A Trip To The Met

I've just come back from a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. In my quest to avoid the thronging crowds I headed to the less popular Asian section and was straightaway reminded how much I love calligraphy and especially paintings that combine image and text.

Travelling around I started thinking about the microcosmos - the approaches to combining 'organic' and found materials into spaces - works that were not purely artistic or decorative but that frequently held significant meaning, whether in symbolism or text, I enjoyed the mystery of knowing that many of these articles and artefacts had many more secrets to reveal.

So, while it may turn out to be irrelevant, here are a few images from my trip:

I like the way this extraordinary rock seems to have been deified by placing it within a shrine

This reminded me of Megan's approach - this is the inside of a cardboard box, transformed into a piece of art

Here's another, mountains reflecting on water

I like the image that seems to pull the eye in and its combination with calligraphy at either side

Hard to do justice to this with a pic, I think it's called 'The Book From The Sky' - you are totally surrounded by text as you pass through the room, the overhead drapes are especially beautiful

Ceiling as sacred space

A simple idea (?) this evanescent buddha is completely captivating, it seems a great mixture of medium and message

Again, this seemed like a life-size of something Megan might have done (I may be being naive).

A thangka painting (buddhist religious paintings mostly from Tibet and Nepal) just like their other religious counterparts, they are full of symbolism, mostly intended for teaching

Here's that macrami buddha again