During my time at the metropolitan museum of art, I perused the Frans Hals exhibit with the rest of the class. I loved how it was actually possible to see the evolution of Hals’ style—from a precise, scientific, painter concerned with painfully intricate detail, to an emotional painter that utilized broader sweeps to give the observer a sense of movement and life in his paintings. Despite this progression in his style, Frans Hals still continued to paint ‘ordinary’ people (people who were not considered nobility), as well as nobility. This choice is interesting for two reasons. The first reason is the obvious reason; most other painters did not deem those not of noble descent worthy of their artistic talent or time, and also, these lower class—though far from poor—people could not pay the artist as much as a wealthy noble. Far more intriguing, though, is the idea that Fran Hals documented the beginning of a social movement. By drawing these people, Hals unknowingly brought attention to the fact that a new social class—what would eventually be recognized as the middle class—was appearing.
The second exhibit that I chose to wander through was the Egyptian exhibit. These two exhibits don’t seem to have much in common—besides the fact that they focus around the deceased—and that’s because they don’t. While both the Frans Hals collection and the Egyptian culture exhibit were very well organized and displayed in a manner that was easy to navigate, they were two starkly different displays. Overall, I preferred observing the art of Frans Hals, probably because I had a tour guide that explained why each painting was significant. However, the Egyptian section was certainly interesting as well. For example, after walking through the typical halls of Egyptian hieroglyphics and sarcophaguses encased in glass, I entered a wide-open space. There was a shallow pond of water surrounding the central display (two buildings that were replicas of ancient Egyptian Pyramids) with a walkway around the edge of the pond. The ceiling was raised extremely high, and was made mostly out of glass, so that light filtered through in a calming manner. Though there was not much to be observed in this particular room, it served its purpose in breaking up the stereotypical monotony that most Egyptian exhibits fall into.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip more than I though I was going to. Perhaps reading about art ( http://www.bradmehldau.com/writing/papers/september_2011.html ) and being constantly surrounded by it in College has given me the ability to appreciate it better, because I used to not have the patience to stay in a museum for more than twenty minutes.
