Hanging With the Greeks and Walking Like an Egyptian at the Met

I got home after 1:30 a.m. tonight after editing many, many stories on the second night of the Democratic debates! But since I worked so late, I had some “normal people” hours free this afternoon for a visit to the Met Museum.

Some context: There are actually three Met museums in New York: the Met Cloisters (European medieval architecture and sculpture) waaaay up in the 200 streets, the Met Breur (modern and contemporary art) at Madison Avenue and 75th Street, and the main Met Museum from 80th to 84th Streets (the enormous one). That last one was the one I visited today (though I also get in free to the others, so I’ll try to drop by those as well at some point).

The museum is clearly huge, if I haven’t mentioned that already. It houses approximately two million works of art and has about 250 rooms.

I targeted the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian wings this afternoon. My first stop was the Greek and Roman sculpture court, which was full of busts, pots, and even a fountain. Kudos to the Met for strong use of natural lighting.

One of the most striking pieces caught my eye near the back of the court — why was only the woman missing a face? "While the man's head is carefully portrayed, his wife's head has been left unfinished, suggesting that he predeceased her, and no one added her portrait after she died," according to the plaque. Ugh; so sad.

I also popped over to the adjoining African gallery to see “Between Earth and Sky” by El Anatsui, a Ghana-born artist whose work you can recognize from across the room.

One perk I should mention about the Met: Unlike some other art museums I’ve visited, the gallery attendants keep their distance and don’t follow you from room to room or breathe down your neck while you’re trying to read things. Thank you for letting me actually enjoy the art.

In the Egyptian galleries, I enjoyed reading the hieroglyphics on the papyrus scrolls and watching the artists’ sculptural style evolve from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom (the rooms are arranged chronologically).

The highlight was visiting the Temple of Dendur, the only complete Egyptian temple in the Western hemisphere.

Also, all the gold jewelry (and even a faience hippo!).

The Met gift shop, which I also popped by on my way out the door to work, had some interesting items, like these hippo socks …

… and this Vincent VanDuck. It was predictably overpriced, but aren’t all art museum gift shops?

I’ll certainly be back to the Met a few more times to check out some of the other galleries, including the Vermeer collection and the Impressionist Treasury. I also want to see “Washington Crossing the Delaware” in the American wing, John Singer’s “Portrait of Madame X,” and my favorite Assyrian lamassu. There’s also a rooftop sculpture garden!

On my way to the New York Times building, I strolled across Central Park and past the Loeb Boathouse (I might have to rent a rowboat one afternoon) to the 72nd Street subway station, where I caught a train back to Midtown for my debate-night shift. It was certainly busy — my desk’s editing log for the night was a big, long string of “SB”s (my initials to indicate that I was a story’s editor).

Finally, today in food: A delightful “Jeyuk” (Korean pork) bowl from Bowllin’. It had white rice, soybean sprouts, scallion, seawood, pork, crab salad, and spicy mayo. It wasn’t bibimbap, but you take what you can get.