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Essay / The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: an overview
Place yourself in an ancient world. On September 28, 2000, my boyfriend and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art located in New York to visit an archaeological exhibit on Egyptian art. Located on the first floor at 83rd Street and Fifth Avenue, the exhibition consists of thirty-two galleries each illustrating a period of Egyptian history. It is difficult to elucidate the colossal impact that this exhibition describes. But if I have the opportunity in this essay, I will try to describe to the reader how the Metropolitan Museum of Art managed to design an overall image that reflects aesthetic values, history, religious beliefs and everyday life of the ancient Egyptians throughout their journey. of their great civilization. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Within the walls of this vault-like exhibition area, you'll find precious jewelry, stone sculptures, and giant tombs. While many valuable works of art sit behind walls of glass, some of the most impressive sculptures and stone slabs sit right in the middle of the floor, with nothing between you but the temptation to touch them. I was transported to a long-gone world and felt weak. The collection consists of approximately 36,000 objects dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (approximately 300,000 BC, 4th century AD), as shown in Gallery 1 in a timeline against the wall. According to Ms. Robins at the information desk, the collection comes from the museum's thirty-five years of archaeological work in Egypt beginning in 1906 by Mr. J. Perpont Morgan, president of the museum, until his death in 1913. After his death, the museum conducted fourteen seasons of excavations at Lisht (artifacts seen in gallery 10 - Middle Kingdom - Lisht). Mr. Albert M. Lithgoe, a famous American Egyptologist, led the first excavation teams and was the first curator of the Department of Egyptian Art. Over the years, more and more discoveries were made, such as in the tomb of Chancellor Meketre from the early Middle Kingdom. At this site, an intact chamber was discovered, consisting of twenty-four painted wooden models of boats, gardens, offering figurines, and food production scenes that are more detailed than any found before or since. Over the years, the Department of Egyptian Art has also been able to acquire private collections through inheritances and purchases, donations, and individuals willing to provide funding. Additionally, Department of Egyptian Art staff continue to excavate in Egypt, conduct research for publications, and organize special exhibitions. Locating the start of the exhibition was a bit difficult. As I mentioned previously, the exhibition consists of thirty-two galleries, making it an extremely large exhibition. Some galleries have subsections called studies. We didn't have a clear understanding of what that meant and it seemed like no one on staff really knew what a study was. The security guards, stationed in different parts of the museum, were not of much help. They send us a map on the walls which was also a bit confusing. Finally, we were able to locate the start of the exhibition and thus begin the journey. The first thing you see is an illustration of a Fifth Dynasty temple with its description. It took me a while to discover that there were thirty-two sections and that they were arranged in chronological order. I was a little behind. What was this temple doing in Gallery 1 Dynasty 0? Like noneexplanation was given, I continued to Gallery 2 - Dynasties 1-10. Here where examples of linen, frames for sofas, stone plaques, statues. All located behind glass walls and with their appropriate markers explaining a little about the origin and hypotheses or facts about the meaning of the piece. Galleries 3 to 5 represented the Eleventh Dynasty. A study of subsection (4A) was also included here. It is in this gallery that we discover the most beautiful preserved objects discovered in the tomb of Chancellor Meketre. I didn't know this until much later, when I visited Gallery 4A, where brief explanations were given about the various artifacts in Gallery 4. My first reaction was: shouldn't this be before the models presented in gallery 4? Another interesting fact is that this small part is almost invisible and difficult to perceive. It's almost hidden. If my boyfriend hadn't accidentally noticed it, I would have completely ignored it and probably never discovered the importance of this section. Upon entering Gallery 6 - Amenemhat I, I noticed a brief description depicting the end of Amenemhat I's 11th Dynasty. located on the wall. From there, it would prove very helpful in gathering together the pieces that didn't fit the brief labels placed in front of the item. It's also worth mentioning that at this point I noticed that things were placed chronologically, at least as best as one could organize it, and that the various galleries were marked accordingly. (Later we will find ourselves in confusion again. So far so good.) There were also descriptions of the various excavations that had taken place. In Gallery 6 we see a description of the excavations of the Pyramid of Amenemhat I. The end of this section led to Gallery 11, so we had to go back to look for Gallery 7 if we wanted to continue searching chronologically. This took a lot of time and caused a bit of distraction.Gallery 7 Senwosret I. In this section there was a good example of something that had been said in class and it helped me understand a little more about what the teacher was trying to illustrate by speaking. on the hypotheses formulated in archaeology. The object was a ritual figure wearing the red crown. On the label placed in front of the article, it is specified, a certain characteristic and distinguished style of this wooden sculpture fits well with the chronology suggested by the archaeological context. This thus implies that a hypothesis was correct simply because of a distinctive feature. By Gallery 8, it is obvious to the viewer that the different artistic styles have changed, becoming more detailed and precise. We see this contrast in the article entitled The Statue of the Intendant Schetépibreanth. His face is young and idealized. His muscles are highlighted and the wig and kilt are meticulously detailed. This contrasts sharply with the concerned expression found in royal portraits from the second half of the Twelfth Dynasty. In gallery nine, mirrors have been placed inside the sarcophagus placed here so that we can see the elaborate art inside the coffins. There were two sections. of the exhibition that had the most impact on me. The first was in the 12th Dynasty Hatshepsut 18 gallery. Eight enormous sculptures adorn this section. All were approximately 9 to 12 feet long (this is a guess as this information was not available anywhere) and were recovered from Deir el Bahri. For me, this was one of the most beautiful sections of the exhibition. It showed something of the grandeur and splendor of this civilization, giving it new depths and a new understanding of the imagination. At this.