Day 24 – 7/6/14: Musical Instruments (end), Greek & Roman (end), Decorative Arts (start)

 

Sunday I had a leisurely breakfast, spent two hours in the southern portion of Central Park, and still arrived at the Met within a few minutes of opening time. I returned to the European Musical Instruments, which provided an historical presentation of each type of orchestral instrument, as well as a special exhibit of Martin guitars. I decided to rent an audio guide, which turned out to be quite useful, since musical selections were available for many of the instruments on display.  

Souvenir from Gladiator match

I again tried to see the elusive Roman galleries. This time I hit it just right– not too early, not too late! In addition to sculptures from later Roman times, there were amazing rooms of frescos, and objects from everyday life, at least among the wealthy. I finally completed the Greek and Roman wing, which contains just 27 galleries, yet took me nearly four years to complete!

Next, I went up to the Roof Garden, which had an installation consisting of a curved glass wall, providing interesting reflections for visitors as they walked through.

The last major section of the museum was European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, a huge block of 55 galleries in the center of the museum’s first floor. The thought of endless rooms of furniture or dishes or serving utensils was never appealing to me. Boston’s MFA tore down its Decorative Arts wing in the late 90s to make room for the new Americas wing, and the objects were interspersed with the paintings. I have mixed feelings about this. It makes sense to have period rooms with appropriate paintings (as the Met does also), but I find it distracting to find dressers, chairs and grandfather clocks randomly placed between paintings.

Torah crown, Venice, 1740-50

I had no idea where to start, so I used my usual method of going by gallery number. This made sense, since the first gallery, Italian Renaissance, flows nicely from the adjacent Medieval section. The first room was all religious icons, which seemed to belong with the similar paintings upstairs (sometimes the two collections really should be integrated). The other Italian galleries showed secular objects from wealthy houses, including some impressive period rooms. The most unusual object was a Torah crown from Venice.