Registrar: Janet Wooten
Weather: Sunny, breezy and cold outside, pleasant inside
Participants: 10
Bird Species: 30+
Kevin treated us to an excellent tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s paintings, sculptures, and other objets d’art that feature or include birds. His impressive knowledge of the subject and his willingness to share it with us were also on display. He introduced us to many little-known treasures and explained the significance of birds in some of the more popular paintings in the Museum’s permanent exhibits.
Because of our avian focus, Kevin mentioned a book by publisher, author, and naturalist Jeremy Mynott, Birds in the Ancient World, that organizes human relationships to birds into six categories: Birds of the Natural World, Birds as a Resource, Living with Birds, Invention and Discovery, Thinking with Birds, and Birds as Intermediaries. We used these themes to gain insight into the art we saw as we weaved our way smoothly through the museum.
We started in some of the Met’s lesser known galleries, beginning with the ancient Roman Empire and Islam and proceeding to 17th/18th-century India and Asia. We were delighted by the many owls and roosters, peacocks and guinea fowl, depicted on pottery, worked into vases, whistles, and cups, woven into carpets, and painted onto wall fragments.
Currently on view until June 9, 2024, is ‘Indian Skies’, an exhibit of exquisite watercolors from India that feature pigeons, mynas, orioles, and a goshawk.
We made our way to 19th-Century European Paintings; through China and Japan, where falcons and cranes appear on kimonos, scrolls, and screens; then on to the Americas (parrots!), European Paintings from 1300-1800, Musical Instruments, and finally to the open storage and installation space in the American Wing, where we viewed a painting of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, a perfect way to end our avian art adventure.
Species List
Birds
Condor (feathers)
Cranes
Curlews
Doves
Ducks
Eagles
European Goldfinch
Eurasian Blue Tit
Falcons
Geese
Goshawk
Great Hornbill
Guinea Fowl
Herons
Hoopoe
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers
Kingfisher
Magpies
Mynas
Orioles
Owls
Parrots/Macaws
Partridges
Peacocks
Pheasants
Pigeons
Roosters
Shrike
Snipes
Sparrows
Storks
Swallows
Swans
Wild Turkeys
