When the Metropolitan Museum* opened its new Islamic wing in in 2011, more a million visitors flooded into it within 14 and a half months. I am sure that number must be hanging out there as, if not a goal for the new European paintings reinstallation, a possibility. Should they draw that many, fast? You bet they should. They are spectacular. The curators, led by Keith Christiansen, created a logical path through European art history with marvelous moments and juxtapositions. There’s no one path from gallery to gallery, and you’ll have to doubleback from time to time, but that’s the nature of the galleries.
Also, there is a guide, but since I was there for the opening, I did not pick it up.
Among the things I noticed on that first visit:
- Bruegel’s Harvesters looks fresh and beautiful on a wall of its own.
- Vermeer gets a room of his own, almost, with five of his paintings in one gallery that illuminate his range — from an early picture to one of his latest, from a religious allegory to two interiors with a figure, and a tronie. Christiansen says “That means that, in the Metropolitan’s collection, “you can encounter Vermeer from beginning to end, undertaking virtually all the kinds of pictures that he did,” something no other museum can claim, he adds. Fair enough, but maybe a slight exaggeration because the Met has nothing like View of Delft.
- The Italian section — two suites leading off the first gallery — has never looked better, and rightly occupy the center of the galleries.
- Depth in works by such artists as Giovanni di Paolo, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Goya, Rembrandt, Rubens, and other has never been more obvious, though a few holes are also inescapable: Raphael being a big one, as the Met has only an altarpiece donated by J.P. Morgan and a small panel that was once part of its base. We need a Madonna (badly).
- Paintings, genres, artists you thought you knew — you will see with fresh eyes.
- You’ll look at a painting, and wonder why you never noticed it before: to wit, I never recall seeing A Panoramic Landscape with a Country Estate by Philip Koninck (at right) before — though the Met has owned it since 1911. That’s just one examples of many.
- The room with Flemish portraits has marvelous juxtapositions — one wall features several work with people whose hands are all posed in the same way until — near the end — the woman in a matched pair (by Memling as I recall, but I wasn’t taking notes) has hands placed in the opposite direction.
- The atmospherics do well by the art: the galleries are all painted a rich grey, a unifying tactic, but one that does not deaden the paintings (as I think that beige does in the American paintings galleries).
- A few fabulous acquisitions — notably a double-side painting by Hans Schäufelein, the Dormition of the Virgin and Christ Carrying the Cross.
- Strategic loans — notably, in the first gallery, Orazio Gentileschi’s spectacular Danaë, lent by dealer Richard Feigen — number about two dozen, not so many as it sounds considering that more than 700 paintings are on view in this go-round.
- Technology is used sparingly in the galleries, thankfully — for example, to explicate an altarpiece on one small screen.
- Although there was talk of blending sculpture and decorative arts into these galleries, it is very spare — they are paintings galleries, with few departures, and they are good ones. Especially a 17th-century Amsterdam cabinet in a side room once used as a reading room.
Those are all first impressions, subject to change when I go back for more.
In the meantime, go, and if you can’t get there right away take a look at what the Met has put online:
- Christiansen’s opening speech.
- What he calls “tasting tours” — a somewhat silly way to describe six tours through the Italian, German, French, Dutch and Spanish galleries.
- Four episodes in the 82nd and Fifth series of short videos, featuring works by Bassano, Tiepolo, El Greco, and Berlinghiero.
Photo credit: Courtesy of the Met (top)
*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.