You are going to discover the top four art museums in New York in this brief summary,
starting out with The Met, our nation's best art museum.
Then we will bring you inside the Frick, a small private art museum with nothing but
masterpieces.
Then we will move along to the Museum of Modern Art, take you out in the sculpture garden,
and bring you to Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" and many other famous modern paintings.
Finally, heading down to lower Manhattan to see the new Whitney, with a superb modern
and contemporary collection.
Starting out with The Met, we will work our way down south along Fifth Avenue to the Frick,
down to the MoMA and lower Manhattan, the Whitney.
The grand façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is along Fifth Avenue between 80th
St. and 84th St. The Museum is four blocks long, extending for 300 meters, one of the
world's largest art museums.
It's got 2,000,000 square feet and 2 million works of art, so it would take quite a while
to see everything.
Try and come back a couple of times.
Most people start in the Great Hall, which is a wonderful first impression, where you
buy your tickets.
You can check your bags.
It leads to classical sculpture on one side, Egyptian on the other and medieval in the
back.
Impressionism is always a favorite – loving Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, and much more.
The Met has one of the largest collections in the world, so you might want to head there
first while you're fresh, through the gallery with some Rodin statues, featuring some of
his most famous bronze and marble works, including Balzac.
Altogether, the museum has 50 statues by that French master, including The Thinker, Hand
of God, and the Tempest.
The history of Impressionism begins in Paris in 1874 when the first exhibit was held, and
that's about the same time that The Met was beginning to form its collection.
The museum opened at this location in 1880 and has been expanding ever since.
The museum gets over 7 million annual visitors, which makes it the second most popular art
museum in the world, just behind the Louvre.
If you are not one of those people fortunate enough to visit the museum you can see the
collection on their website.
They have a phenomenal service available to you with 400,000 works of art available for
free, for digital download, and these are public domain.
Just go to their website.
It's metmuseum.org/art/collection and you will find the works there.
You can easily search and enjoy your favorites.
According to the museums website, "you are welcome to use images of artwork in the public
domain for any purpose, including commercial and noncommercial use, free of charge without
requiring any permission from the museum".
At the end of this video will present you a three-minute slideshow with dozens of more
beautiful paintings, stick around.
The collection is vast, covering all major styles of art for thousands of years.
A Spanish courtyard was shipped over from Europe and reassembled in this quiet space,
just next to the Great Hall.
From the second floor there's a nice view looking down into that front lobby.
You can also look down into the medieval weapons gallery, famous for its band of knights on
horseback, all covered in armor.
This courtyard, with its wonderful steel and glass canopy, gives the feeling of being outdoors
while you're inside, connecting to the American collection, with cafes in the middle.
They have five paintings by Vermeer.
For many the Egyptian collection will be a major highlight.
There are some paintings, there is a lot of jewelry, there are statues, of course, sarcophagi,
and mummies – all sorts of items that illustrate the religion of the Egyptians and the daily
life.
The rooms housing the Egyptian collection on the ground floor of the north wing contain
a documentary as well as an artistic record, of the ancient culture of the Nile Valley
from prehistoric times to the introduction of Christianity.
Tombs of nobles and figures of gods, in which the religion and metaphysics of Egypt find
expression, are surrounded by painted bas-reliefs, wooden funerary models, alabaster renderings,
household and farm implements, small bronze statues of cat gods, and murals illustrating
the life of the common people.
But the main attraction is the Temple of Dendur.
It's the only ancient Egyptian temple in North America and it is housed in this spectacular
glass gallery.
It was donated to America by Egypt in 1968 in appreciation for our help with the rescue
of sites affected by construction of the Aswan Dam.
The medieval galleries take you back to the Middle Ages, almost as if you'd entered an
ancient Cathedral, surrounded by Gothic statues and paintings and fabrics and textiles from
the era.
Contrast that with the contemporary art of David Hockney.
It was a special exhibit that was on when we were there.
You won't find it now, but here's a visual summary of all the wonderful paintings and
video installations by that great living artist, David Hockney.
You see The Met collection spans history from 5000 years ago, right up until tomorrow.
Although now in his 80s, Hockney is so innovative he is creating paintings on an iPad that you
can see being created in this video display.
At the same time, The Met was putting on a blockbuster exhibit of works by Michelangelo,
including his sculpture of the young archer and many, many drawings by that greatest of
all Renaissance artists.
The Met assembled works from 50 different collections to put together this amazing exhibit.
It will be gone now by the time you're watching the show, but at least we give you a visual
summary of what was once there.
And there are always other special exhibits, amazing displays, happening at The Met every
day.
The collection of classical sculpture features great works from ancient Greece and Rome.
The Met has been ranked the best art Museum in the world for the last three years by the
readers of Trip Advisor who are an experienced group of people.
They list The Met as their number one destination in New York.
Continuing 10 blocks south along Fifth Avenue we reach the Frick Collection at E. 70th Street,
a much smaller art museum in a former mansion, built for Henry Clay Frick.
The indoor Garden Court is the spectacular centerpiece of this small museum, with the
art galleries all around it, designed in a way to respect the original mansion and give
you the feeling that you are visiting as a guest in a palatial house rather than a museum.
Officially called The Frick Collection, it's one of the world's finest small art museums
with a high quality collection of old master paintings and fine furniture.
There are so many masterpieces you'll want to take your time and spend at least a couple
of hours here, located in an upscale residential community that has friendly neighborhood feeling
to it.
We're on Fifth Avenue facing Central Park, so you might want to cross the street and
take a little stroll through the garden if you like, or just walk on down the avenue.
In our case we' re going to hop on the city bus traveling down to 53rd St. to visit yet
another art museum.
The Museum of Modern Art, also called MoMA, is America's premier exhibition space for
modern and contemporary art, founded largely by the Rockefeller family.
It opened in this location in 1939, and it's been growing larger ever since.
In 1983 It doubled in size.
And then in 1997, it doubled again.
A recent expansion by famous architect Jean Nouvelle adds another 25% to its exhibit area,
along with cafes and a gourmet restaurant.
Starry Nights by van Gogh is one of the favorite paintings, along with many more.
Throughout all of the building expansions and construction, the museum has managed to
hold onto the open space of its outdoor sculpture garden, a place to relax and gather your thoughts
after being surrounded by what many consider is the best collection of modern Western masterpieces
in the world.
Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Mondrian, Rousseaux, van Gogh, Pollock, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Gauguin
and Cézanne, Dali.
From The Modern we' re heading to lower Manhattan for our final museum, the Whitney, located
at the beginning of the High Line.
Its new building, designed by Renzo Piano, opened in 2015.
The collection includes over 600 works by some 400 artists, along with regular special
exhibits.
There are four different outdoor observation decks, which is a lovely feature gives – you
a fantastic view looking out in all directions, at Greenwich Village, The Meatpacking District,
over to the river, up the High Line, which we showed you in great detail in our Chelsea
movie that you can find in our New York collection.
After that nice outdoor break you'll be ready to plunge back into the galleries, which contain
some pieces from the regular collection and also many special exhibits.
What you're seeing in the video now might not be there when you visit, but there are
certain to be stimulating and provocative items that will tickle your artistic sensibilities.
You can see many of the previous exhibits on the Whitney's website, which has a very
extensive presentation of the permanent collection, and a listing of the special exhibits going
back to 2006.
As promised earlier we' re closing with a slideshow of some highlights from the Metropolitan
Museum of Art as a little music video for you.
We upload a new movie every week, so please subscribe to our channel, then you'll be notified.
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(Music)