Cloisters, and the Met.
Written for me by Phil Moncuse, a friend, and fellow artist
With the first heat wave of the summer fast approaching, my brother Pete proclaimed that we should go to New York City to visit the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My daughter Kate wasted no time in acceptance of the idea and told me that I was not going to miss this trip.
We arrived in Grand Central Station to behold a sunny Saturday morning. Then, as one might expect, my brother mentioned that he needed cigars, so we proceeded to his favorite tobacco emporium. After briefly perusing through a myriad of cigars, Pete had found what he needed. The next stop was a Brazilian restaurant – we needed to build up our strength for the long trip back up to the top of Manhattan. I never knew Brazilian beer was so good, but that is another subject for another time.
We arrived at 190th St. after an exhilarating ride on the A Train. The walk from the subway station is a transitional one that subtly winds its way from a busy cityscape, up a massive rock formation, to a medieval collection called the Cloisters. The structure that houses the collection appears as a citadel, the reconstruction of several monastic sites from Europe and southern France, overlooking the Hudson River. Pete led the way, exclaiming how, with the price of admission to the Cloisters, one also receives same-day admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Cloisters is more than a museum, it is an environment of medieval architecture, stained glass, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, art, and courtyards with fountains. That may be too much to say with one sentence, but it is more of an experience than a museum visit to wander through the rooms and courtyards of the Cloisters. They even have quince trees and I must say that lemonade and iced tea taste particularly nice in such a place.
The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe
A noteworthy feature of the Cloisters is the incorporation of various architectural objects, such as an assortment of doors and stained glass taken from the medieval age and built into the overall architecture of the museum itself. Of particular interest to me was the collection of tapestries, which included the famous Unicorn Tapestries. Within the Cloisters there are numerous areas where one can reflect upon the time period and the people who lived and died in a world very different from the one which we know today. That human contact, across time, is felt, possibly the most, in the chamber housing the sarcophagi.
I would recommend a visit to the Cloisters for anyone who appreciates cultural aspects of European history. Closing time came too soon, but that only meant we had a chance to get to the Metropolitan, so it was back to the subway for the three of us.
My brother seems to have a sense of the New York subway system that baffles me. In a place that reminds me of the catacombs of Rome, he maneuvers almost effortlessly and, soon, we arrived at our destination just a few blocks from the Metropolitan. Once there, we casually strolled into the museum, having already paid the suggested admission.
From the balcony above, piano music showered down into the main entry room. As curiosity demanded, we climbed the stairs to investigate and found a somewhat formal gathering. There were some open tables, so we entered and ordered a bit of refreshment, remaining a while before moving on to the rest of the museum. Since my last visit, there had been a fair amount of work done to the various exhibits, leaving many new areas to see. I had a special interest in the newly renovated American section; aside from my being American.
An ancestor of mine, John VanDerlyn, was a painter of an appreciable talent. At the Metropolitan is a very good example of a concept he wanted to make popular; that of a panoramic scene housed in a round room or building. An added feature of the scene, in this one especially, is the handling of different light in different areas of the scene. Essentially, the picture is a view of a day at Versailles with varying light as the day progresses.
As I stated before, the time moves too fast and before we had a chance to see the majority of the renovation, a guard entered the room to tell us the museum was closing. We exited the museum to find that night had truly fallen on the city. There is no adequate way to present a picture of the treasures found in the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a short article such as this. I merely present an account of our visit as an invitation to experience them firsthand, if possible, or at the very least, through the Internet. The sites are found with:
www.metmuseum.org for the Metropolitan and from within the site, the Cloisters can be found on the menu on the left.
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You are absolutelly right, this place is much more than a museum, its evocative role is amazing. Thank you for the text!