The Metropolitan Museum of Art has always been a personal favorite of mine. Having already been there several times before for high school projects, I had always thought of it in an academic sense (I had one teacher who made the class go on a scavenger hunt in the museum). I never really thought of going to the museum as something that one could do for fun as a pastime. Through our recent trip there, I discovered a newfound perspective of museum-going. Walking through and looking at all the exhibits can be a sort of therapeutic and relaxing experience especially when you’re with friends.
My group, which consisted of Alex, Karen, Nick, and Professor Eversley, wanted to view the Balthus: Cats and Girls–Paintings and Provocations from the get-go, but the journey to get there actually might have been more fun than the exhibit itself. First of all, my horrible navigation skills got us lost for a while, but on the way, we got to walk through many interesting exhibits, including the Egyptian Wing, the American Wing, and the European Art Wing.
The Egyptian wing was pretty interesting, especially the Temple of Dendur, where the entire hall is lit up by the sunlight to create a really relaxing and nice atmosphere. The light beautifully emphasizes the structure in the middle–a piece of the Temple of Dendur from Egypt. On the past trips that I’ve made to the Met, I never realized that the structure was not complete. Some parts where the original pieces could not be found were substituted by plaster molds to create the temple that we see today in the Met. I think it’s very impressive that archaeologists are able to reconstruct a whole structure using only fragments from thousands of years ago.
After visiting Egypt, we walked through the American Wing and saw some monumental paintings of the colonial period. I noticed some of the same paintings that we had seen in the Brooklyn Museum on the “Macaulay Night at the Museum” event, namely the portrait of George Washington and the famous “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” I was momentarily confused, because I thought, there can’t possibly be two of the same painting, right? That was before I realized that some of the paintings displayed in the exhibit were copies of the originals hanging in the Brooklyn Museum. Before this, I thought there was only one copy of each painting–guess not, huh?
When we finally got to the Balthus: Cats and Girls exhibit, I was so excited to get to see the works of this artist that Professor Eversley liked. Little did I know, the focus of this particular exhibition was of Balthus’s works centering around his obsession of young girls and cats. The first ever picture I saw of Balthus’s was titled, “Therese Dreaming,” and features a young girl, around the age of 11, lounging with one leg standing up on the chair, leaned back with her eyes closed, and arms on her head. This description might paint a relaxing Sunday afternoon scene in your mind, but that was not what Balthus’s interpretation of the scene turned out to be. I was shocked at the sexualization of this young preteen girl, whose undergarments were clearly and noticeably visible as the center focus of the painting. To be honest, I was a bit shocked that this piece, which was considered child pornography by some art critics, was viewed as fine art. This first work that I saw essentially gave me a blunt introduction to the artistic vision of Balthus and desensitized me so that I was able to view his other artworks with this newfound piece of knowledge and exposure in mind. The other works in the exhibit were pretty interesting as well, but I still found myself shocked by the themes displayed in the first painting.
Overall, the spontaneous trip to the Met was fun, and allowed me to see what I hadn’t noticed before. I found the simple act of walking and wandering about the exhibits to be such a relaxing and fun experience that I’m thinking about going to the museum more often in my free time! Special thanks to Professor Eversley for giving us so many fun facts and insight to the artwork!
—Joanna Huang
