My Visits to the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

For my study, I visited two museums. First I went to the Guggenheim Museum which is located at Upper East Manhattan, at the corner of 89th Street and fifth Avenue, then I later visited Metropolitan Museum of Art. The reason why I decided to visit two museums is because Guggenheim does not display the kind of art I was interested in, as its main genre of art if Modern art. My focus for this project was studying work from the Renaissance period, by Piero di Cosimo, the painting of” A Hunting Scene”.

The main attraction for me at this museum was the architecture of the Guggenheim Museum building itself. The museum is designed in a fresh circular design that is very modern in art architecture.

It was interesting to note that the design of the building was drawn by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1944. Frank Wright is renowned for his authentic taste in building design. Inside the building, one cannot fail to see how Guggenheim is perhaps the most monumental work of modern art in architecture. It has a unique architecture that creates space and dynamism. A spiral ramp rides to a domed skylight peak. The planning of space and the general interior design was fascinating to me. I think Wright’s Building opened peoples mind to explore architectural designs that was artistic, bold and intensely personal.

My next visit was to the Metropolitan Museum to study the subject of my project which is the painting by Piero di Cosimo, ‘a hunting Scene.” This painting falls under the renaissance movements. More specifically, the work belongs to the early period (1400-1475). The painting was originally done using oil on tempera, but was later transferred to a Masonite board using oil.

The painting is a classical example of work of early renaissance artists. It...

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... applied this feature very well to create a sense of drama and suspense, the light illuminates on the faces of the subjects hence enabling a viewer to read the expression of the subjects. The same approach has been applied by Cosimo. Both paintings show ordinary events of life taking place, a hunting scene and a scene of men and women engaged in a discussion. Another common feature is the aspect of the painting seeming to be in motion.

It is important to note however that despite the fact that Cosimo and Caravaggio had been influenced by the renaissance style of painting, they come from different eras of the renaissance time. Caravaggio is an artist in the late renaissance era; hence his work is very colorful compared to the color schemes used by Cosimo in A Hunting Scene. If put side by side in a display gallery, the work of Caravaggio would catch ones eye first.