The truth is, I was planning on writing about the armor room, which is really cool and makes me want to watch “A Knight’s Tale” again. But first I walked through the Greek/Roman area, and I was really struck by it. I guess it’s a really big contrast from all the art we’ve been doing recently, because one thing that really struck me was how formal everything was, as opposed to everything we’ve seen this year which works to give off the impression that its informal and undisciplined (obviously a ton of work went into all of them). And I think the rooms were designed to highlight that effect. The high ceiling kind of gives off the feeling that you’re in some kind of important government building (part of that is because most government buildings in America are based on Greek/Roman architecture, but that goes back to the impression that Greek/Roman art represents formality).
In every field that has accepted standards of doing things, there will be innovation that pushes against those rules and eventually the rules change completely (For example, in the NFL passing the ball was frowned on back in the day. Now everyone passes all the time because they have to in roder to keep up). The art world is no different. In Ancient Greek art where the norm was formal and relatively simple (although part of the simplicity is artificial; it has something to do with the fact that all the statues have lost their color and are plain white), the innovator had to push the boundaries of that formality, as did every successive generation until we have so much abstract art today. I really got a kick out of seeing where all that came from in the Greek collection.