#Met Cloisters

[fantasysheart]

Met Cloisters

[arthistoryanimalia]

#TextileTuesday :

Textile Fragment with Unicorn, Deer, Centaur and Lion

Made in Scandinavia (possibly Sweden), c.1500

Wool intarsia & applique with gilt leather & linen embroidery

52 3/4 × 52 3/8 in. (134 × 133 cm)

The Met Cloisters 2011.430

“This textile features a combination of real and imaginary creatures. The inscription, only partially legible and apparently mixing Latin and Italian, invokes the name of Christ and the Church, indicating the cloth’s original use in a religious context.”

[cypressure]

cloisters at sunset

[kourotrophos]

The Cloisters Playing Cards

1475-80 A.D., South Netherlandish, paper with pen and ink, opaque paint, glazes, and applied silver and gold

[voluptuarian]

Christmas at the Met Cloisters

[anguishedyearner]

update: we ✨️ made✨️ an opera, and tonight we get to premiere it to the world. 🌎🏛

whether it was writing contracts, booking housing🖱 picking up heating pads 🩹 being a listening ear, giving a hug 🫂 or handing out props in show. it has been a true pleasure. 🫶🏽

i actually can't believe i get to say i have three credits on a world premiere at met live arts in nyc. i feel mega impostery tonight, but im just gonna soak in the music, have a good time, and go home. 🫀

[alterations]

new york city on film

[yiddishknights]

I went to the Met Cloisters today and saw, among many lovely medieval things, a 14th century ivory box where someone had scenes from all their favorite romances engraved on the sides. There were panels featuring Galahad, Lancelot, and Gawain, and I have genuinely never wanted to own an object from a museum so badly.

[yiddishlore]

Black Magus, Germany, 15th century. Photo by me.

From the Met Cloisters.

[foxes-library]

Arch with Beasts, French, c. 1150-75. On view at The Met Cloisters.

I really like how close these carvings look to contemporary bestiary illustrations--it's obvious there was a lot of cross-pollination between these artists.

(image source/more information)

[artschoolglasses]

Drying plants at the Met Cloisters

New York City, United States

[nonesuchrecords]

Cécile McLorin Salvant performs 12th-century trobairitz (female troubadour) Almucs de Castelneau's "Dame Iseut," from her Grammy-nominated new album, Mélusine, accompanied by Sullivan Fortner on harpsichord and Keita Ogawa on percussion, in the Unicorn Tapestries Room at The Met Cloisters in a new video out now as part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s performance series, MetLiveArts. This is the third of three performances Salvant filmed in the Met’s Unicorn Tapestry galleries of songs from the album.

[art-collecteur]

A peasant going to the market Italian, 1470–1480

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/826950

[annafromuni]

A New View into Dark Academia with The Cloisters

The Cloisters by Katy Hays dips into a new side of dark academia for me, one which has spurred a wave of curiosity from deep within, and that is art history. Art history is one of those subject that I wanted to take at school but my subject choices didn’t align right for that to happen so getting that art history immersion through Ann (just one letter off!) and this mesmerising read was truly a…

[raulasniteonearth]

Trip to the Met Cloisters (c)

[soundbunny]

When I was a kid, I was OBSESSED with unicorns. What are they? Did they ever really exist? I grabbed the only book on the subject from my elementary school library and poured over it. I read poems and books on the rhinoceros and the narwhal. None of it made sense. Neither of those animals look anything like a unicorn.

Plus, the unicorn isn’t just a white horse with a single horn. The real good depictions of unicorns get the story, the tragedy of the beautiful magical thing whose reward for existence is a violent death. Historians say it’s an allegory for Christ, but I don’t think that’s right either. 8 year old me didn’t connect much with the crucifixion, but seeing pictures of these medieval tapestries inspired my imagination.

They were rich and full of mysteries. No one really knows who made them and why. Mistakes are sewn in on purpose to honor God’s perfection. The story of their provenance reads like an epic thriller.

Over 3 decades later I got to see them in person and they’re no less stirring, in a castle in Washington Heights, no less.