The following pieces within The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection are showcased in WALK ON THROUGH: Confessions of a Museum Novice:
Art Credits
Ugolino and His Sons Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, 1865-67
On view: Gallery 548
The subject of this intensely Romantic work is derived from canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno, which describes how the Pisan traitor Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons, and his grandsons were imprisoned in 1288 and died of starvation. Carpeaux's visionary statue, executed in 1865–67, reflects the artist's passionate reverence for Michelangelo, specifically for The Last Judgment (1536–41) in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, Rome, as well as his own painstaking concern with anatomical realism.
Mrs. N’s Palace Louise Nevelson, 1964-67
Nevelson loved New York, describing the city as "my mirror." This sculpture composed of more than one hundred seemingly disparate but interconnected objects absorbs and emanates her spirit and that of her adopted home. Her largest work, it took thirteen years to complete and was unveiled on her eightieth birthday. The charismatic Nevelson is the "Mrs. N" of the title, the monarch of this massive structure that is both environment and monument, recalling grand memorials and tombs as well as intimate, private spaces. Nevelson was captivated by the beauty she found in discarded materials and urban detritus, tenderly composing, layering, and painting her "found objects" until they shed their skin, reborn as art. Here, it is forgotten things found by chance that together make up the whole—perhaps a metaphor for the city, even for life.
Field and Tournament Armor of Johann Wilheim (1530-1573) Duke of Saxe-Weimar attributed to Anton Peffenhauser, ca. 1565
On view: Gallery 371
As presently assembled, this armor is made up of elements designed for the field, joust, and foot combat tournament. It includes a close helmet, pauldrons (shoulder defenses), tassets (upper thigh defenses), and gauntlets for the field; a breastplate for the tilt (a joust in which a barrier separated two mounted contestants); and arm and leg defenses with closed joints for foot combat. The armor is attributed to Anton Peffenhauser (1525–1603), the leading armorer in Augsburg, and the etched decoration to Jörg Sorg the Younger (ca. 1522–1603).
Bleu no. 1 Abdoulaye Konaté, 2014
Abdoulaye Konaté’s monumental fabric-based works breathe fresh life into West Africa’s rich and dynamic textile traditions. Drawing upon textiles as his primary medium, Konaté composes abstract and figurative tableaux. Bleu no. 1 is part of a recent series of labor-intensive assemblages of delicately cut and sewn layered fringes of different lengths presented in a solo exhibition at the 2014 Dakar Biennale. In this intensive exploration of the spectrum of blue tones, Konaté pays tribute to the indigo dye that has been so central to West African aesthetics.
Statue of Athena Parthenos, 2nd Century B.C.
The impressive, 12-foot-tall, expertly carved colossal statue of Athena Parthenos originally stood in the Sanctuary of Athena—the goddess of knowledge and wisdom—in the ancient Hellenistic city of Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey). It is an adaptation of the famous 40-foot-tall, ivory and gold cult image of Athena by Pheidias that stood in the Parthenon in Athens.
Colossal Seated Statue of a Pharaoh, ca. 1919-1878 B.C.
On view: The Great Hall
This colossus has been recently identified by style as a representation of King Amenemhat II (ca. 1919–1885 B.C.), although an earlier identification as Senwosret II (ca. 1987–1878 B.C.) cannot be completely excluded because of the scarcity of inscribed images of that ruler. Not much is known about Amenemhat II’s long reign, which seems to have been mainly peaceful, despite preserved annals that report the taking of 1500 prisoners during a campaign in the Levant. Senwosret II reigned less than a decade. The placement of his pyramid complex at the entrance to the Fayum Depression seems to indicate his particular interest in developing this fertile area for agriculture.
Judith and the Head of Holofernes Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1530
The Jewish heroine Judith presents the severed head of the Assyrian general who besieged her city, having seduced and then beheaded him with his own sword. Appropriately, she is "dressed to kill" and wears an elaborate contemporary costume that would have appealed to Cranach’s courtly patrons. The painter and his workshop produced several versions of this successful composition, which contrasts Holofernes’ gruesome head with Judith’s serene beauty. At the lower right is Cranach's insignia: a crowned winged serpent with a ring in its mouth.
Roadside Halt Richard Parkes Bonington, 1826
On view: Gallery 808
Set in Normandy, this canvas of 1826 is painted with a fluidity and lightness akin to watercolor, a medium in which Bonington excelled. Although the artist had been painting with oils for only about four years, works such as this were sufficiently remarkable to impress Eugène Delacroix, who wrote: "I could never weary of admiring his marvelous understanding of effects, and the facility of his execution."
