It was gratifying to revisit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I used to go often for an intensive drawing class shadowing Van Gogh’s art. However, it wasn’t to see that, I had a class field trip to see the African Art Exhibit and the Matisse Exhibit.
What shocked me the most after paying a visit to these two areas in the MET was that they were actually linked. African Art usually consisted of sculptures and carvings in portrayal of the human body. Multiple masks are lined up on display. Each similarly carved yet so different and unique at the same time.
It wasn’t so clear to me that African artworks are associated to the artworks by Picasso and Matisse, until I was told the Cubism movement looked back to African pieces in inspiration. Then I was able to see how the two vastly different time periods were in fact really alike.
The sculptures in African art often are created in geometric shapes and have most 90-degree angles. The abstractness in the sculptures also appeared very alike to Picasso’s famous creations.
It was an entirely different experience at the Matisse Exhibition. It wasn’t about comparing the similarities between the arts of two artists. Matisse actually created artworks in pairs – two differently composed paintings of the same subject. Matisse wanted to learn what technique better fits him. He portrays various perspectives by manipulating the same setting.
As one can observe the clear differences between the techniques used in creating an image of the subject, Matisse showed how either method and many more can recreate a scene in a beautiful manner.
