In case you missed it, even the Colbert Nation is interested in the new American paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum.*
Stephen Colbert yesterday (?) interviewed Carrie Rebora Barrett, an associate director of the Met and an Americanist, and it has been posted (here). They talk mostly about Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware.
In it, among other things, we learn:
- That he likes The Met because “it’s a great place to go in and not pay.”
- That Colbert has never been to the Met, alas.
- That Barrett defends George Washington, who’s letting other people do the work, per Colbert, by saying “he got them into the boat, that’s huge.”
- Which artist posed as Washington for Leutze.
- That, of course, what Colbert ends up focusing on is look like GW’s private parts (which, by the way, were also what some youngsters were staring at and giggling about at the reception I attended for the galleries this week), but which aren’t. “It’s a fob,” she says.
- That she sneaks in a reference to Madame X that he doesn’t hear, and probably was not prepared for, because he ignores it.
- What’s on the back of the painting.
- And other things…
I’m always, pleased, as you know, when visual arts are showcased on TV or radio, even if Colbert is making fun.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Colbert Report
*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met