The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Author: Kathryn Calley Galitz
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2016-09-20
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0847846598
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This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

French Art Deco

French Art Deco
Author: Jared Goss
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2014-09-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300204302
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Art Deco—the term conjures up jewels by Van Cleef & Arpels, glassware by Laique, furniture by Ruhlmann—is best exemplified in the work shown at the exhibition that gave the style its name: the Exposition Internationale des Art Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. The exquisite craftsmanship and artistry of the objects displayed spoke to a sophisticated modernity yet were rooted in past traditions. Although it quickly spread to other countries, Art Deco found its most coherent expression in France, where a rich cultural heritage was embraced as the impetus for creating something new. the style drew on inspirations as diverse as fashion, avant-garde trends in the fine arts—such as Cubism and Fauvism—and a taste for the exotic, all of which converged in exceptionally luxurious and innovative objects. While the practice of Art Deco ended with the Second World War, interest in it has not only endured to the present day but has grown steadily. Based on the Metropolitan Museum's renowned collection French Art Deco presents more than eighty masterpieces by forty-two designers. Examples include Süe et Mare's furniture from the 1925 Exposition; Dufy's Cubist-inspired textiles; Dunand's lacquered bedroom suite; Dupas's monumental glass wall panels from the SS Normandie; and Fouquet's spectacular dress ornament in the shape of a Chinese mask. Jared Goss's engaging text includes a discussion of each object together with a biography of the designer who created it and is enlivened by generous quotations from writings of the period. The extensive introduction provides historical context and explores the origins and aesthetic of Art Deco. With its rich text and sumptuous photographs, this is not only one of the rare books on French Art Deco in English, but an object d'art in its own right.

All the Beauty in the World

All the Beauty in the World
Author: Patrick Bringley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2023-02-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982163321
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A best book of the year from New York Public Library, NPR, the Financial Times, Book Riot, and the Sunday Times (London). A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard. Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns. In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.

French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution

French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution
Author: Katharine Baetjer
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2019-04-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1588396614
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This publication catalogues The Met’s remarkable collection of eighteenth-century French paintings in the context of the powerful institutions that governed the visual arts of the time—the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, the Académie de France à Rome, and the Paris Salon. At the height of their authority during the eighteenth century, these institutions nurtured the talents of artists in all genres. The Met’s collection encompasses stunning examples of work by leading artists of the period, including Antoine Watteau (Mezzetin), Jean Siméon Chardin (The Silver Tureen), François Boucher (The Toilette of Venus), Joseph Siffred Duplessis (Benjamin Franklin), Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Broken Eggs), Hubert Robert (the Bagatelle decorations), Jacques Louis David (The Death of Socrates), the Van Blarenberghes (The Outer Port of Brest), and François Gérard (Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord). In the book’s introduction, author Katharine Baetjer provides a history of the Académie, its establishment, principles, and regulations, along with a discussion of the beginnings of public art discourse in France, taking us through the reforms unleashed by the Revolution. The consequent democratizing of the Salon, brought about by radicals under the leadership of Jacques Louis David, encouraged the formation of new publics with new tastes in subject matter and genres. The catalogue features 126 paintings by 50 artists. Each section includes a short biography of the artist and in-depth discussions of individual paintings incorporating the most up-to-date scholarship.