Galleries 223-228 Japanese art temporarily closed.

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Meditations on No Gallery

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 The Met has many art works that are not on display at any given moment.  Some of them rotate in a regular basis and some rarely.  This work titled Rooftops, Brooklyn by Fidelia Bridges is one seen rarely. Bridges was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1834 but moved to New York as a young woman.  She worked as a governess for a wealthy family and they thought so much of her talent that they paid for her to go to Art School in Philadelphia and when she finished they provided her a studio in their home in Brooklyn where she could work.  Although she was quite successful during her life and was compared to the much  better known Winslow Homer, after her death in 1923 she was almost completely forgotten.  The Met does have several of her works as do some other museums but unfortunately they are rarely exhibited.   She worked often in watercolor and her delicate works of gardens and flowers are lovely.  Her works of urban buildings were done when su...
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Meditations on Gallery 556

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 European Decorative Arts and Sculpture from 1850-1900. This wonderful French Art Deco fireplace surround caught my eye immediately when I entered the gallery.  It's made of glazed stoneware ceramic that is supposed to be very durable and fire proof.  The swirls cast you into a dream like state and the colors are vivid.  The face of the mask in the central medallion are mesmerizing. I began to imagine the kind of dwelling in which such a fireplace would have been housed.   Surely a castle like structure, not an ordinary house.  It would take a huge room to display it adequately.  It would have to have been placed at one end of room that you entered from the other end so its magnificence could be seen at first glance.  It would have dominated any room.  Although the stately rooms of this period did not contain a lot comfy furniture I can still imagine sitting before a blazing fire on a cold night and sipping a cup of China tea or a glass of re...
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More meditations on Gallery 207

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 Because the Met is a living institution things don't always stay the same and exhibits change.  This long narrow gallery contains art from China but has several works I did not see the last time I was here.  This Tang dynasty horse and groom is one. The Tang dyasty from the seventh century to the ninth is one of the great flowering of artistic work of the world.  It was a period of cultural  growth, a golden period in Chinese history.   During this period the Chinese empire stretched from the Korean Penisula almost to Afganistan.  Art and poetry flourished.  Painting and calligraphy were important. The development of three color glazed ceramics like the horse above are a hallmark of the period.. There was also a rise in Buddhism during this period. Modern day Xi'An was the capital and it was a trading center for all of Asia.  Politically during this period the civil service exams that took the best and brightest young men from all classes to...
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