The Cloisters
The Cloisters — described by Germain Bazin, former director of
the Musée du Louvre in Paris, as "the crowning achievement of American
museology" — is the branch of the Metropolitan Museum devoted to the
art and architecture of medieval Europe. Located on four acres
overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park,
the building incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters
— quadrangles enclosed by a roofed or vaulted passageway, or arcade —
and from other monastic sites in southern France. Three of the
cloisters reconstructed at the branch museum feature gardens planted
according to horticultural information found in medieval treatises and
poetry, garden documents and herbals, and medieval works of art, such
as tapestries, stained-glass windows, and column capitals.
Approximately five thousand works of art from medieval Europe, dating
from about A.D. 800 with particular emphasis on the twelfth through
fifteenth century, are exhibited in this unique and sympathetic
context.
The collection at The Cloisters is complemented by more than six
thousand objects exhibited in several galleries on the first floor of
the Museum's main building on Fifth Avenue. A single curatorial
department oversees medieval holdings at both locations. The
collection at the main building displays a somewhat broader
geographical and temporal range, while the focus at The Cloisters is
on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Renowned for its architectural
sculpture, The Cloisters also rewards visitors with exquisite
illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, metalwork, enamels, ivories,
and tapestries.
Photo 98, Dec 2007