GLENN LONEY'S MUSEUM NOTES

BYE BYE BIRDIE--Funeral stele for a girl who died young, showing her with pet doves.

You may miss the impressive display of richly hued and delicately decorated Roman wall-fragments that lined this monumental corridor. It was once like a stroll through the restored ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

But these splendidly preserved panels suddenly vanished. And the walls closed in—just as the lofty vault disappeared, also closed off—to make this into a claustrophobic passage to the great Sardis Column Capital at its other end.

Now all the temporary partitions and false walls have been removed.

To Met Old-timers, however, at first glance the corridor and its splendid Greek sculptures—and Roman copies—may look the way they always did years ago.

Not so.

All the former treasures—plus many sculptures and other Grecian artistic artifacts which have never before been on view—have been arranged in the vaulted hall and the six newly installed chambers on either side in a new and instructively chronological fashion.

One chamber has been set aside for Archaic Greek Art: stone, ceramic, and bronze figures, vases, and reliefs. There are fine examples of primitive Cycladic sculptures.

Some Cycladic works date back to 2000 BC—almost 1,500 years before Greece was at the peak of her Cultural Glory and political power in the Ancient World.

Minoan artworks from Cretan Knossos and Mycenaean vases and carvings from the Peloponnesos are also on display. As are some excellent examples of the Geometric period, when the great cities and festivals of Classical Greece were being established.

Other chambers are attractively filled—not crammed—with major sculptures and artifacts from the Sixth, Fifth, and Fourth Centuries BC.

Some of the major pieces will remind longtime Met visitors that they have seen them often before. They could hardly be ignored or retired to storage, so important are they as works of art and links in the development of classical sculpture and decoration.

But these famous statues and grave-stelae have now been joined by relatively unknown newcomers. Works that have long been in storage can now be exhibited in an effective setting for the first time.

Sparkling glass cases with rare black-and-red vase-paintings of mythological subjects echo some of the sculptural subjects in a complementary medium. Cases also display period jewelry, figurines, coins, and other useful and decorative objects to provide added context to the major sculptures.

One of the carvings—which is sure to be a great favorite of younger visitors—is the grave stele of a young girl. With a classic gown falling in folds from her shoulders, she is holding two doves. One of them has its beak to her lips. The other, unfortunately, has lost his head.

There is nothing sad or gloomy about this white marble image. It reminded those left behind, when the girl passed away—as it does us today—of the innocent joys of her young life, too soon extinguished.

One important architectural change most visitors might not notice is the installation of three atrium skylights high above the central vaulted and deeply coffered corridor. These flood the long hall with warm, diffused natural light.

This makes it possible to have a more accurate idea of how some great sculptures looked on their noble pedestals under the bright Greek sun.

STYLIZED SEASHELL--An unknown Greek sculptor improved on nature with this carving of a spiny shell.

Marble that has weathered the centuries—sometimes buried for hundreds of years under Greek or Roman soil—now needs museum-quality protection and preservation. But these sculptures don't look their best under artificial light.

Ideally, it would be wonderful to watch them in the changing light from dawn to dusk. And even in moonlight.

Setting them up outside the Met in Manhattan sunlight is not an option.

[Looking at the terrible weathering that is eroding Cleopatra's Needle—standing in the open in Central Park just behind the Met—one wonders how long it will take before some really worried curator makes a plea to save it? How about a high-rise annex to the Temple of Dendur to protect this remarkable Egyptian obelisk and hieroglyphic document?]

Old-timers and more recent Met regulars, strolling through the new Greek Galleries, are going to miss the cafeteria and restaurant in the Roman Atrium beyond the Sardis Column Capital.

In the original McKim, Mead, & White plan for the Greek & Roman Galleries, the great Atrium was intended for the display of major Roman sculptures and allied artworks.

For a long time, the center of this Atrium—more recently occupied by the up-scale restaurant—was a long reflecting pool. Over its shimmering surface glided bronze boys and dolphins, created by Sweden's Carl Milles.

This beautiful sculptural ensemble was sold off into slavery somewhere in the American South. Fortunately, there is another one just like it in Stockholm's Lidingö, site of the astounding Milles Museum.

As was shown not so long ago in intricate models and architects' drawings, the on-going restoration process will return this splendid space to its proper function. And new restaurants will be created in other spaces.

HANS HOFMANN'S "SUMMER"--One of the ten canvases in the Renate Series now on view at the Met.

Recognizing very early the threat of the Nazi Movement, Hofmann emigrated to America. He taught briefly on the West Coast, before settling in New York.

The UC/Berkeley Art Gallery recently had a show of Hofmann's colorful Abstract Expressionist works. But the new show at the Met is drawn from its own collections.

The major focus of this small but impressive installation are the large canvases of the Renate Series, painted by Hofmann for his second wife, Renate Schmitz.

At her death, Mrs. Hofmann bequeathed four of the ten abstractions to the Met. She had already donated six of them.

