Tuesday, July 7, 2015

The Metropolitan Museum and The Cloisters

One task left undone from the last visit was a completed visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a huge edifice on Central Park, The museum is an eclectic blend of ancient and modern art, with some amazing pieces such as a choir barrier or a mansion frontage which take up a whole wall.


On special exhibition this year was a selection of intimate portraits by the romantic painter John Singer Sargent, including the scandalous Madame X painting.


Sargent was a society portrait painter, and the collection featured both patrons and showbiz friends.






Like many artists, he was inspired and seduced by Venice and the languid gondolas of the Grand Canal.


As I mentioned last time, the "American Cafe" serves disgusting fare and on this occasion couldn't serve any sandwich other than peanut butter and jelly. Appalling, so I went instead to the Petrie Court Cafe and enjoyed a lobster roll and a cab sav in more salubrious surroundings.



Suitably fortified for Art, Lynda and I reviewed the great historical art collections and then the special exhibit on Chinese couture through the ages.










The following day we went uptown to The Cloisters, a medieval castle purpose-built to house masonry and artifacts rescued or stolen from Europe from the 16th century and thereafter. A doorway is marked as having being retrieved from a church in Italy, or a monastery in Holland.

Fort Tryon park next to the Hudson River

The road to the Cloisters


The rosy-cheeked Jesus statue has a rosy bottom, as if just spanked


An interesting Baltic Amber sigil


A lectern to impress 

A herb garden in the central courtyard









A series of pitchers



















We take the M4 bus back to Manhattan, a cheap tour of Washington Heights and Harlem ending up at Penn Station,



A quick trip to Chelsea Markets for a Japanese-Mexican bento box for Lynda and a Vietnamese Pulled Pork roll for me, and home for an early night.

1 comment:

  1. As Emperor Joseph II might well have said: "My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many pics, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect."

    Nice blog, Kimba... :-)

    ReplyDelete