On our trip to the Metropolitan Museum to see artworks by various master painters, I wasn’t really expecting anything out of it. I’ve already been to the Metropolitan Museum before, and to be honest, I’ve never really enjoyed the experience. However, this time’s trip to the Met was different and this can be attributed to our very knowledgeable tour guide. I’ve always been into the history of things so when she started off by mentioning the various histories behind the paintings, I was soon absorbed. I particularly liked her mentioning of the late medieval age paintings and the contrast that is created when artists began the shift from making emotionless images solely for the medieval church to drawing images with actual worldly emotion. In this transition to the Renaissance age, a particular Madonna and Child image stood out to me. In this image, Mother Mary is holding her child Jesus, but unlike the previous images with no emotion, this picture is revolutionary in that it was full of emotion. Mother Mary is clearly sad in this picture and the baby Jesus tries to comfort her. The warmth that is created between the mother and the child was very touching and I felt that the artist was very brave in creating this image, which must’ve been very strange for people to take in at the time. It made me realize that art has progressed throughout the ages, and this is due to the many brave artists that take a stand and paint something outside of the norm. Art continues to reflect who we are as a society and as long as our perspectives continue to evolve, so will our forms of art.
Kevin Wang
