Brunch with Egon Schiele and “Death Becomes Her” @ the MET
Part of the ” creative lifestyle” in my corner of the world involves getting creative minds together to enjoy things of common interest. This past Saturday was a gathering for brunch at the Neue Gallery for Egon Schiele “Portraits” and the “Death Becomes Her” exhibition at the MET.
We took our time to savor the main collection including several Gustav Klimt paintings and drawings. Wanting to stand and study, as much as have a conversation about the drawings, it was hard to keep up with others moving from each piece. Passing comments and observations were a delight as we moved from room to room.
We moved upstairs to the Egon Schiele Portraits exhibit (showing through Jan. 19th) which I was just itching to see. Expression, I rave about it often in this blog. Remember my Spain post? Well, Egon Schiele just gets me in the gut. The pencil lines stab at the paper with a confident, if not agitated stroke of reaction. My mind could just roll around in those lines, the paint and all that for days.
I love the seemingly random scratches of color, the graphic composition with a dot of signature placed with balance. Everything has rhythm, your eyes dart around as if listening to music.
I maintain that you’ve never seen a painting unless you’ve stood in front of it. These reproductions do not truly represent the color and contrast that you would see standing in front of the actual work. If ever you get the chance to see the real thing, do it.
Hands; Egon and El Greco do hands and feet that just drive me nuts! I love how Egon just breaks the line at the wrist, turns a new direction and cobbles a bunch of squiggles into knuckles, then punches them with red.
I scribbled down notes of my favorite things, quotes and such.
” My wandering path leads over Abysses.”
“Art can not be modern, art is primordially eternal.”
After Brunch we headed to the MET for the “Death Becomes Her” exhibition (showing now through Feb 1st). Sobering apparel of mourning fashion from the 19th and early 20th century. Can you imagine department stores having a mourning section just as you might see a bridal section these days?
The exhibit includes a series of gorgeous illustrations from “Life” magazine a “Widow and her Friends” illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson.
Along with Jewelery from the period that held hair from the deceased.
As well as a gown worn by Queen Victoria herself.
I like to exit through the gift shop for some post cards, a book, or in this case, mystic mints.
There are other great exhibits going on at the MET . We wandered through Bartholomeus Spranger Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague. Spranger’s eroticism is very different from Schiele’s eroticism. Much of the work told stories from mythology, mixed in with a cabinet of natural curiosities.
