The Met

The above pictures were taken outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went with my husband on Saturday. We decided to drive down and being the beautiful day that it was, we had a great time. This was his first time ever visiting an art gallery/museum and he enjoyed it. After visiting the various exhibits, I decided to focus on Modern Art, two artists in specific; Pablo Picasso and Fernand Leger. I will begin with Leger. He was born Joseph Fernand Henri Léger on February 4, 1881 in Basse-Normandie. He didn't begin to seriously paint until he was 25 years old. Throughout his career he experimented with different forms of painting, but is known for his works that are similar to Cubism, once called Tubism because of the emphasis on cylindrical forms. He had a long career of painting, filmmaking, sculpting and lecturing before he died at home in 1955.

This piece is titled "Three women in a garden". It was painted in 1922. In this piece you can see the tubular style that Leger was known for if you look at the arms of the woman. His pieces caught my eye because of the boldness of color and shape.

This piece is titled "Still Life". It was painted in 1929. This is another bold piece with a collage like feel to it. I think the orange was just enough color to make all the other parts of the piece stand out.

The piece to the right is titled "Woman with Cat". This is another example of the use of tubular shapes and contrasting colors. In first looking at Leger's work, I thought I was looking at Picasso's works. It so happened that Leger's works were hanging next to some of Picasso's work and that is where the idea for my paper came in. The two styles were so very similar to my eye.

Picasso's birth name is three sentences long, so I'll stick with the short version of Pablo Ruiz Picasso. He was born on October 25, 1881 in Spain. He was introduced to the world of painting by his father who was also an artist. Picasso is best known for co-founding Cubism (Cubism is a painting of a normal scene but painted so that it is viewed from multiple views while the positions of some of the parts are rotated or moved so that it is odd looking and scrambled). Picasso's works are broken down into different periods, with each period ranging from 2 to 5 years. Picasso's was quite the ladies' man, he was known to have several mistresses in addition to his wives. He was married twice and had four children by three women. Picasso died at home in 1973 while entertaining friends with his wife. His last words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more."

This piece is titled "Mandolin, fruit bowl and plaster arm". It was painted in 1925. This piece was situated next to three of Leger's works and they all looked so similar. Again the bold lines, colors and shapes drew my attention to this and all of Picasso's pieces.

The piece to the right is titled "Girl Asleep at Table". It was painted in 1936. I like the black, whites and greys and the slight hint of color in the girls' hair and the stuffed animals eye.

This piece is titled "The Dreamer". It was painted in 1932. I have to say that this is my favorite of the Picasso pieces I saw at the museum. I had to step away and look at this piece a few times and saw something different each time. The bold lines, bright colors and use of imagery is great in this piece. And being a healthy female, I love the fact that the woman here is quite shapely herself.

I had a great time at the Met and look forward to another visit there someday, the next time I will bring my 10 yr old son, I think he will enjoy the experience. When we left, we saw a puppet show out front and bought handmade souvenirs for the kids, it was a great Museum Experience.