«Have you tuned in to The Artist Project yet? If not, you really should. Now in its fourth season, each episode of this web series features a contemporary artist who chooses a work from the Met's collection and talks about why he or she finds it so important.»
As chairman of the Department of European Paintings, I've been previewing the episodes in which contemporary artists articulate their responses and thoughts about paintings done before 1900. Wow—you mean contemporary artists actually look at the art of the past? You bet.
What viewers learn from these artists' responses is that there are as many ways of looking at a great work of art as there are people, because we all bring our own life experiences to our manner of looking and asking what it is that is meaningful. Sometimes I have felt myself nodding in agreement as these gifted people describe what they are seeing or thinking about, and their revelatory observations continues to astonish me.
Perhaps it's my own curatorial focus speaking, but you don't want to miss Wayne Thiebaud discussing Rosa Bonheur's The Horse Fair. It's amazing! You'll never look at that painting in the same way.
Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822–1899). The Horse Fair, 1852–55. Oil on canvas; 96 1/4 x 199 1/2 in. (244.5 x 506.7 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887 (87.25)
The Artist Project is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.