NYC: The Met Fifth Avenue

The Met on Fifth, just following an August rainstorm 

The Met Fifth Avenue is ginormous, spanning five blocks.  There are not so much halls here (though they exist), as room after room after room after room of art. There are about 250 rooms in fact. I was getting dizzy trying to orient myself.  We had to stop and come up for air (and overpriced coffee) at the Petrie Court Cafe.  It has a view of Central Park, which always calms the nerves. 

The Met's first Monet painting, Fruit Trees in Bloom, 1873.
My favorite Impressionist painting. 

You can see everything in a day, but go on a Friday or Saturday, because you'll have until 9 p.m. to do it.  I selected Friday with the grand plan that we'd go up to the Roof Garden Bar and watch the sun set over Central Park, drink in hand.  But another thunderstorm rolled in, nixing that plan.  So we improvised, viewing the Impressionists, then the single Leonardo de Vinci painting (on loan from the Vatican), then Egyptian Art.  In between we saw a spattering of Medieval Art, American Art, and some modern and contemporary art. 

Temple of Dendur, circa 15 BC

The American Art wing took us to the back of the Egyptian Art wing, which itself is the size of a good museum.  In fact, I was convinced we'd never find the exit.  We started with the Temple of Dendur, a pretty iconic setting with floor to ceiling windows on one side and a pond on the other. In the middle is the temple, slated to be submerged by the Aswan Dam before being rescued and moved to the Met in the 1960s.  Besides the fading heiroglyphs is 19th century graffiti.  I didn't have to look hard for it.

Grafitti, 1819, Temple of Dendur.

For about $50K or so, you can also rent the space for weddings and such.  Then it becomes a rocking relic from 15 BC.

Partying at the Temple of Dendur

We missed the party, but saw a treasure trove of all things Egyptian, much of collected by Carter and Carnavale, the team that discovered King Tut's tomb.  I was impressed with the variety. I always thought Egyptian art followed rigid rules of proportion and style.  But over a couple thousands of years, there can be a lot of variation. The face decorating one sarcophagus was even smiling. And we forget everything was originally painted.  A few objects still provide us with a sense of the original, like the woman below. 

A woman said to be from Thebes, ca. 1504-1425 B.C. 

 Our hopes dashed for a cocktail on the roof deck, we decided to take in one more exhibit, the "Camp" exhibit, which the Wall Street Journal called an "over-the-rainbow extravaganza."  The locals seemed to come out in force for this exhibit. Susan Sontag wrote about "camp" on an intellectual basis, but I just took in the visual fireworks. And it's not camping in the woods.  Example below.

Campy shoes.