Day 6 – 11/29/11: American Period Rooms and Decorate Arts, Islamic Art

My home museum, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts had just opened a major new Art of the Americas Wing that month, so I was eager to see how Met’s American collection compared. Coincidentally or not, the Met had also decided to redo their American paintings galleries, which were scheduled to open in January, two months after the Boston wing. The Met is slightly older than the MFA (1870 vs. 1876), and considerably larger – but I was interested in seeing whether Boston could compete with our larger neighbor. The Boston-New York rivalry goes beyond the Red Sox and Yankees. For a city with one-tenth as many people, it’s a wonder we do as well as we do!
 

The Met’s American wing is located in the back-right corner, with a beautiful courtyard – the most magnificent of the Met's many courtyards – complete with fountain, café, sculptures, and a beautiful view of Central Park. The MFA’s American wing also has a new courtyard, which includes a more formal restaurant, and only two large sculptures, so in this regard I’d have to give the advantage to the Met.

Boston and New York also have competing parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted: the Emerald Necklace and Central Park. In each city, the park lies adjacent to the art museum. Central Park is far larger and more impressive, but the Met has missed an opportunity by not allowing visitors to wander between the museum and park. The American Wing courtyard has a beautiful glass wall providing views of the park, but there is no access in or out. In Boston, the Museum’s entrance to the Fenway was closed in early 1980s, but was reopened with much fanfare in 2008. 

Facing the Met’s courtyard is the facade of a Federalist-era bank building, and behind it are galleries on four different levels, some devoted to paintings, some to decorative arts or reconstructed period rooms. With the paintings galleries closed, I could still visit the extensive decorative arts rooms. Although I really wasn’t interested in the details of each object, the rooms were laid out in a way that gave a sense of really being in that particular time period.

When Bev joined me later in the day, we visited the Islamic Art galleries. These galleries had just opened that month, on November 1, and were laid out quite nicely. Objects and explanations were quite informative, and the series of 15 galleries could be viewed easily in a few hours.