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September 29, 2008
Morandi in New York
I got to run down to New York City this weekend with a friend and do a lot of walking around and enough museuming to hold me for awhile. I managed not to buy anything but food and drink, too - though we bought a lot of those! The best meal was certainly Indian, and I unaccountably forgot to grab a card from the restaurant on the way out. I'm going to be experimenting with chick peas for the immediate future to see if I can do anything like that. But then there were the Chinese baked goods from Canal Street. Yum. And the cute little smoothie-making machine that not only blended but sealed with a stretched plastic top - you know, sort of like a foil-sealed glass of juice. Tasty and hygienic!
The best art-dose was, of all things, Morandi at the Met. Now the Rome program went to the Morandi museum in Bologna this March, so it's not as though I was suffering from some kind of undiagnosed 20th Century still-life deficiency. The show at the Met, though it drew on lots of stuff owned by the museum in Bologna, was more analytical and less chronological - they had lots of multiple-version paintings. There was one group of four paintings from 1937-39 that was especially good for understanding work-technique. The little variations from still-life to still-life are worth contemplating, and I am always amazed by the little landscapes in person. Definitely worth seeing.
The medieval rooms were in disarray in advance of a renovation - most of them were closed or almost empty. We spent a good time in the arms and armor section - there's something very satisfying about the industrial design of life-saving equipment like this, with all the lines designed to slide projectiles away from the torso.
I went and mooned about the classical rooms, of course. There's never a visit without that. There were 4 loaned pieces of Greek pottery with clear-cut signage that they were ON LOAN FROM THE REPUBLIC OF ITALY. None of them struck ME as much consolation for the Sarpedon krater, but whatever.
Lots of wandering - a few pictures. The predicted rain mainly fell elsewhere, so we weren't too sloggy.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at September 29, 2008 8:54 AM