OUR VACATION IN NEW YORK - DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY

This was our last full day in New York and we wanted to make the best of it. Our plan was to spend the morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then spend the afternoon exploring Central Park. That's not quite how it turned out. The one thing that everyone who contemplates going to the Metropolitan Museum of Arts must think about is what they are going to see and what they are not going to see. With some 3 million works of art sprawled over 7 square miles, there is no way you could see everything in one week even if you spent every waking minute at the museum. So we made our choices.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

We decide that we would spend some time looking at European sculpture

A sculpture in walnut by Master of Soeterbeeck, about 1470

and decorative arts then move on to Modern Art on the first floor. After that we would go upstairs and take in some more modern art.

Art Nouveau Mural

We figured that we could do that in an hour or so then see some European painting followed by Greek and Roman art then some Egyptian art to round things off. we figured we would be done by half past noon. After all, we did get to the museum right at 9:00 AM when it opened. That way we could spend the afternoon in Central Park which is directly behind the museum. As it was, we barely got passed Modern Art by the time we decided we had to time to eat. We went downstairs to the cafeteria and checked out the menu. paying $15 for a hamburger that was kept warm under heat lamps was more than we could stomach. Instead, we went outside and bought lunch off of one of the trucks outside the museum, Lunch was not quite as good as the food truck outside of St. Barts but it was certainly good and cheap. Lunch for both of us was less than $20. It has started to rain so we stood as close to the wall of the museum and ate out lunch. It wasn't very refined but we didn't get wet. So, after lunch we decided to go back into the museum. One reason was that we had a lot more to see. The other reason was that it was now raining and we did not want to tramp around Central Park in the rain.

Constantin Brancussi - Bird in Space - 1923

Marc Chagall - The Lovers - 1913-1914

Henry Moore - Reclining Figure #4 - 1954-1955

This beautiful fabric was actually made from pieces of recycles materials such as bottle caps and wire and other found objects.

This piece was composed of pieces of cut mirror that were glued onto a substrate.

Rodin - From the Gates of Hell - The Thinker

Claude Monet - Water Lilies - 1919

Henri Matisse - Odalisque with Grey Trousers - 1927

Vincent Van Gogh - Irises - 1890

In the afternoon we spent time with Greek and Roman art, Medieval European art, then the European Sculpture gallery was outside the cafe on the ground floor. I have to admit that I really enjoyed my time with the sculptures. One of my favorites was the Burghers of Calais by Rodin.

The Burghers of Calais - 1884 - 1895

While I was admiring and taking pictures of the Burgers an artist was drawing them. We finished up the day in the Egyptian gallery which was completely amazing. We had never seen so many mummies and we had never seen ones that were so elaborate. What really impressed me were the life size wooden statues that were over 2,000 years old. when I think of the tools that they had and the quality of the work that I was looking at, well it was humbling.

Merti and his wife - 2350 B.C.

Illustratiing the many layers of a mummy

We spent five hours at the Metropolitan Museum of art and we barely scratched the surface. There was so much more to see and take in. I look at it this way, it is one more reason for a return visit to New York.