Sometimes you miss all the reviews of an event and just stumble upon it; by accident or whimsy, even in a familiar setting. This is how I found myself, one Friday afternoon after getting out of work a little early, on a tour of the new Islamic art wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had no idea what to expect. I highly recommend doing the free one-hour tour as it gives a good history of Islamic art and lays out the breadth and depth of what you are about to see.
There’s great attention to detail focusing on how written Arabic evolved over time, mostly evident in religious texts:
But it was the secular items that really caught my attention and, at times, took my breath away. Here, I need to be honest and admit that I can’t recall the proper names of many of the items I saw so I’ll have to use some generalized descriptions – please forgive me in advance if anything sounds belittling.
My favorite items were the daggers in the South Asian gallery;
inspecting the tops and bottoms of all the bowls to see how ornamentation really took into account every surface:
the elaborate animal incense burners;
and the beautiful manuscript pages.
I urge, urge, urge you to sit in the specially designed stools and look over these manuscripts carefully, taking in the details and the layering of colors, preserved exquisitely after hundreds of years.
Now, on a totally different observation… Even though the works themselves are tremendous, I was most struck by how many people from worlds influenced by Islamic art came to view the exhibit and how slowly they looked at each piece before they photographed it for posterity. Again, this may be a generalization, but it seemed to me that this was a group of people who had never really seen art of their own country, whether it be Iran, Iraq, Syria or India. That the Met created this connection to a far away homeland is truly what is remarkable to me about this new addition to the museum’s permanent collection.
Later on, I did read several reviews that highlighted the creation of the exhibit and the thought behind it. My favorite was in the Economist but I can’t embed that link as it’s restricted to subscribers only; however, there was also a really good review in the New York Times.
So far, I’ve been to the galleries twice and plan to go at least one more time with my parents. My best advise is to take advantage of the Met’s evening hours on Fridays and Saturdays as the galleries are packed at pretty much any other time. Unfortunately, there is no tour during those hours so you will have to choose what you prefer or make the time and do two visits; the first to hear the tour and get the background on Islamic art, and the second to get up close and more personal with the unique pieces on display. Trust me – you will not be disappointed.
