My favorite painting of all time is Le fils de l’homme (The Son of Man) by René Magritte. An apple covers a man’s face, immediately making us question what’s behind, but that’s the message: why figure out the hidden when the rest is being shown. The interesting thoughts behind Magritte’s paintings are what interest me the most. He is a surrealist painter who incorporates simple, common items and places them in areas to give them a surrealist, new meaning. This questions everything we know about the common item. He elevates simplicity into beautiful art everyone can relate to and ponder.

The exhibition at the MOMA was very surprising and beautifully constructed. It takes the museum-goer on a journey through Magritte’s life, beginning with his earlier work and ending with his later ones. It begins with typical paintings, progressing to 3D art and redefining the boundaries of the frame. Despite this progression, Magritte consistently uses the same basic idea: fiddling with the juxtaposition of objects, placing objects where they aren’t usually found and defying common sense. For example, the piece that struck me the most was La reproducción interdite (Not to be Reproduced) by René Magritte. A man looks into a mirror, yet his reflection is not shown back. This is meant to confuse us and our common sense. I wanted to know how his face looked, why the mirror was doing this. It made me frustrated – that is not how a mirror works and I want to see his face.

The last exhibition I visited was There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33’’. I visited it after noticing the name John Cage from my art movement project, and was further intrigued when I noticed that I knew a majority of the artists featured. I knew their famous art pieces and their main objectives in art, which intensified my appreciation for the exhibition. For example, it examined Cage’s influence on artists such as Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol – artists who pushed the boundaries of space, time, and physicality. One of the most interesting pieces was Cage’s 4’33’’ manuscript of simple plain white pages. While going around the exhibition, I noticed the art and poetry of Yoko Ono, whose poetry was very avant-garde and confusing. I did not understand it, but seeing this historical figure’s work was an amazing experience. As I was walking out of the exhibit, I heard strange, random noises. I was at first scared but then I was struck when I located the noises coming from a small wooden box in the middle of a room. There was no name on the piece, but I wish I could know who created this eerie box, I walked around the piece, hearing it from all different angles, put my ear as close as I could. I wouldn’t have noticed the piece if I didn’t explore the area, it seemed to blend into the exhibition, just as John Cage always wanted: ambient sound can change the art form.

Going to the MoMA for the first time was a really cool experience for me, because for the first time there was art displayed that I was a little bit perplexed by. For example, the exhibition that I completely blew my mind was Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938. As I read in the description, Rene Magritte was a surrealist, and wanted to challenge the real world. I think he does a really good job in doing so, because a lot of his paintings have obscene material, like nudity, which is brave of him for doing so in the early 20th century. I’m not even comfortable looking at nudity now, and its the 21st century already!

Take a look at this image. It surprises me. After seeing all those naked people in his drawings, all of a sudden, Magritte wants to hide the faces of these two lovers. He is trying to invoke a cinematic cliche of a close-up kiss, and he is attempting to capture the audiences attention by masking these two people. Now that the lovers are masked, the audience can have questions, and want to find answers to satisfy their curiosity: who are they? Are they embarrassed by the love they have for each other? Why do they have to the masks on? This is a painting of the year 1928, and the norms of that time were quite conservative compared to the norms for our society today. Magritte is challenging the norms of his society, and asking for people to unmask their love for each other and be more liberal. Otherwise, they’ll end up looking just as ridiculous as these two lovers.

In French, the message on this image translates to “This is not a pipe.” I, as the viewer of the image, disagree with that statement. So what the hell is it? But Magritte responds to my concern saying, ” Who could smoke the pipe from one of my paintings? Nobody. Hence, it is not a pipe.” Magritte says that people saying that this is a pipe is simple error and misuse of language. I thought this was an interesting analysis of his painting. Nobody would even think of such an explanation, so again, that’s another example of Magritte challenging social norms and ways of his time. I enjoyed this exhibition, more so reading the descriptions than looking at the nudity in most of the images, but I won’t deny the fact that the painting were indeed exceptional. See, I like people like Magritte: people that go out of their way to make a case and challenge want the society throws at them, and people who are open to think out of the box.

