A visit home...

Yellow cabs. Skyscrapers. Street vendors. Hot dog stands. Traffic lights. Honking horns. Tourists.

These are the sights, the sounds, the smells of the Big Apple and today the Big Apple welcomes me home.

New York City is the birth place of musical movements such as hip hop, literature movement such as the Harlem Renaissance, and the home to one of the largest museums in the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art measures almost a quarter mile long. Built during the 18th century, the Met as it is commonly known is a true metropolis. It is a melting pot for every category of art in every known medium from every part of the world. The museum’s collection contains works from every part of the world, spanning the Stone Age to the twentieth century. This was the vision of a group of prominent people who wanted to open a museum to bring art appreciation, and art education to the American people.

As I took the #4 subway from the Bronx to Museum mile, where nine museums occupy a section of Manhattan which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world.

At first sight, The ‘Met’ looks like an emperor’s palace with its tall columns and windows, and immense stairways. The facade, was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, one of the most influential architects of his time. Also, he was the founder of the first architectural schools in America who combined classical Greek and Roman architecture with Renaissance.

Inside, the size and diversity of the artwork on display is impressive. One collection in particular are the European Sculptures. The presentation of the French and Italian sculptures are arranged in an area of the museum with high class ceilings that allows the light of the sun , the moon, or the stars to illuminate the open space providing an airy feeling and giving you a sense of the outdoors. The north wall of the courtyard made of granite and red brick incorporates the Museum's 1888 front entrance. As I begin making my way through the museum, I find myself staring at the anguish of a father. The sculpture ’Ugolino and his Sons’, tells a story of man who was betrayed by his native city of Pisa and its Archbishop and imprisoned along with his two sons and two grandsons.

Condemned to die of starvation, Ugolino yields to the temptation to devour his children and grandchildren, who were begging him to eat their bodies for his own salvation.

Modeled in the 18th century by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) who was a French sculptor and painter that studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello.

Carpeaux was painstakingly concern with anatomical realism. This is evident as Carpeaux
resemblance of the human figure is astonishing in this piece of sculpture. The artist depicts the

mental pain of the father who appears to be fighting the decision to survive or die. This pain is evident in the idiosyncrasy of the father that is written on his face and gesture of the finger

biting.

In another scene, one son is embracing his father’s legs and looking at him showing love and reassurance that their decision was the right one and that the father should not fight it.

Capreaux illustrates the grandchildren’s innocents by portraying the kids as sleeping, unobservant of the agony their grandfather is facing.

Ironically, the characteristic of metal is a contrasting element in the artwork, but the artist painstakingly transformed its cold and hard nature of granite into a warm, and sensual image of human bodies. Rendered in geometric shapes and forms, the sculptor successfully created the conflict of man versus self and love for another.

In the bible, Matthew 2:16 describes a massacre of babies on the order of King Herod after

hearing of the birth of a new king, Jesus, in his realm. This incident was known as the ‘Massacre

(or slaughter) of the Innocents‘.

In Francois Joseph Navez depiction of these events explores the personal, and emotional dimensions of the tragedy which is at the forefront.

The caregiver attends to the dying child as the mother looks away emotionless, in shock, and distraught.

The other mother not wanting to experience the same fate is constraining her child from making
any noise as she looks in astonishment of the mayhem happening outside.

The melancholy shown in the faces of these women is illustrated by the vivid colors chosen by

the artist. In contrast, the actual murders taken place is portrayed as a faded image in the
background of the portrait.

The met encourages everyone to take in a variety of unexpected treasures often less well known but equally worthy of attention. Like these 40% gold masks created during the 9th century in what it now known as the city of Peru. Pieces like this were usually buried with the royal family of that time.

Raqib Shaw special exhibit is a must see. The painting are almost jewel-like with the use of Acrylic paint, glitter and semi-precious crystals captivating the eye with its rich colors and intricate detail. Shaw’s works presents an explosive collisions of fact and fiction, nature and culture. This piece is title ‘Absence of God'.