The newly redesigned American Wing is still partly under refurbishment, so will I miss some important exhibits such as Native American art. Plenty to see, though – it will take me three visits to see it all. 

Today I spent the bulk of my time in reconstructed rooms, an echo of Days 5 and 6 in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, except that American design begins in the late 18th century. We are such a lil’ baby country. As in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, there are several rooms on display that illustrate the various design trends and fads. Tucked away in a corner is a Shaker Retiring Room, a room meant for pre-church contemplation. Notice the pegs for hanging up chairs when they are not in use. The Shakers deliberately designed their furniture without turns or frills, as with this sewing table, such decorative elements indicators of the sin of pride. This feels very early American to me: righteously separate from pleasure and Europe. 

The Aesthetic Movement began in Great Britain as a response to the Industrial Revolution, a counterpoint to the rise of manufacturing. It was a philosophy that championed living an “artistic lifestyle.” It also happened to coincide with the Gilded Age in the United States, wherein some privileged Americans became inordinately wealthy because of industry. They, especially the wives of these tycoons, became enamored with the Aesthetic Movement and subsequently championed art and artists, many of these people becoming direct benefactors of the Met. Their homes became places to show off their patronage and style, such as this opulent Rockefeller Dressing Room. One effect of the “artistic lifestyle” in America was that it spurred so much artistic activity that middle class people for the first time had access to beautiful items for the home.

Ultimately, wealthy Americans continued to be enamored with European styles, and depending upon what they wanted to project to the world, decorated accordingly. The Gothic Revival Library is exquisite – its design deliberately communicating the value of learning and quiet pursuits. On the other hand, the Rococo Revival Parlor is wildly opulent, which makes sense as it was imitating Marie Antoinette. One trendy trend was the incorporation of Egyptian motifs such as this Center Table decorated with pharaohs. And you know gilt was still a thing! 

This wing has so much Tiffany! I will admit that for the first time in the museum, I experienced abject object lust. What an incredible designer Louis C. Tiffany was. The luster of Favrile glass just takes my breath away. The squash and seaweed window is understood to be one of the earliest stained glass pieces he made. It is luminous. Each Tiffany window is more beautiful than the last: Magnolias and Irises, Autumn Landscape, Dogwood. The Favrile vases are also stunning. There is also a large mosaic created by Tiffany in the sculpture pavilion, also made of Favrile glass tiles.

My final stop in the designed rooms is the meticulously recreated Frank Lloyd Wright room. My first reaction was, Oh! I’m home in Berkeley! Not because I live in a Frank Lloyd Wright home, but because Prairie Style is everywhere in Berkeley. Stickley, too. The original room was part of a home on Lake Minnetonka, so the Met has the wall of leaded glass windows facing Central Park to reflect the Wright aesthetic of bringing nature into the home. I overheard a tour guide say that Wright was notoriously difficult to work with and was especially particular about the placement of furniture. The owner of the home, businessman Francis W. Little, threw a party to which he invited Wright, and rearranged the furniture slightly to accommodate the party. Apparently, Wright walked in and immediately put the furniture back where it “belonged.” It is possible I related to this just a tiny bit.

I ended my day in the Sculpture Pavilion, a very pleasant place to take a break on comfortable stone benches. Lots to see there, but two things stood out to me. The first is the sculptor William Wetmore Story, someone who today would probably be called an activist artist. One of his sculptures is “The Libyan Sibyl” from 1860, which he described as “my anti-slavery sermon set in stone.” The eldest of legendary prophetesses, she holds an oracle foreseeing the horrific fate of so many. Another sculpture of Medea from 1865, shows her powerfully holding a sword but not yet in the act of killing her children rather than relinquish them, echoing a culturally popular sympathy for a woman who must make such a decision: to kill her children to save them from a fate worse than death. It struck me that he surely had heard of Margaret Garner, the real life subject of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I wonder if her story was the inspiration for his depiction of Medea. 

The second is there are three sculptures from the 19th century on view, which depict indigenous people. Each one is accompanied by an interpretation of the work by a living indigenous writer. “The Sun Vow” from 1899 by Hermon Atkins MacNeil depicts a boy shooting an arrow into the sun blinding rays of the sun, the artist claiming to his audiences that this was an authentic Sioux coming of age legend. He later admitted that he made the entire story up, pandering to an audience that was hungry for idealized Native American tropes. Writer Philip J. Deloria, a Dakota descendant, writes, “Through art and literature, tourist camps, and summer retreats, Americans sought to create an imagined Indian representing an authentic world of nature, community, and spirituality. That fantasy helped sort through the challenges of modernity even as it erased actual Native peoples.” One of my more formative literature memories is of “The Trumpet of the Swan” by E. B. White in which a child character walks silently, heel to toe, through the woods as quiet as an Indian: “Sam was eleven. His last name was Beaver. He was strong for his age and had black hair and dark eyes like an Indian. Sam walked like an Indian, too.” I tried to walk like this constantly and thought being an Indian was way better than being a cowboy. I’m not sure I ever thought of Native people as people – to my eight year old brain they were more an idealized concept. I’m not trying to make any profound statement here. This re-reading of a sculpture speaks to me about what we are grappling with as a culture right now, and our impulse to ban or destroy that which makes us uncomfortable. It also makes me think about Jerry Saltz’s reminder that all art was contemporary art when it was created, but that we bring our current selves and our personal histories and biases as well as our own current moment to the reading of it.