Some early sketches and doodles, ancillary to this show, suggest that Hofmann could have been a lively cartoonist and satirist. But that was not his bent, though some elements of this do emerge in his quick visual suggestions or corrections to student sketches.

In America, Hofmann maintained himself mainly by teaching. And he had an impressive roster of talented students, including Lee Krasner and Ray Eames.

On view at the Met—in addition to the Renate paintings and the sketches—are the 1950 "The Window," which shows Hofmann's debt to Cubism, to which he was exposed in Paris where he was friends with Robert and Sonia Delaunay.

And "Veluti in Speculum," from 1962, which is a stunning exercise in Geometric Abstraction. Bold bright rectangular blocks of elemental color push themselves forward against weaker blocks of background.

In later paintings, such sharply defined blocks of color survive, often at angles to vigorous slapdash brush-strokes, washes, and spatters. There is a strange tension between the disciplined, defined form and the wild freedom of the other splashes of color.

Hofmann was interested in the way the eye sees and the techniques the painter uses to translate that to canvas: The two-dimensional effect of rendering three-dimensional realities and abstractions.

Experimenting with his fairly flat surfaces, Hofmann began to build up canvases with thick, tactile layers and lines of impasto. This may have made some pigment-vendors happy, but, more important, it lent a more solid, sculptural quality to his abstractions.

Gobs, ridges, and dots of built-up paint create light-traps. Canvases so embellished change their qualities in color, tone, dimension, and shapes under changing lighting conditions.

The lighting in the Hofmann installation seems fairly bright and diffused, so there aren't opportunities to study such possible changes.

But these powerful paintings are certainly worth a visit to the Met.

New Sculptures for the Summer
On the Met's Cantor Roof Garden

BIRDS & BAMBINIS--Abstract sculptures by Magdalen Abakanowicz in the roof garden of the Met Museum.

Then came the Communist Takeover, and Abakanowicz matured as a woman and an artist under Polish Communism. This has obviously left its mark on her and her sculpture,

Currently, some of her more disturbing works are on view atop the Metropolitan Museum. They are arranged around the unbalanced spaces of the Iris B. and Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.

This summit-area of the Met provides wonderful overviews of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. Such panoramas can prove a restful reprise from the dark, turbulent figures and abstractions of Abakanowicz.

Three of the five works on view have been expressly created for this exhibition. They are three sculptures of Birds, two immense Skulls, and Bambini.

The latter consists of three files of 40 standing headless figures. They not only lack heads. They also lack substance—guts and backsides—being only mummy-like frontal shells of imagined children.

The abstract skulls look more like rocks fallen from some eroding stone mountain in the Adirondacks. Or gigantic dinosaur heads, on loan from the American Museum of Natural History, just across Central Park.

This is an unsettling show. The birds look like primitive models for early jet-planes, with two sets of wings.

The closest thing to a kind of reality is Figure on Trunk, which features a headless man standing on a square beam, supported at either end with logs.

These haunting figures have displaced the Cantor's Rodin sculptures, at least for the next few months.

But someone made the mistake of leaving one of Rodin's most memorable sculptural groups over in a corner of the roof-garden. The contrast it offers is not to Abakanowicz's advantage.

But then Rodin didn't grow up in Eastern Poland.

As is customary among abstract artists—those who are articulate, at least—attempting to describe the inspiration and nature of their works, Abakanowicz is eloquent and mystical. The curatorial explanations are even more inspired. They are an Art-Form in themselves.

MARRIAGE A LA M0DE--Charles James' smart 1948 wedding-gown which could be recycled for other social occasions.

This virtual Parade of the Power of the Pocketbook was abandoned in favor of the themed-display of costumes.

But even in the great Themed Shows, it has always been most interesting to note which lady of fashion had the courage or imagination to purchase—and wear!—some of the more amazing creations of outstanding French, Italian, British, and American designers.

If the gowns or frock-coats on view were heirlooms, handed down from Mothers of the American Revolution, it was even more interesting to learn what the Founders' Families were wearing at the birth of the nation.

Not to overlook the costume contributions made possible by the wives and daughters of Civil War Profiteers and Gilded Age Robber Barons!

Even though the current light-hearted show at the Met covers only gifts made in the current decade, there are some attractive historical donations.

"Women in White" is a room filled with wonderful white fashions. It presents a visual chronicle of white gowns, robes, and dresses from the 18th century to the present.

Mariano Fortuny is represented with his signature pleating and gold pattern-printing on velvets and silks. His designs prolonged the life of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement in painting through the medium of costume.

Other more recent talents on view include Charles James, Geoffrey Beene, John Galliano, Bill Blass, and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Whatever the Costume Institute selects to show in its limited exhibition space, these fashions are only the tip of the tip of the Collection Iceberg. Its study collections are amazing in their breadth and depth.

They include not only actual costumes, but also fashion-photos, sketches, patterns, fabrics, books, periodicals, and videos. Recently, CNN donated its "Style with Elsa Klench" archives. [Loney]