Pink Saturday Goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Edgar Degas' Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,
a frequent stop on my visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

I ran into a friend last night who remarked that she was surprised to see me in the neighborhood. Most of my posts -- both in Buttercupland and on Facebook -- most frequently seem to be away from New York. I feel that I've been remiss in writing about life in New York City. Though I did the A to Z subway series in the spring (sadly still unfinished, I know) blog life then morphed into writing about my trip to England. But I've been home for over six weeks and have settled back into my "home routine" of yoga, Weight Watchers, grocery shopping, reading and long walks. 

 

One activity at the top of my to-do list was to add museum visiting to my home routine. There's such a treasure of museums within an hour radius of where I live and want to make sure I am at one of them often. My museum of this week was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just a bus ride across Central Park.

 

I am not an "all-day" museum visitor. After about ninety minutes I lose the ability to absorb what I'm seeing. This visit focused on the paintings of Van Gogh that are owned by the Met. Some had been in storage and they were all displayed in several rooms in the European painting galleries. The rooms were crowded -- I was certainly not the only one who wanted to see this collection -- and not the best environment for taking pictures, but there were two paintings I especially enjoyed. 

 

 Roses, by Van Gogh, part of a series of four still lifes.

 

 Oleanders, by Van Gogh.

 

I've seen at least one of the paintings in the series of still lifes in which Roses is a part of, but Oleanders was totally unfamiliar.  My photograph does not do justice to the striking colors and vibrancy of the flowers. 

 

I enjoyed a glorious summer day for my visit. The roof garden was open and this is the view of the West Side across a very green and lush Central Park.

 

 It was a pleasure to be back at the Metropolitan and a pleasure to be joining Pink Saturday once again this week. There are some terrific posts and well worth a visit.

As ever, thanks for visiting and hope you're having a great weekend!