exhibit #2

19th and early 20th Century European Paintings and Sculpture, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a relatively new wing. I've spent the entire month making periodic visits to study and record my observations on each room in this wing of the museum.

Arranged approximately by chronology (this entry will undergo a lot of edits over time.)

• (hallway) Henri Regnault- good painter, killed in the Franco-Prussian War… always fascinating when art history and world history intersect. I am a real sucker for a painting that conveys a soft yearning- Merle’s Falling Leaves, Allegory of Autumn and Lefebvre’s Graziella both capture that emotion. Both works were owned by Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, a famed collector (with great taste!) Gerome’s Pygmalion and Galatea- love it. Sappy classicism, but I love it. This painting was executed from multiple angles, could be fun to look at the other incarnations of this work. The near-black bronze of Rodin’s figures draws such a beautiful contrast with the marble sculptures of antiquity. I like Chavannes. There’s a Gauginesque flatness in his work, with a soft, lovely pastel palette and a historical scale. I imagine that he’s known as an artist who took impressionist principles to make Salon-acceptable work. I’ve always admired Rodin’s bust of Chavannes. Truly does capture the elegance and authority of that mythic French gentleman/artist ideal. Rodin’s The Bronze Age- I Love it. Striking, moving, astonishing realism that bursts with quiet passion. Barye- phenomenal sculptor of animals and conflict. Meisonner’s 1807, Friedland- fantastic picture of Napoleon’s victory, the emotional surge of those cavalry saluting him with their blades in the air. Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc- intricate, moving, dazzlingly blue and green color. Pierre Auguste Cot- I am an unabashed romantic, a real sucker, for this guy. Something about really big, vaguely enigmatic and mysterious portraits of romance really capture my imagination. Springtime is delightful, and The Storm- something about the effortlessly tender intimacy in the two figures, it has always touched my sentimental side.

• Lots of Delacroix, Ingres in this room. Early-mid 1800s. Mostly portraits. I like Girodet’s Madame Reizet, she absolutely glows. Ingres’ portraits of the LeBlancs are spectacular, brilliant textural detail, the warm glow of a benefactor. It’s interesting how the social relationship changes- how the esteemed merchant, granting favors to the artist, now owes his immortality to that painter. Christ Asleep during the Tempest, as a picture is dark and moving, but the concept is unintentionally hilarious. The Natchez is a pretty picture, lovely, dark palette, and culturally/historically pretty fascinating, as a French portrayal of an idyllic America that no longer exists.

• Grand landscape paintings. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the really vast landscape paintings. It’s the sense of history, feeling a connection to the New York of the mid 1800s, when it was common to experience nature and foreign countries mainly by these oil paintings. Turner’s The Grand Canal, Venice is magnificent, especially the water- he absolutely captures the city’s unique glow. Leighton’s Lachrymae is an intriguing, melancholy work. Tischbein’s The Children of Martin Anton Heckscher = Baby Beatles! Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds - not my favorite, but it’s an interesting composition, with the rugged nature of the foreground giving way to the ornate cathedral in the background. Gericault’s Evening- gorgeous, soft, glowing color. Green, pink, blue. The buildings in the background look particularly modern, flat simple geometric shapes. I Really like JMW Turner, I regret not studying his big exhibit last year more closely. The Whale Ship is poignant- near the end of his life, the painter makes fuzzier, fading work- but it’s also a strikingly modern piece, and a Rauschenberg palette to boot.

• Mainly smallish medium oil sketches. Koch’s Heroic Landscape with Rainbow- even the title explodes with clichés, but I’ll forgive it because the color and rich detail are striking. First time I’ve ever seen goat’s balls in a painting, much less a heroic painting. Bouton’s Gothic Chapel is a haunting, sublimely mysterious little work. The glow at the top, the darkness in the distance. Montessey’s Pope Gregory XVI visiting the Church of San Benedetto evokes memories of trips to Italy, tours of dark and ornate cathedrals.

• Dozens of tiny oil landscapes. Not really my thing. Michallon’s View of Chatenay evokes summer memories of Tuscany. I like Michallon’s Waterfall at Mont-Dore, the beautiful lushness of the forest and its colors. Otherwise, eh. Beautiful, well made, but I’m not in love with this room.

• Again, mostly small landscapes, with some big ones mixed in. I like Gaertner- splendidly intricate pictures of a bygone era. His Parochialstrasse in Berlin- absolutely fascinating, precise picture of the skinny backstreets of old Europe. I really like JC Dahl- dark, beautiful, intense landscapes. The Eruption of Vesuvius is cool, and god damn, Copenhagen Harbor by Moonlight- rich, dark, beautiful.

• Corot- I don’t really like his colors. Hagar in the Wilderness and The Burning of Sodom are interesting. Some of his modest village landscapes are pretty. Overall I’m not a fan.

