New York City: The Met

Me waiting for The Met to open on a perfect summer morning. 

The spacious entry hall allows to walk up into the world of Art.

[Read Part One]

I’ve never been to a museum like The Met. I mean, of course, the National Art Gallery in DC and the Chicago Art Institute are equal to it in terms of their number of truly great works of Art. The Tate in London and the Louvre in Paris might even exceed it in some ways. But for sheer bulk of extraordinary art...my mind was gradually blown.

Ten Rembrandts, six Sargents, five Vermeers, three El Grecos, at least a half dozen van Goghs...the museum was relentless and not just showing you masterpiece works of art but also giving you an enormous portion of very specific brilliant artists. Jennifer and I especially loved seeing Sargent’s Madam X, one of our shared favorite paintings.

Beyond that there was the vastness and depth of it all. Whatever period or subject matter you chose there were rooms and rooms filled with exactly what you’re looking for and filled with the most wonderful surprises.

Painted glass work from a now destroyed chapel in Paris 1245-47. 

Diana. This cast is from 1928. The 1892 casting stood atop the tower of Madison Square Garden that no longer exists.

Jennifer snapped this of me approaching Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze in 1851.

At one point, as we entered the impressionism section which took up multiple rooms and, transitioning from whatever was before it, I found myself in a small hall connecting multiple rooms and everything in my field of view was a masterpiece I wanted to stand before and open up to it. “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow,” I muttered thoughtlessly as my eyes kept meeting one great work after another scattered in different rooms. Jennifer laughed at me. Once entered, the rooms revealed even more masterpieces.

Unfortunately, the great modern and contemporary wing of the museum was closed for a major five-year renovation. That meant we saw no Richters or Dalis. Jennifer and I agreed to return when that wing reopens. It is a good 20% of the space of the museum.

Which means we had 80% of The Met open to us. We tried to see and take time to appreciate the areas that interested us most. But that left little time for everything else and we were red-lighting into art overload, the point where you will not appreciate any more art no matter how great it is. You need a change of scenery.

We wanted to see one of the oldest fragments of Homer’s Odyssey and navigated ourselves through the better part of a large wing of the museum to view it. We looked quickly around the area which was filled with ancient Greek and Roman fragments of things. Then we took a different route back to the exit and discovered the African and South American rooms.

Neither of us cared enough to pay much attention to the medieval period which took up many rooms. Still, we walked at least a couple of miles inside the museum and saw maybe two-thirds of what was there to appreciate. You simply cannot see The Met in one day. That’s a two-day museum.

Jennifer before Portrait of Madame X. 1884. One of the works we most wanted to see on this trip.

More Sargents. The one before us is The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant. 1899.

A marvelous grouping of six great Sargent portraits (adding the two above which are off to the right) .Sargent sold Madame X to The Met in 1916 calling it "The best thing I have done."

This one caught my eye. It was new to me. Marie Denise Villers. Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d'Ognes (1786-1868). 1801. Wonderfully backlit.

Jacques Louis David. Death of Socrates. 1787.

Caravaggio. Denial of Saint Peter. 1610.

El Greco. Portrait of an Old Man. 1595-1600.

Two more El Greco's beside it, the largest grouping by this painter I've seen. Left: View of Toledo. 1599-1600. Right: Vision of Saint John. 1608-1614.

Willem Claesz Heda. Still life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware. 1655. Oil on wood. A true Dutch masterpiece.

Johannes Vermeer. Young Woman with a Water Picture. 1662.  Another masterpiece.

There are only 34-37 Vermeer's in existence. Jennifer looks on five of them on one wall at The Met.

Another wall featured more Rembrandts than I've ever seen in one place. 

Rembrandt van Rijn. Self-Portrait. 1660. detail

We almost forgot about the only special exhibit there in August 2026. Alberto Giacometti became world-famous (circa 1960) for his odd, elongated and thin depictions of the human form. The Met presented 17 of the “sculptures” in the great room housing the largest piece of “art” I have ever seen in a museum – the Egyptian Temple of Dendur, a permanent part of the collection.

The temple was given to the museum in 1965 by the government of Egypt as it was doomed to be flooded by a newly constructed dam. The entire temple was disassembled, cataloged, transported to New York City and ultimately reassembled as we see it today. I was unaware of the influence of Egyptian art upon Giacometti until reading the signage of this show. It made the special exhibit better than expected.

As was the whole, semi-mind-blowing experience. I was often in awe, astonished, emotive, discovering, I can think of a religion that can top my experience of The Met and Art in general. Art is my religion. And this temple complex of all the Art of all humanity is one of the most magnificent examples of human aspiration and greatness as can be found anywhere.

Edouard Manet. Boating. 1874.

Claude Monet. Garden at Saint-Adresse. 1867.

Auguste Renoir. Eugene Murer. 1877. detail

Renoir. Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe and Paul-Emile-Charles. 1878. 

Vincent van Gogh. Wheatfield with Cypresses. 1889. detail

Here we see van Gogh's completely different style. L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux. 1888-89.

Self-portrait with a Straw Hat. 1887. detail

A marvelous example of pointillism. Paul Signac. Notre Dame de la Garde, La Bonne Mere. 1905-06.

Edgar Degas. The Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. 1922. tutu 2018.

Antonio Canova. Perseus with the Head of Medusa. 1804-06.

Self captioned.

This was an extraordinary textile surprise. This is a wall hanging of hundreds of ribbons of fabric creating this abstract image. Joël Andrianomearisoa. Les Herbes Follus du Vieux Logis. 2022.

Part of the museum's large African collection of Art.

This piece is from Columbia/Ecuador. It is an unknown tribal elder dated over 1,700 years ago. 

This is Giacometti's tallest sculpture that I've seen. Three others are on the white circle toward the literally awesome Temple of Dendur.

It wouldn't be a museum without interpretation.