On Monday, October 9th, my friend and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is the largest museum in the U.S and it’s the second most visited museum in the world. It was my second time to visit the Met because it is gigantic, I don’t think one is able to view all millions of works for just one time visit. As you enter the museum, you place yourself into an ancient world.
There was a long line alongside the street waiting for the museum to open, and visitors are from all over the world. Luckily, we arrived at there early, so within few minutes, we got into the museum immediately. The first section we saw is the European paintings, there are thousands of paintings hang on the wall that make you dazzled. Although most of them are not that famous, you can still see that European life in ancient time is depicted through these paintings vividly. To appreciate an art is not to see its popularity, but to understand and learn the meanings and purposes of this particular piece. The second section we saw is the Asian Art department, which holds more than 35000 pieces, every Asian civilization is represented in the Met’s Asian department, and the pieces on display include every type of decorative art, from painting and printmaking to sculpture and metalworking. I was quite aggressive when I saw so many Chinese cultural relics, including Chinese calligraphy and painting, handcraft, sculpture… are displayed in America. I thought they stole them from China! But after a while, I realized that there is no stealing when we talk about a museum, museum carrier of art which bears the responsibility of protecting the arts, introducing the history, and spreading the cultures.
I highly recommend you to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is really comprehensive and it will be an amazing and educating place to go if you are in NY.