Home Runs at the Mets

From the TS Editors:

In the first of this 2 part series, the TravelSquire reports on the Met’s current out of the box offerings (at both branches) this summer for residents and lucky visitors to the island of Manhattan.

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With a fresh new red logo, the rebranded Metropolitan Museum of Art has stepped up to the plate with a travel-worthy exhibit at the Met Breuer. For the price of a single admission you can enjoy a stroll over to the main museum on Fifth Avenue to catch other exhibits.

“Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible”

At the Met Breuer  

When is an artist actually finished with a specific work?  The inaugural show “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible” at the Met Breuer, the former Whitney Museum, asks that simple question. The show displays a fascinating collection of works by artists spanning seven centuries – those left unfinished by accident or intentionally as an aesthetic “non finito”, those meant to merely look unfinished and perhaps most provocatively, those for which there are no answers.

This marks the Met’s engagement with contemporary art but more importantly exhibits the museum’s unrivaled ability to mine its scholarship and collection, flex its borrowing power and anchor any show within a broad historical context. Viewers are rewarded with access to the artist’s creative process, much like a studio visit which would only be possible through time travel.

Van Eyck Saint Barbara 1437 Is it a finished drawing or an unfinished painting? Photo: Jen Fong
Jan van Eyck, Saint Barbara (1437)
Is it a finished drawing or an unfinished painting?
Photo: Jen Fong
Daniele da Volterra Michelangelo Buonarotti circa 1544 This portrait inspired numerous copiers who attempted to paint the rest of his torso. Photo: Jen Fong
Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo Buonarotti circa 1544
This portrait inspired numerous copiers who attempted to paint the rest of his torso.
Photo: Jen Fong
Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait, Mariana de Silva y Sarmiento 1775 In this haunting portrait the painted over features are faintly discernible. Photo: Jen Fong
Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait, Mariana de Silva y Sarmiento 1775
In this haunting portrait the painted over features are faintly discernible.
Photo: Jen Fong

There is an appropriate chapel like feeling in the room dedicated to 5 luminous works by J.M.W. Turner. These works, part of his huge bequest to the British nation after his death in 1851, were not exhibited until 1966 at the earliest. The atmospheric, almost abstract paintings show how Turner grappled with representation/narrative and abstraction by eventually excluding the narrative altogether. According to scholars, Turner considered these paintings “finished”.

Similar works were scorned by contemporaries and commissions were rejected by collectors. Painted when the mark of the brush was subservient to representation, his use of color through experimental painting techniques was a direct influence on Monet, the founder of Impressionism to Abstract Expressionists such as Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler.

J.M.W.Turner Sun Setting Over a Lake 1840 Probably a depiction of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, exhibited at the MOMA in 1966 Photo: Jen Fong
J.M.W.Turner, Sun Setting Over a Lake (1840)
Probably a depiction of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, exhibited at the MOMA in 1966
Photo: Jen Fong
 J.M.W.Turner Sun Setting Over a Lake (1840 detail) An example of Turner’s inspired mark making Photo: Jen Fong
J.M.W.Turner, Sun Setting Over a Lake (1840 detail)
An example of Turner’s inspired mark making
Photo: Jen Fong
Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait, Mariana de Silva y Sarmiento (1775) In this haunting portrait the painted over features are faintly discernible. Photo: Jen Fong
J.M.W.Turner, Rough Seas (1840-45)
Photo: Jen Fong

Edgar Degas’s Scene from the Steeplechase, The Fallen Jockey, was exhibited in 1866 at the Paris Salon and taken back to the studio. Consequently, it was reworked at least 3 times in a 30 year period. The finely painted head of the fallen jockey, modeled by his brother Achille, was left untouched while he wrestled with the rest of the composition. This occurred during a pivotal stage in his career – the shift into subjects in spontaneous gestures which was afforded through his use of photography as a reference. His dialogue with this painting enabled him to create the masterworks which were allowed to leave the studio.

Edgar Degas Scene from the Steeplechase, The Fallen Jockey (1866) *Reworked 1880-1881 and c. 1897 Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art
Edgar Degas Scene from the Steeplechase, The Fallen Jockey (1866)
*Reworked 1880-1881 and c. 1897
Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art

Van Gogh moved to the village of Auvers Sur Ois to be close to his doctor for what would be the last few months of his life.

Van Gogh, Street in Auvers Sur Ois (1890) He started but couldn’t finish this painting after his last mental collapse Photo: Jen Fong
Van Gogh, Street in Auvers Sur Ois (1890)
He started but couldn’t finish this painting after his last mental collapse
Photo: Jen Fong

*Like this?  Check out Part 2

Home Runs at the Mets

 

The Met Breuer

945 Madison Ave. (75th)

(212) 731-1675

www.metmuseum.org/visit/met-breuer

*Through September 4th