Francis Brinley John Smibert, 1729
On view: Gallery 371
Francis Brinley (1690–1765) was born in England but moved to Newport, Rhode Island in 1710 at the request of his grandfather. He eventually settled in Boston, where he married Deborah Lyde, granddaughter of Nathaniel Byfield (24.109.87). In 1719, he inherited a substantial tract of land in Roxbury upon which he built the elaborate Datchet House residence. Smibert painted this portrait in Boston in May of 1729. The background, an early instance of landscape in American painting, represents a view of Boston from Brinley's country home. Smibert also painted a portrait of Brinley's wife (62.79.2).
Jar with short neck Korea, 5th-6th century
Vessels of this type were used in everyday life but also served as mortuary vessels and were buried in tombs. This jar, hand-formed using a coil-and-wheel technique, is lightweight for its size. Impressions of the cord-wrapped paddle used to shape are visible on the surface. Its light- and dark-gray tones were formed during the firing process.
Stela of the God Bes, 4th century B.C.–A.D. 1st century
On view: Gallery 137
Bes waves a knife in one hand and in the other grasps a snake, whose long tail curls up toward a round shape, probably the god's tambourine. A hole remains where a large erect phallus would have been inserted. Considerable traces of paint remain; the characteristic lines on the god's face and curls on his beard may have been added in paint.
Donkey with packs on its back, Second Intermediate Period–Early New Kingdom, ca. 1991–1450 B.C.
This little donkey is made of unfired clay. Four twigs have been stuck into its back to hold what are probably intended to represent sacks of grain. The donkey and sacks were found inside a pot (12.181.272a) that was discovered during excavations conducted by Howard Carter in the area of Hatshepsut's temple.
Merry Company on a Terrace Jan Steen, ca. 1670
Steen made a specialty of self-deprecating depictions of his own unruly household. This painting centers on the inviting figure of his wife, who looks out at the viewer with an empty wineglass in her hand. Steen, his face flushed with drink and a comic hat on his head, sits at the far left; next to him, with a sausage in his cap, is Hans Worst, the same theatrical figure depicted by Hals in a nearby work. To this day in the Netherlands, "a household by Jan Steen" remains proverbial for disorder and domestic chaos.
Smashed Strokes Hope Joan Snyder, 1971
Smashed Strokes Hope belongs to Joan Snyder’s breakthrough series of abstract paintings, sometimes referred to as "stroke paintings" because of the way they emphasize the primacy of the artist’s brushwork. Distinct areas of paint seem to have been sprayed on, smeared on haphazardly (perhaps with a hand or a cloth), or applied carefully to create vertical and horizontal clusters. Prominent drips, smears, and stains appear throughout the canvas. In this riot of color, there is a palpable tension between regularity and irregularity, pattern and chaos, control and spontaneity. Snyder once said, "I wanted to tell a story and I wanted there to be different sections. I wanted a beginning, middle, and end, many different parts, happy, sad, tragic parts, many things happening at once, different instruments, different sounds, rhythms."
Wisconsin Landscape John Steuart Curry, 1938-1939
Wisconsin Landscape is an idealized composite of farm scenes that Curry saw while traveling around the American Midwest. The horizontal canvas provides a panoramic view of the region and draws attention to the dramatic sky. Celebrating agrarian calm and plentitude, Curry’s verdant scene appears to deliberately disregard the effects of the Great Depression, which continued to plague farming communities at the time. Along with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, Curry contributed to an artistic movement known as Regionalism, which asserted that truly American art would emerge from small towns more so than large cities.
America Today Thomas Hart Benton, 1930-1931
On view: Gallery 909
Offering a panorama of American life throughout the 1920s, America Today is a room-sized mural comprising ten canvas panels. Missouri native Thomas Hart Benton painted America Today to adorn a boardroom on the third floor of the New School for Social Research, a center of progressive thought and education in Greenwich Village, New York. The mural was commissioned in 1930 by the New School's director Alvin Johnson. Benton finished it very early in 1931, when the school opened a new building designed by architect Joseph Urban. Although the artist received no fee for his work on commission, he was "paid" with free eggs, the yolks from which he created the egg tempera paint.
The North Cape by Moonlight Peder Balke, 1848
On view: Gallery 807
Balke visited the North Cape only once, in 1832, but the experience became a touchstone of his imagination for the rest of his life. The tenebrous palette and expressive brushwork seen in this moonlit view are characteristic of Balke’s mature style, which stands in contrast to the more restrained naturalism of his mentor Johan Christian Dahl. When this painting (or another version) was exhibited in Oslo in the fall of 1848, a critic wrote that it "claims our interest, both for the nature of the subject itself and the singularity of the perception of the chosen moment."
