Met Museum: Three Exhibits Closing in January

The weather has turned cold and blustery lately as New York City has gotten its first taste of winter a bit early this year.  It was a perfect time to walk across a nearly deserted Central Park - even the tourists abandon it when the temperature drops too low - to visit the Met Museum for a last chance to view three major shows before they close next month.

The first, Jerusalem 1000 - 1400, closes January 8, 2017.  Subtitled "Every People Under Heaven," the exhibit emphasizes the interrelationships among Christians, Jews and Muslims in this city holy to all three.  This intermingling of faiths can be seen in a copy of the gospels translated into Arabic or in a Moorish dagger on which is inscribed a scene of St. George slaying the dragon.  The lighting throughout the galleries is so subdued that the visitor feels he or she is inside a church, a feeling which is particularly appropriate since almost all the objects on view have a religious significance.  There are, for example, a large number of reliquaries and crosses as well as copies of sacred texts.  The major places of worship - the destroyed Temple of Solomon, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Dome of the Rock - are each given their own installation.  But there are also a number of secular artworks, the most interesting of which to me was a celestial globe that once belonged to the thirteenth century Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil.

The second exhibit, Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant, also closes on January 8, 2017.  Though Jean-Honoré Fragonard completed over 500 paintings and became famous for his facility with color, this exhibit is given over to his graphic works - drawings and etchings - almost all of them monochromatic.  For the most part, the content of these graphic works is strikingly different from that of the paintings.  Largely absent is the frolicsome suggestiveness of his most iconic works, such as his best known painting The Swing, which detailed the amorous play of French aristocrats at the court of Louis XVI.  More attention is instead given to landscapes travel sketches, and studies of workers and peasants.  A number of late drawings are notable for the looseness with which they were sketched.  The etchings are particularly interesting.  Some, such as The Vision of Saint Jerome, are so richly detailed that they bear comparison to Goya's work in this medium.

There's a bit more time to see the third show, Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, which runs through January 22, 2017.  I have to admit I had never heard of this artist before visiting the exhibit, and I wouldn't be surprised if this were the first major exhibit devoted to his work.  Part of the reason for Valentin's obscurity was his short lifespan.  He died at only age 41 after having completed some 60 paintings, 45 of which are on view here.  Though the title "Beyond Caravaggio" would suggest that Valentin's work ultimately surpassed that of his predecessor, that's not at all the case.  True, Valentin was a talented painter and shrewd enough to have taken advantage of changing tastes, but his work lacks Caravaggio's genius.  While the latter was a revolutionary whose new naturalistic style of painting took Italy by storm, Valentin was a careful craftsman who was content to work in the other's shadow.  In fact, Valentin never studied under Caravaggio or even met him; he learned the Italian's style secondhand from Simon Vouet, a French painter who enjoyed immense success in Italy.  One can't hold this against Valentin - he was as entitled as anyone else to earn a living - but it hardly marks him for greatness.  Still, his work is definitely worth seeing.  What is most interesting to a photographer is Valentin's use of lighting.  Like Caravaggio, Valentin was a Tenebrist and much of the power of his work comes from the contrast of deep shadow to dramatic lighting.  If he had lived longer, he might have been able to free himself from Caravaggio's influence and become his own man.