Many people in these previous few generations first heard of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork whereas learning E. L. Konigsburg’s novel From the Blended-Up Recordsdata of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Various of us additionally fantasized about running away to stay in that huge cultural institution just like the e book’s younger professionaltagonists Claudia and Jamie Kincaid. But amongst other, extra practical concerns, we’d have receiveddered the place we had been going to safe sufficient learning material to get us by means of these lengthy after-hours nights. Konigsburg had Claudia and Jamie visit the former Donnell Library Center, however what about within the Met itself?
What we probably didn’t actualize in our youth was that, in addition to being a museum, the Met is a publisher. Now, on the MetPublications digital archive, we are able to learn a fantastic variety of the books, guides, and periodicals it’s put out for greater than a century–from a 1911 catalog of the museum’s collection of pottery, porcelain, and faïence (which refers to pottery of the tin-glazed variety) to — as of this writing — the latest challenge of the Met’s Bulletin, on Mexican printmakers including Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. They and the greater than 1,600 publications that lie between them are free so that you can discover, some learnin a position on-line, and a few downloadin a position in PDF kind.
You may discover problems with the Bulletin on eachfactor from Frank Lloyd Wright to interstruggle photography to Korean artwork, in addition to catalogs for exhibitions like AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, The Artwork of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry (whose central work of calendrical artwork was previously featured right here on Open Culture), Van Gogh in Arles, The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer, and The Poetry of Nature: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection. MetPublications affords plenty of interesting learning, however for those who discover you suddenly need to do some serious art-historical analysis, you’ll additionally discover that it’s a much more convenient useful resource than Claudia and Jamie had.
Enter the MetPublications digital archive right here, and, as soon as there, particularly discover the “Free to Download” section.
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Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embrace the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the e book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facee book.