• 1850s portraits and scenes, not really what I’m in to. Winterhalter’s Florinda is graceful, impressively scaled and beautifully lit. Cabanel seems to be a very cool artist, I’d like to learn more about him. His Birth of Venus is a Salon style masterpiece, and Echo combines both classical beauty and a lonely, compelling darkness.

• European vision of North Africa, that’s the theme of this room. Gerome’s The Alma- interesting, provocative little picture, certainly reflects the sexual mystery and intrigue of European projections of this region. Gerome paints very cleanly, and he appears to be the leading painter of the Orientalist style. Gerome’s Tiger and Cubs is very cool- the dark, mysterious cave setting really makes it.

• Courbet- I like his hunting scenes. The rich, dark color, the well rendered animals, the quiet intensity of death. After the Hunt is my favorite picture in this room. Young Ladies of the Village, one of his more famous works. The 3 well dressed, ugly women in that vast valley landscape- pretty funny (especially reading the hyperventilating response of critics) and I can appreciate it, even though I’m not in love with it. Recurring theme seems to be, he’s intent on realism in his physical portrayals, but he finds humor or scandal or intrigue in blatantly false narrative elements/ inconsistencies. Rosa Bonheur's the Horse Fair-apparently a resoundingly applauded work. It is dashing, sure, and the scale is impressive. There are flashes of motion in it that I really like, but generally I’m feelin ‘eh’ about this one.

• There’s an intriguing, recurring hint of… weirdness, sadness, subtle ugliness in Manet’s full body portraits. the flat, pasty way he paints faces. Particularly Mademoiselle V in the Costume of an Espada- she looks caught off guard. And the stark cold strangeness of Young Lady in 1866 seems to be a rebuttal/ counterpoint to the glamorous, scandalous women of the Gilded Age portrait gallery. These could be early Arbus photos. Wow- the hallucinogenically rich color of Manet’s Fishing- not like anything I’ve seen. Interestingly, seems to be based on a work by Rubens. Degas has a few charming portraits of elegant old women. I really like Couture’s Soap Bubbles- beautifully intricate texture, with a handsome day dreaming young subject.

• Mainly scenes of peasant life. 1860s, 1870s. Breton’s The Weeders, peasant women working diligently in the glow of twilight, is the prettiest and most noteworthy picture in this room.

• The Tub (Degas) is a very sexy and intimate sculpture; this gallery is small, intimate portraits and domestic images of bathing girls. Degas really liked girls. Altogether I’m not a big fan of this gallery. Toulouse-Latrec’s The Englishman at Moulin Rouge captures an interesting social interaction (and more broadly, a cultural moment) between a gentleman and two ladies.

• Degas- dancers are more interesting than the bathers. Probably because bathers are solitary, while the dancers are socially engaged. I particularly like The Rehearsal Onstage and the charcoal Two Dancers (1879).

• Degas- The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer is a magnificent figure- in her poise, the youthfulness, the confidence, the anticipation of movement yet to begin- in this one work Degas’ fascination with dancers is perfectly expressed to the viewer. (Interesting historical note: Manet and Degas were rivals.) The Dance Class (1874) is an impressive, well constructed work.

• A full room of small Degas bronzes. Wonderful horses, bathers and dancers. I have no particular comment. They’re nice. It’s pretty fascinating that he made these just for his private interest, like sketches.

• An astonishing room. Huge canvasses of beautiful and wealthy people from the Gilded Age. Many earlier galleries focused on a pastoral theme; this room is all about interiors, social scenes, families. Sargent’s The Wyndham Sisters is gorgeous. Boldini’s Consuelo Vanderbilt and her son is absolutely striking, and the woman is stunningly beautiful. LeRolle’s The Organ Rehearsal is not particularly pretty, but the imposing scale and the sense of the moment lends it a lot of appeal. There’s a pair of landscapes, they’re both amazing. Harpsignies’ Moonrise and Kundzhi’s Red Sunset on the Dnieper. Altogether a fantastic room.

• 2 decent landscapes, and five stately full-body portraits. Gilded Age. I love Sargent’s Lady with the Rose, she’s got a beautiful face (she kindof looks like a modern, fatigued RomCom heroine) and I like the, as the Met describes it, “monochromatic palette.” Madame X is the star of this room. She’s striking, sexy, pale, a little weird I can definitely see where the controversy comes from. She’s definitely not inoffensively beautiful like the Lady with the Rose.

• Monet- earlier period, a little more conventional. Garden at Sainte Adresse is very beautiful and captures a fascinatingly vivid sense of “affluent domesticity,” as the placard says. This gallery is generally lovely Monet leisure paintings. I really like the Manet tableau- The Monet Family in their Garden at Argenteuil. Manet’s Boating is beautiful- I’m a sucker for the sea.

