head of a Man," "Standing Female Nude," and "Head of a Nude" all show impeccable proportions of the human form. There is no doubt that Picasso could deconstruct and reconstruct reality and then present the results on canvas. There is something unsettling about cubism, and yet something also that is liberating at the same time. These three special exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art were unique, and offered insight into the wide range of artistic expressions and encounters around the world. I appreciated being able to learn about tapestry, ancient artifacts, and cubism all under one roof.