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

It was by chance that I happened to come across the work of art I enjoyed the most. The initial plan was to visit the Sackler WIng and move on from there. The Temple of Dendur is always such an amazing sight to see despite it being so familiar to me. Every time I came to the MET, I would make my visit to the Temple of Dendur, it defined what the MET was for me. Whenever anyone mentioned the MET, the Temple of Dendur was the first image that came to my mind. After I took a large number of pictures of the Temple of Dendur and its surroundings, however,  I decided that this was not what I wanted to focus in on for my review. As magnificent and grand as it was, I felt it was be too popular or well-known. Thus, I went on my search for a piece of work that would pop out at me and say ‘this is it!’

Browsing through a number of different wings and exhibitions, I felt that I was done. It was by chance that as I was looking for an exit, I found the Autumn Landscape by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Famous for his favrile glass works, it was an amazing sight. Louis would use iridescent art glass for his works, which was different from other artists. This is because the color of the glass was not only on the surface, but actually embedded into the glass itself. Its bright lights and wonderful scenery was definitely a sight to behold. The bright lights behind the glass that so wonderfully displayed the different colors of the glass really amazed me. However, I wonder why the wooden frames were built on top of the glass and not around the work on its borders. I felt that the wooden borders were distracting and took away from the richness of the scenery.

One of the first things I noticed during my past visit to the MET was the beauty of the building itself. The entire museum is renowned as one of the biggest art museums in the world and the amount of detail that went into constructing it was really brought to my attention. A lot of the people who visit the MET often go to appreciate the main art work that is inside and being displayed. Some of the work may be displayed for a period of time and then be moved but, there is one form of art that has remained in the structure since it was built; the architecture and design that went into creating it. The high vaulted ceilings, the multiple pillars, and various designs that are everywhere through out the building truly caught my eye during my past visit. Having been founded in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has not only become an icon of New York because of the quality of the art work inside but also because of the independent grandiose and opulence of the structure. Stretching for basically an entire city block the MET is something that catches the eye of anyone who walks by it. It stands out for its size at first and then for the amount of detail that went into it. Once you go inside it also truly does not disappoint and maintains a high level of quality as you walk around inside.

Much in the same way art galleries are made to be completely white in order to highlight the works being displayed, the MET acts in a similar fashion by exhibiting various art works in a work of art to reinforce and essentially create an aura supporting the artistic and historical importance of everything in the room. While walking through out the MET through the hallways and large arced entrances into each separate section it became very clear to me that many people go into the MET not only for the art being displayed but for the actual structure where they can appreciate and gaze in awe. One of the main rooms that I had walked into was displayed statues that were large in size but in comparison to the height of the vaulted ceiling with intricate designs etched on to the surface made them look relatively small. Other rooms displayed pillars that were huge in size but still managed to look small when I looked left and right upon the openness and space of the area.

As I walked outside and down the steps in front of the MET and turned around the pillars that were part of the structure looked surprisingly similar to those that I had seen inside. Of course this is because of the incorporation of different styles of architecture that were used in creating the MET, but isn’t that the point. To display art in such a place where it can really be appreciated for what it is. After doing an in depth analysis of architecture in New York I now have another structure to site whenever I talk about architecture as an art.

For some terrible reason, my phone did not save the photo I took of the little description of this painting. So I’ll take on an explorer role and analyze everything I can about it, because that’s exactly what art is all about.

To be honest, I’d been walking around for about twenty minutes prior to seeing this painting and nothing caught my eye. Everything in the MET is beautiful in its own unique sense, but I’m different in my tastes and I began realizing that as I continually struggled to find any one piece of art all that incredible. Then I saw this painting. I slowed down and began my depiction. Why is there one lone cloud in the middle of the sky? The horizon line is beautifully drawn, and every single detail of the houses is captured. There seems to be a clocktower; this might be exclusively European. Perhaps Italy, I’d say Venice? To combine a city feel with such a bustling hub of ships as the exclusive trading method puts this scene in a late 18th century, early 19th century environment for sure. Behind the most intriguing building (which somewhat resembles a mini-castle) in the middle, there is a church with a dome. Obviously this is European, now that all the details fall into place. The next thing I wondered is why a handful of the bigger ships seemed raggedy and broken down. Had a storm just hit? Was a storm imminent? To go back on my one cloud thought, I began realizing that the sky was a fair shade of grey, but there was obviously enough sunlight for the traders to see, and they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Thus maybe a storm had just passed.

If I had the money, I’d buy this painting and frame it in one of the main rooms of my house.