• Monet, the Path Through the Irises- powerful gold and green color. Lovely violet accents of irises. Toulouse-Latrec- cool stuff. The frankness of Woman Before a Mirror is fascinating. In a way he turns the mirror on us. “Here I am,” the woman says. “This is what you call art.” Toulouse Latrec’s work should be appropriated and recast by a good contemporary artist. Vuillard’s The Album is cool and different, it looks like it could be an urban outfitters design.

• Monet’s still lifes are interesting because they seem to reach a level of specificity greater than his landscapes. Not to detract from the landscapes- they are beautiful. Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies is particularly vivid and lovely. The painterly minimalism- a canvas that appears white but clearly demonstrates a tone, a mood, a season- of Ice Floes is gorgeous; it puts Moma’s minimalists to shame. His more abstract, late period water lilies are cool, but not my favorites. In a way they evoke his encroaching blindness- the broader, darker, less defined forms, still beautiful but struggling to be understood.

• Renoir’s The Daughters of Catulle Mendes is quite lovely. This is a perfectly nice gallery but nothing in particular really strikes me. Monet, Manet and others. Latour- very specific still lifes.

• Sisley- pretty clean landscapes. Not really breathtaking. Renoir's In the Meadow- astonishingly dreamy. A Young Girl with Daisies- very pretty and frankly, great breasts. Renoir’s By the Seashore features one of the very prettiest Impressionist girls. Ah, and it turns out Renoir married her! Aline Charigot (and apparently she’s the Young Girl with Daisies, too). Renoir’s finest work is his portraits. Madame Georges Charpentier and her Children is a lovely, fascinatingly intricate picture of home life for a particular class and era.

• Cezanne- Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory is nice. A smooth prettiness. His still lifes with apples are genuinely prettier and more interesting than his portraits and landscapes. Generically nice but I guess Cezanne lacks a certain boldness or uniqueness. I’m not really excited by the works in this gallery. I guess I like work with thicker paint, brighter color, more vivid texture.

• Paul Gaugin- bright, flat color, calm n’ sexy Tahitian women. Seurat's work I generally find a little bit boring. Van Gogh’s La Berceuse- a good example of a work that, formally, looks a little cheap and awkward, but it’s saved by beautiful use of color.

• Seurat’s term of choice for ‘pointillism’ was ‘divisionism.’ Signac- an even more precise Pointillist, it’s like tiny rectangles of color. I like it. La Bonne-Mere. I really like Seurat’s Circus Sideshow. I love certain works that evoke certain cultural pasts. I find the dark palette beautiful, more interesting than the bland daylight of his tranquil landscapes. Van Gogh’s Oleanders- pretty beautiful. I really like Henri Rousseau, he makes me think of colonial history and also my own childhood. His simplicity belies dark themes of conquest and danger.

• Camille Pissaro- Mostly landscapes, lovely mix of urban and rural. Two Young Women is astonishing. Soft, gorgeous color, amazing texture. Poplars, Eragny- man, you can smell the grass. You can feel the sun. Soft, pointillist, impressionist.

• Love the rich, spectacular color of Derain’s Fishing Boats, Collioure. There’s an influence of pointillism but not pure pointillism. I need to learn more about Derain. I love his Lucien Gilbert- the clear, firm lines, the color, the sense of moment, of conversation. The Blind Man’s Meal- a dark and poignant classic, it glows with sadness. I enjoy Picasso’s blue period. There’s less to say about this gallery than I anticipated- the Picasso classics are classics, they’re just plain good, no visceral excitement though. I enjoy the mix of gray and pale pink and the fragile grace in The Actor. Mattisse’s Nono Lebasque- love it. Simple, bright color, beautifully simple line. Her beauty shines through a charmingly simple medium. Head of a Woman (1903)- Beautiful, sensuous and charming. It’s a break from the sadness within the blue period.

• My goodness, the Wisteria Room- rich, beautiful rosewood, beautiful pastel pointillist murals of herons and peacocks in orange, blue, violet, white. Gorgeous, fascinating room. Redon: a lovely painter of flowers, especially Bouquet of Flowers (Pink Background).

• Klimt’s Mäda Primavesi is another one of the prettiest girls in Impressionist painting. Ensor’s Banquet of the Starved is a weird, funny/scary work, made even more jarring by the incongruously bright, sarcastic palette. A fascinatingly grotesque work. I really like Redon- especially Pandora, a beautiful, intricate, hip work- this could be a contemporary design, it would make sense if I saw it at urban outfitters. I can’t really describe it justly, but it’s fantastic. As far as still lifes go, I really like Duncan Grant’s The Coffee Pot.

• Bonnard- The Terrace at Vernon - lovely, imaginative use of color. I love Vuillard’s Morning in the Garden at Vaucresson. Dense, intricate, beautifully colored and textured. I also like The Green Blouse- Bonnard seems to specialize in dreamily colored, intimate domestic scenes.