Buddha, probably Amitabha, early 7th century
On view: Gallery 208
The position of the Buddha’s arms indicates that the hands were once held in a gesture of meditation and suggests that this sculpture represents Amitabha, a celestial Buddha who presides over his Western Paradise. Devotion to Amitabha, a major component of Chinese Buddhist practice since the sixth century, promotes the goal of rebirth in Amitabha’s Pure Land, where conditions are conducive to achieving spiritual understanding.
The Horse Fair Rosa Bonheur, 1852-55
On view: Gallery 812
This, Bonheur’s best-known painting, shows the horse market held in Paris on the tree-lined Boulevard de l’Hôpital, near the asylum of Salpêtrière, which is visible in the left background. For a year and a half Bonheur sketched there twice a week, dressing as a man to discourage attention. Bonheur was well established as an animal painter when the painting debuted at the Paris Salon of 1853, where it received wide praise. In arriving at the final scheme, the artist drew inspiration from George Stubbs, Théodore Gericault, Eugène Delacroix, and ancient Greek sculpture: she referred to The Horse Fair as her own "Parthenon frieze."
Carousel State Sam Gilliam, 1968
Liberating the canvas from its stretcher, straddling the wall and three dimensions in space, Gilliam explored the material and chromatic possibilities of a traditional painting support in Carousel State. Among a series of works by Gilliam initially termed "sculptural paintings" or "suspended paintings," the moniker "drape paintings" has now come to be most associated with the works. The series began in 1968, garnering the artist much acclaim (they were featured in the U.S. Pavilion at the 36th Venice Biennial in 1972) and remain among his best-known works. Gilliam said of this series: "The liquidity of the colors was reinforced by the fluidity of the canvas. Paint and surface took on an added, third-dimensional reality. Now the canvas was not only the means to, but a primary part of, the object. The suspended paintings began by celebrating the working process and ended with the involvement of the wall, the floor, and the ceiling. The year 1968 was one of revelation and determination—something was in the air, and it was in that spirit that I did the drape paintings." [1] Dating to the first year of making such works, Carousel State reflects this new and significant direction in Gilliam’s oeuvre.
(mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People: Resurgence of the People) Kent Monkman, 2019
Commissioned by The Met in 2019, Monkman’s mistikôsiwak: Wooden Boat People is a diptych consisting of Welcoming the Newcomers and Resurgence of the People (MMA 2020.216b), two monumental figurative paintings painted in a grand, highly detailed style recalling nineteenth-century academic painting. The commission’s primary title derives from a Cree word meaning "wooden boat people," which originally applied specifically to French settlers, but here it refers to all Europeans who colonized land known now as North America. Welcoming the Newcomers dramatically recreates their arrival, bringing with them institutions of religion and slavery. Resurgence of the People is a testament to, and celebration of, Indigenous resiliency. Monkman's shape-shifting, time-traveling alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, appears prominently in both paintings, personifying Cree values and embodying the Indigenous Two Spirit tradition, which embraced a third gender and nonbinary sexuality. Monkman’s imagery teems with references to works in The Met collection, especially subjects relating to the Romantic myth of the "Vanishing Race," such as Eugène Delacroix’s The Natchez (1989.328) and Thomas Crawford’s Mexican Girl Dying (97.13.2a–e). Reversing the colonial gaze of European and American art history, the artist’s approach subverts these dark, deadly narratives.
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) Jackson Pollock, 1950
On view: Gallery 919
The Met acquired this monumental "drip" painting by Pollock in 1957, the year following the artist’s unexpected death—a sign of how quickly his reinvention of painting was accepted into the canon of modern art. However revolutionary in technique, Pollock’s large-scale work was rooted in the muralism of the 1930s, including the art of Thomas Hart Benton (see America Today, MMA 2012.478a–j) and David Alfaro Siqueiros, both of whom he had worked alongside. Pollock proclaimed in 1947: "I intend to paint large movable pictures which will function between the easel and the mural. . . . the tendency of modern feeling is towards the wall picture or mural." This work’s title suggests not only the month in which he painted it (October), but also an alignment with nature’s constant flux.
