visit to the met

Solaf Sayedahmed

                                Report on Visit to Metropolitan Museum of Art

    I had a visit to Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is an art museum and commonly known as The

Met. It is located on 5th Avenue and 82nd Street in New York. This museum is a huge collection

of ancient arts, paintings, crafts and sculptures. In addition, the museum is also a collection of

musical instruments, ancient weapons, costumes and other accessories. According to the website

wikipedia.org, "the Met measures almost 1⁄4-mile (400 m) long and occupies more than

2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2)" (Metropolitan Museum of Art). This museum is believed to

be one of the oldest and finest art museums in the world. Metropolitan Museum consists of

variety of art work from earlier times. Great changes have occurred throughout the world as the

time has gone by. The museum consisted of many exhibitions from ancient times including

Egyptians, Europeans, Italians, Chinese, Iranians, and many more. I looked at several pieces

from few exhibitions which will by mentioned later with details.

When I walked in I was amazed by the crowd of people. I did not need any signs or labels

for making my way around, though the museum is huge but one thing I love about Is it is pretty

well kept. The first floor was not of much interest to me, I like history and old things more so I

quickly made my way to the gallery of “The Ancient Models from the Tomb of Meketre”. I

loved it, it has so much things toi ponder about from the past and is completely amazing. I loved

the two pieces from this collection, “the brewery and the bakery” and “kitchen tender being

rowed”. These are significantly related to ancient Egypt.

ANCIENT EGYPT

Ancient Egypt has been a very interesting time period and place to study. It consists of

pyramids, mummies, temples, wall scripture, and much more. Lifestyle of Ancient Egyptians has

been very influential. With the great difference in time, similarities and differences can be

witnessed between the ancient Egypt and modern world. In the exhibitions I visualized few

pieces which are mentioned below.


Brewery and Bakery:

 The  piece called “Brewery and Bakery” is from ‘The Ancient Models from the Tomb of

Meketre’. There are two sides to this model, Brewery and Bakery. In Brewery women are

grinding flour, men are making dough, and much more is happening. In Bakery men are crushing

grain with pestles after which it is ground to flour and more. This piece can be seen in the picture

on the right. Although this was all happening in ancient Egypt, it still occurs today. For many

working in Brewery or Bakery is the way of life. After centuries, so many changes have occurred

due to time but still livelihood for many is the same. In cities, there are brewery and bakery

shops from which people buy for their necessities. As shown in the piece, all this happens in the

background where people work. Some things do not change due to time but the style of doing it

does.

Kitchen Tender being Rowed:-

     “Kitchen Tender being Rowed” was a piece derived from ‘The Ancient Models from the

Tomb of Meketre’. This is a piece of dynasty 12, early reign of Amenemhat I. This is boat with

many people from the ancient Egypt on a picnic. In the boat coal is burned to cook food. Soup is

being prepared in the tender. Women are grinding grain and men are shaping bread. This can

relate to cruise on a boat in today’s world. The difference is the people on the boat of the piece

are working while on cruise people enjoy tension free. Cruise is only available for the people

who have enough money. At earlier time boats were the way to travel. Over time from boat

being the way to travel, cars have come into play. Many things have been invented which have

changed the world and our lives.

The Ancient Egyptian House:-

      The houses in ancient Egypt were built of unfired mud brick. An example model of a house

was seen in the ancient Egypt exhibit called “The Ancient Egyptian House”. The exterior walls

of houses back in time were mud plastered and painted gray or yellowish brown. The interior

walls were painted with black dado topped with white, red, and black bands. The ceilings were

created of palm tree or vaulted with brick. The windows were high in walls closed with wooden

grills. During the period one story building was common but there were several double story

buildings. In the present time especially in cities, the buildings now stand several stories high,

five or six are very common. Over time changes in architectural styles of building have taken

place. Building styles from the past has influenced the architectural style of the modern time.

EUROPE

Europe has been very famous for the sculptures. It consists of many interesting sculptures

including ‘Ugolina and his sons’, ‘Lucretia’, ‘Earth’, ‘Fire’, ‘Water’, ‘Air’, and many more.

Many sculptures portray a story. In the exhibitions I saw several pieces which include:

Ugolina and his sons

The scultpture of “Ugolina and his sons” has been created by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux.

This is a story of pisan traitor. Ugolino della Gherardesca was imprisoned with his sons. They

subsequently starved to death. Due to hunger the offspring’s are calling out to their father for

food. The fear and pain can be witnessed on the face of Ugolina. In the current world, people are

migrating from rural areas to urban area in search of employment. Many people still remain

jobless and without money therefore have little or no food to eat. Starvation is increasing in the

modern world due to unemployment which can be seen in many major cities of the modern

world.

Earth:-

“Earth” is the sculpture created by Jean-Pierre Defrance with limestone. It is one of the

four elements. A woman stands tall with a lot fruits and vegetable grown from the earth. Some

people in this world have more then they need to survive while the others don’t even have basic

necessities due to which it is impossible for them to survive in this world. This has been the

situation in the world throughout the history and in present. The rich are given greater

importance while poor are treated inhumanely. Although this sculpture is showing one of the

four elements, a person always can see beyond what is being shown.

Lucretia:-

“Lucretia” is a sculpture done by Philippe Bertrand. It is of a woman who was raped by

the prince of Rome, Tarquinius Sextus, committing suicide. She killed herself to spare her

families from dishonor. In the older times a women who was raped was considered impure and

immoral. The society would avoid being around that women and torture her along with her

family. In the present time, the person who is raped is not tortured rather helped especially in

western countries. In the developing countries according to the culture it is still considered

impure and immoral. They also blame the happening on the women. The pressure of the society

makes the victim commit suicide to avoided embarrassment. Over time people thinking have

changed in many parts of the world but some still remain back in time.

The exhibit part that interest me most of the Metropolitan museum that I really liked was

the Ancient Greek and Roman collections. The Greek and Roman gallery contains large classical

wall paintings as well as breath taking statues. I was very surprised to see that the collection

contains the ancient remains from as earlier as third millennium BC. It was really good watching

the transformation of arts and sculptures from ancient times to modern times. I also saw some

Asian paintings and sculptures. I was more than happy to see some of the painted manuscripts

cover from my country Nepal. There were many ancient Chinese arts as well as Tibetan

paintings. I was amazed to see some of the Islamic art collections. There were textiles and some

other materials that are used to decorate the mosques. I liked the way The Met gave equal

importance to all of the religions and focused on the unity of the people from every different

historical and religious background.

           Art reflects our culture because it can show the moment in time that the art was created. I

mean art doesn't truly make culture but art does show us about other culture.  Art is a way of

self-expression. Art reflects ones culture by letting them express their feelings and or beliefs

throughout their artwork. Art shapes culture by letting other people see and learn stories, ways of

life, rituals, etc. Through the art we can learn different things about different people's culture.

Archeologists use these arts and artifacts from the past to determine the culture and lifestyle of

our ancestor from thousands of year ago. For example the piece “brewery and Bakery” sheds

light on the daily activity for an artisan class citizen of ancient Egypt as well as the tools and

equipment that were available at that time of period. Meanwhile the piece “Ugolinana and his

son” teaches us a lesson about betrayal and gives us insight to the values was held dear in the late

eighteen hundreds.

kitchen tender being rowed

Ugolina and his sons

lucretia 

brewery and bakery