Thinking of visiting The MET in New York, USA? Here's a roundup of my thoughts from my recent trip in April 2022.
So recently I visited New York to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. New York is such an iconic city. The only problem with visiting New York is that there is never enough time.
Obviously as an artist, I was excited to be able to visit MOMA (more on that visit in a separate blog) and the MET. My main criticism of the MET is again there was simply not enough time.
The building is absolutely glorious and the collections are just wonderful. I am going to concentrate on the European art collection and the sculpture gallery.
Firstly just wow! The European art collection is simply amazing and is littered with paintings that I have loved and adored most of my life. I find that whenever I visit any gallery I leave feeling completely inspired. I marvel at the works on display, I always bring a sketchbook and draw what I see. I think it is a valuable opportunity to learn from the greats. Looking at the compositions, the range of colours, and how the artist captures form. So many things to learn and basically so little time.
I have to mention a few artists whose work just consistently blows my mind. Firstly William Bouguereau. I have no idea why this artist isn’t a household name. For me he is one of the all time greats. When I look at his work I am genuinely amazed at what he can accomplish with paint. I can’t overstate this enough. Honestly. His work is simply wonderful and I love to spend quality time just standing in front of his work marvelling at what is achievable from paint.
I also completely adore Ingres. Once again his work is just incredible and I can just get lost in his paintings.
Finally, I just want to mention the sculpture gallery which was an inspiring place to visit. There were classes of art students who sat drawing and the atmosphere in there was inspiring. I had to sit and draw. I could honestly just spend days (or weeks) sat in the gallery drawing. Seeing how masters idealised the human form. Trying to replicate that with a piece of paper and a pencil. What a wonderful challenge.
So if you are visiting New York make sure you visit the MET. I can highly recommend it.