The Organ Rehearsal Henry Lerolle, 1885
On view: Gallery 684
This is the most important painting by Lerolle, a friend and collector of such artists as Degas, Denis, and Vuillard. Set in the choir loft of the church of Saint-François-Xavier in Paris, it features members of Lerolle’s intimate circle, including his wife (bare-headed) and her sisters, in fashionable matching hats; his brother-in-law, composer Ernest Chausson, plays the organ. The painter himself gazes outward at left. Shown at the Salon of 1885, this picture triumphed the next year in New York, in the first major Impressionism exhibition in America. One critic recalled, "spectators … spoke low before it, as if waiting for … the voice of the singer to be heard."
The Storm Pierre-Auguste Cot, 1880
When Cot exhibited this painting at the Salon of 1880, critics speculated about the source of the subject. Some proposed the French novel Paul and Virginie by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814), in which the teenage protagonists run for shelter in a rainstorm, using the heroine’s overskirt as an impromptu umbrella; others suggested the romance Daphnis and Chloe by the ancient Greek writer Longus. New York collector and Metropolitan Museum benefactor Catharine Lorillard Wolfe commissioned the work under the guidance of her cousin John Wolfe, one of Cot's principal patrons. Like the artist’s earlier Springtime (2012.575), it was immensely popular and extensively reproduced.
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin (1855-1888) Illia Repin, 1884
On view: 827
Repin was born in the Ukrainian town of Chuhuiv (Chuguev) when it was part of the Russian Empire. He went on to become a major progressive painter. In the early 1880s, he met Garshin, an acclaimed writer who shared his concern for contemporary political and social problems. Repin made several portraits in this decade of artists in his orbit in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The rich tonal contrasts and lush brushwork are indebted to art he saw while studying in Paris. Four years after this picture was painted, Garshin, scarred by the suicides of his father and brother and his own mental illness, threw himself down a stairwell and died.
Untitled Gregory Crewdson, 2005
Gregory Crewdson describes his highly scripted photographs as single-frame movies; to produce them, he engages teams of riggers, grips, lighting specialists, and actors. The story lines in most of his photographs center on suburban anxiety, disorientation, fear, loss, and longing, but the final meaning almost always remains elusive, the narrative unfinished. In this photograph something terrible has happened, is happening, and will likely happen again. A woman in a nightgown sits in crisis on the edge of her bed with the remains of a rosebush on the sheets beside her. The journey from the garden was not an easy one, as evidenced by the trail of petals, thorns, and dirt. Even so, the protagonist cradles the plant’s roots with tender regard.
Untitled Film Still #48 Cindy Sherman, 1979
A lone woman on an empty highway peers around the corner of a rocky outcrop. She waits and waits below the dramatic sky. Is it fear or self-reliance that challenges the unnamed traveler? Does she dread the future, the past, or just the present? So thorough and sophisticated is Cindy Sherman’s capacity for filmic detail and nuance that many viewers (encouraged by the titles) mistakenly believe that the photographs in the series are reenactments of films. Rather, they are an unsettling yet deeply satisfying synthesis of film and narrative painting, a shrewdly composed remaking not of the "real" world but of the mediated landscape.
Soft Figure Robert Heinecken, 1964
A quintessential Los Angeles artist of the radical 1960s, Robert Heinecken graduated in 1960 with a master’s degree in printmaking. Four years later, he founded the photography program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught for the next twenty-seven years. Ironically, he rarely used a camera to create his own images and instead appropriated pictures from magazines. This dreamy and erotic work from the beginning of his career effectively explores camera techniques often defined as "bad photography," such as incorrect exposure, shooting into the light, and motion blur. At first glance one might ask, is it a photograph documenting reality or a copy of a drawing? For Heinecken, this ambiguity is precisely where the beauty lies.
Fragmentary Colossal Marble Head of Youth 2nd Century B.C.
The astonishingly realistic fragmentary marble head of a youth was originally part of a draped bust set in a marble roundel almost four feet in diameter. Representing a young god or perhaps Alexander the Great, and found on the upper terrace of the gymnasium at Pergamon, the work would have been one of a number of similar sculptures adorning the space. Because the bust was never exposed to the elements, the marble surface is remarkably fresh.
Marble statue of youthful Hercules AD 69-96 CE
On view: Gallery 162
This statue was part of the collection of antiquities acquired in Rome by the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani during the first third of the seventeenth century. It must have been made as one of a pair with the over-life-sized statue of a bearded Hercules displayed across the courtyard. Both may have been excavated in the remains of public baths originally constructed under the emperor Nero in A.D. 62, which were located in the vicinity of the Pantheon.
