The Marvelous Met

Our visit to the Met yesterday was astounding.  Of course, I always love going to the Met, but this was momentous for a variety of reasons:  I hadn't been since before April, when I reinjured my back, missing several exhibitions I had hoped to see; I still find standing on hard surfaces for a long time a challenge and the floors at the Met are stone; and I had long awaited the reopening of the Islamic galleries, now the Art of Arab Lands and it just opened to rave reviews (see also here for a discussion of the challenges of presenting Islamic art).

The new galleries, officially galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia (yes, that is way too long, but it conveys less a false monolithic entity and more the diversity that was a vast region over 1500+ years), are glorious (see here in pics from the NYTimes and the Met):

Look at those floors in the introductory gallery!  (You can't see it here, but one gallery had glass lanterns hanging above the historical objects which inspired them)  And the alternately warm and dramatic lighting in the other galleries!  The replication of both palatial and intimate settings to engage directly with the objects! The labels were informative, but not too, and were well placed.  I applaud both the designers and the curators.  Of course, my favorite space, the space I remembered from eight plus years ago, before the galleries closed, the one Mama had never seen until I took her, on what was our ultimate date at the Met (followed by a walk down Fifth and dinner at Carnegie Deli one Friday night), was the Damascus Room, a receiving room bringing together so many of the arts on display, with the wonderful trickling fountain:

It was even more wonderful than I had recalled.  It, and all the objects, shine in this new interpretation and installation, such an improvement over the old, shabby galleries.  Warm, inviting, comfortable, were words that came to mind--these are galleries I will visit again and again, being happy to wander and linger.  Now, I'm not fully conversant with the breadth and depth of the arts of Arab lands, having only touched upon them in classes on other topics or in exhibitions tangentially related.  But for the purpose of our first view of the galleries and an introduction of the art to the kids, that was not a hindrance, especially because of the visual power of the objects.

The kids had a scavenger hunt that we'd picked up from the information desk and so were on the lookout for numerous objects, from details in manuscript illuminations to repeating patterns in large carpets, from ceramic plates to metal incense burners.  Between finds, we admired the floral and animal themes; followed the intricate (seemingly) symmetrical, repeating, interlocking patterns; counted the numerous references to battling animals (large cat vs ibex, on carpet, illumination, book binding, and dagger hilt); spotted the embedded calligraphy; admired the tiny details in the illumination; wondered at how mosaics, tilework, even ceiling engravings are joined; and thrilled at several depictions of rabbits.

Perhaps the most revelatory aspect of the new galleries was stepping out of them into the adjacent 19th-century European paintings galleries, the first one hung with Orientalist works by the likes of Gerome.  We played compare and contrast::  here were oil paintings, numerous depictions of humans (there are some in Islamic art; not all believed in the prohibition of the depiction of humans), a focus on the "exotic," the Other.  Even to first graders, it was obvious that these second-hand depictions by outsiders paled in comparison to the real thing.  And professionally speaking, even though my beloved European 19th-century galleries were renovated about 20 years ago, they look old and tired in comparison with their new neighbors, particularly because in these galleries paintings are removed from their original contexts, which were elaborate houses of rich patrons, complete with furniture and other objets d'art, well-illuminated and hung in rows on the "dead" (at least no longer white) walls of the museum/mausoleum.  While the art of Arab lands is displayed all together (not manuscripts here, mosaics there in some kind of surgical separation of media that plagues the study of European art, subdivided as painting, decorative arts, sculpture, textile etc), it avoids the ethnographic, exotic Other feel of natural history museums--this is art on par with all the other art in the museum, with each object as worthy of study as the oil paintings on the line.

Really, I could go on and on, but I'm not sure it would convey the depth of my appreciation for the galleries. And for the day.  I was so proud, so happy, so excited, so relieved to have made it to and through the museum--two hours without any real problems--I'd be standing at a carpet and find myself in tears at the wonderfulness of it all.  I am so grateful to Mama, for handling all of the logistics, and to the kids for humoring me (when they really wanted to go to Egyptian!).  They were a delight, enthusiastically exploring every gallery, soaking in an art very new to them.  We then went outside for food--the carts are almost better than the cafeteria, with new gourmet pretzels and organic cupcakes, with of course, the standard hot dogs.  We ate, swatted away pigeons, people-watched, and enjoyed the buskers singing Motown tunes. We bought a few postcards and a catalog.

And planned our next visit . . . .