Tuesday was a very interesting experience, since I’ve never gone to the Met before. I had no idea it was so big; narrowing the visit down to a specific exhibit was very helpful. A few of us decided to go to the exhibition Balthus: Cats and Girls. I honestly had no idea what the exhibition was going to be about, but the name itself sounded interesting.
First off, it took us a pretty long time to get there. Not that we got lost or anything.. but the map was pretty confusing. It was nice though, since we had to go through several parts of the museum. We went through American History, the Egyptian Wing (which was personally one of my favorites), and maybe a few more. In the Egyptian part, there was a beautiful temple surrounded by water. The design is very unique, since Egyptian temples were not only houses, but also were representations of religious and mythological concepts, which is shown in the architecture and carvings on the temple. Professor Eversley brought up an interesting point as to how this might be the closest we could be to experiencing Egypt for a while, especially with the current situation Egypt is in right now. Looking at the temple that day made me realize lucky we are to have easy access to art from all around the world.

When we finally got to the exhibition, I was a bit surprised by the paintings I saw there. Balthus was a French painter whose interest, as shown in the exhibition, was girls who were on the threshold of puberty, “hovering between innocence and knowledge.” Many of his pictures had sexual connotations to it, since they portrayed girls as young as 14 posing in ways like shown in this picture

One picture that was of great interest to me was “The Victim,” which shows a young woman’s body that has been thrown on the bed. If you look closer, there is a knife on the floor an it happens to be pointing to her heart. It’s hard to tell if the woman was murdered and died, or if she is in a trance, especially since there is no sign of blood anywhere. I found this interesting because after our discussion of nudity from John Berger’s book, this painting shows nudity in a different perspective; the subject of this painting does not have a seductive look like the other paintings of nudity that we saw. Balthus finished this painting after he came back from serving in World War II, so this may be a reference to the horrors that he saw during the war.

Another observation that was made while walking through this exhibition was the amount of paint Balthus used; if you look closely at his paintings, you can see the thick layers and strokes that he made. He used a lot of paint, which implies that he was rich (something new that I learned that day)

Upon finding out the Whitney was closed on Tuesday, we decided to take a trip to the Met a few blocks down 5th ave. When I got to the Met I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to my favorite part of the museum which was the Sackler Wing.
The Sackler Wing has always been my favorite place in the museum. In the middle, stood the Temple of Dendur and in front of that is water. All of this was partially enclosed by a huge glass window facing a vast green lawn, colorful trees, and clear blue skies. Every time I visit the Met I have to go to this spot in the museum. Especially when it’s empty, the Sackler Wing is very comforting and beautiful. The water and the amount of space in there is stress relieving. My favorite time to visit is at night when the sun is down and the Sackler Wing is only lit by the dim yellow lights in the museum reflected off of the water. It is very peaceful in there at night especially when it isn’t as crowded.
After visiting my favorite spot we decided to check out the American Wing. We went through a bunch of model rooms inspired by neoclassicism. However, I did not find it all that interesting. As we stepped out of those rooms, what caught my attention were the stained glass windows that lined the walls of the area next to the eating area of the American Wing.

The View of Oyster Bay by Louis C. Tiffany made in 1908 was my favorite. It looked pretty simple from afar but as I went closer I realized how intricate it actually was. The combination of different shades of blue and green glass was beautiful. The stained glass windows are supposed to be the view from that of Louis C. Tiffany’s country estate in Oyster Bay.
Then as we were looking for the exit we walked by the Arms and Armor collection which was interesting. At first I thought it would just display armor of the European kind but as I browsed around, I saw armors from all over the world. The contrast and seeing the difference between armors depending on the country was fascinating.
Overall, the unexpected trip to the Met was a fun one and discovering new parts of the museum during each visit is always entertaining.