Marble statue of Herakles seated on a rock 1st or 2nd century CE
On view: Gallery 162
Adaptation of a Greek statue of the late 4th or early 3rd century B.C. The great hero was shown resting on a rock with his legs stretched out in front of him, his club braced under his left armpit. The exceptionally fine and realistic rendering of the lean, muscled body and the powerful curve of the back bring to mind the works of Lysippos, a famous sculptor of the late fourth century B.C.
Marble torso of a seated man 1st or 2nd century CE
On view: Gallery 162
Copy or adaptation of a Greek statue of the 3rd or 2nd century B.C.
Marble head of an Athlete ca. AD 138-192
On view: Gallery 153
Copy of a Greek bronze statue of ca. 450–425 B.C. This head of a youth wearing a fillet (band) must have belonged to the statue of a victorious athlete. He probably rested one arm lightly on his head; the remains of a rectangular support can still be seen among his curls. Roman copies often conformed to contemporary taste, and the contrast between polished flesh and deeply drilled hair on this head would have held special appeal for clients in the second century A.D.
Marble portrait of the emperor Antonius Pius ca. AD 138-161 CE
On view: Gallery 162
Antoninus Pius was adopted by Hadrian as his successor when he was already fifty-one years old. His portraits thus represent him as a mature man in a sober but refined style that consciously echoes the imperial imagery adopted by Hadrian. At the beginning of his reign in A.D. 138, he had to impel a reluctant Senate to award Hadrian divine honors, and it is probably for this reason that he himself was given the title of Pius. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, Trajan and Hadrian, Antoninus did not embark on any major wars or travel widely through the Empire. Indeed, he was in effect the last emperor to spend most of his reign in the city of Rome itself. Regarded as a just and diligent administrator, Antoninus presided over the Empire at the height of its power—a time that the historian Edward Gibbon later famously referred to as the period when “the condition of the human race was most happy and most prosperous.”
Marble head of Herakles 1st century AD
On view: Gallery 162
Copy of a Greek statue of the second half of the 4th century B.C. attributed to Lysippos. In the statue, the Greek hero Herakles was shown close to exhaustion on completion of the twelve labors set him by Eurystheus, ruler of the Argolid. The contrast between his powerful physique and his weary stance is echoed in this particularly fine rendition of his noble head, which is bowed with fatigue. The statue was copied in many different sizes during the Roman period.
The Weeders Jules Breton, 1868
On view: Gallery 802
This is a smaller variant of a composition Breton painted in 1860 (Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha) and exhibited to wide acclaim at the Salon of 1861 and the World’s Fair of 1867 in Paris. In his autobiography, Breton described this twilight scene of peasants pulling up thistles and weeds—"their faces haloed by the pink transparency of their violet hoods, as if to venerate a fecundating star"—noting that he had discovered the subject as a "finished picture" near his native village, Courrières, in northern France.
Annette Alberto Giacometti, 1961
On view: Gallery 917
In this late portrait of his wife and principal model, Giacometti positioned the figure close to the picture plane, half-length and facing forward, framed by an abstract, gestural backdrop. With its expressive brushwork, the work may seem hastily executed; however, sitting for Giacometti was a time-intensive endeavor. Despite this, he never regarded any of his paintings—or sculptures—as finished. The artist’s long and careful painting process and frequent changes to the composition are especially apparent in the depiction of the face. After exhibiting a first version of this portrait in Paris in May 1961, Giacometti went back to rework the picture. According to Annette, he at first only wanted to change the nose, but subsequently turned her expression into the present wide-eyed stare while also retouching the background.
From Williamsburg Bridge Edward Hopper, 1928
In this painting, Hopper depicts the austere facades of four apartment buildings and reduces the steel suspension of the Williamsburg Bridge to the margins. Completed in 1903 and connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan, the structure is indicated only by the unobtrusive railing rising at a slight diagonal along the bottom of the canvas. As opposed to focusing on the bridge that facilitates movement in and out of the city, Hopper creates an image absent of noise or motion. He emphasizes the alienation and anonymity of urban life by including a single figure: a woman sitting alone in a top story window.
Salvator Mundi Albrecht Dürer, ca. 1505
This picture of Christ as Savior of the World, who raises his right hand in blessing and in his left holds an orb representing the Earth, can be appreciated both as a painting and a drawing. Dürer, the premier artist of the German Renaissance, probably began this work shortly before he departed for Italy in 1505, but completed only the drapery. His unusually extensive and meticulous preparatory drawing on the panel is visible in the unfinished portions of Christ's face and hands.