Museums

The Metric System

Assuming you’re not a cretin—and, this being the Internet, I think that’s fair to assume—you love the novel From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Well, that’s terrific, since I do, too. In fact, that little gem of juvenile fiction has indirectly inspired me to write this blog.

A brief explanation. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is, more or less, the story of a girl and her little brother who run away from home and hide out in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s a wonderful book, and if you haven’t read it we probably wouldn’t be friends anyway. You’re probably on the wrong website. I think you’re supposed to be here (not really sfw).

In any event, Claudia and Jamie’s adventures gave me a predilection for the Met, and there’s just about no place I’d rather be on a rainy day than in the American Impressionist galleries.

But I’m listing from my initial point, which was something about the purpose of this column. I wanted do a yearlong, room-by-room walkthrough of the entire Museum and post weekly reviews, observations, and bons mot on Suggested Donation. Kind of charmingly quixotic, right? Lots of fantastic and varied subject matter—could be fun to read, right? Right. Except for one thing. The Met is very, very big.

The European painting and sculpture galleries alone comprise over 50 rooms. A room-by-room review of the Met would take more like a decade, and galleries’ content changes frequently. The Met measures over two million feet square—more, if you count the Cloisters, the Met’s semi-autonomous satellite of medieval art that sits on a hill north of the George Washington Bridge. The Museum is so big that I found a whole new wing last month on the West side of the ground floor, an atrium that I’d missed each of the dozens of times I’d wandered through.

So comprehensive may be out, but consistent is in. I’ll post weekly updates to this column—which will be called 52 Ways of Looking at the Met, or, wait, METrosexual. METonymy. METric System. Something.

As a means of engaging you, Reader, let’s have a Name this Column competition! With prizes! In the interest of fairness, it’s worth noting that your prize will probably be my lightly used copy of Atlas Shrugged, in the margins of which are scribbled my insights on the text (“Are you fucking serious?”)

Next week: Visit One, in which I learn that it’s easy to get lost in the Met.