Connections/Light

My name is Bruce Schwarz and I'm a photographer. My photography professor in college said, "Three things to know about photography: light, light, and

light." And the way that this museum was designed, there was a premium put on light.

And I thought I would talk about a few of the galleries that I really find heavenly.

One of the great places in the museum is the Temple of Dendur. You know it's not hard to fall in love with, but the space that it was put in is impressive, and I think that the reason is because it has captured some of the natural light that would have fallen on the building, and how the guys who designed the Temple of Dendur two thousand years ago would have seen it. I mean, so

it has an afternoon light coming in, raking across, and those very shallow reliefs pick up during the afternoon light.

In photography they sometimes talked about the magic hour, the blue hour, that gloaming. In French they would say le douloureux, the sadness that in a way is good for us to feel every once in a while, and that room, it's just a magical place.

I sort of believe that there's good places for good light. And, you know, like all the painters in the 1940s and the '50s went out east end of Long Island, that wasn't because they like potato farms, it's because they thought that there was great light out there.

Well, you know, our little spot on 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue, it gets great light.

When I was younger, coming in to work in the morning, I would stop and sit in the Greek and Roman galleries.

I would look at art, but I wouldn't look at art, I would look at the light on the art coming in from Fifth Avenue.

And especially because of the items that are in there – some of the sculptures and some of the reliefs

they just jump when they get that early morning light.

The design of the building has this wonderful pathway through, so that when you're in a darkened room

you're just drawn to the light in these day-lit galleries.

When you're in the Astor Court, you could be in the hills of China. One of the things that I talk about sometimes is interior landscapes and I love it that you see the shadows of the glass pyramid that's above it, and your eye knows that you're inside, but it's so perfectly done, you don't see it when you're in there.

The amazing thing about this room is that there is no sculpture, there's no painting, there's no drawing. This is a room of flat walls with

inlaid wood. And they designed it so that it would

catch the afternoon light. I mean I could go there and not do anything and just sit there and watch the light go across my walls.

The Engelhard Courtyard, I think, is perhaps the most successful space in the Museum. It changes by the minute, but also by the season. The space itself is beautiful – would anybody think

that the Bank Façade deserves to be in the Metropolitan Museum if it wasn't in the Engelhard Courtyard? You know, if you put that outside, nobody would look at it, but that outdoor space, brought inside, it's like seeing, you know, something in Rome or in Cairo.

I got to spend a lot of Saturdays with Hubert von Sonnenburg, who was the former director of the paintings conservation department, and a guy who really taught me how to see

painting. And one of the things that he always said was, "You never look at a good painting,

you always look into it." A great picture has depth, and so you have to light it so that you find that depth.

I was shooting these Pousette-Dart paintings. Lowery Sims, who used to be a curator here at the Metropolitan Museum, said, "Nope that's not it, nope that's not it." And I said, "Lowery, what do you want me to do?" And she said, "I want it to look like the light is coming out of the painting." And I was like, well that's very nice, Lowery, but I have to light the painting from the front!

At the end of the day I turned off all my lights and there was an exit sign light and it was hitting the painting, and it looked like light was coming out of the painting. And I thought

this is it, now I just have to figure out how I can light like an exit sign, but we did it and she was happy and I was happy, but it was just one of those things.

A painting changes with whatever light is falling upon it and that's the same thing I think with

good galleries, they change and they make the art better. I'm sure some curators would argue that the light isn't making the art better, but

I think that it does.