«Impressionist paintings are so beautiful, emotional, and colorful, yet in the nineteenth century, they were considered laughable; at the time, people favored meticulously realistic, "licked" paintings over the Impressionists' "broken brushstrokes." The term "licked" refers to paintings that shine like someone has licked them to even out any trace of brushstrokes, and "broken brushstrokes" refers to thick dabs of paint on a canvas.

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«Okay, now don't get me wrong. While I'm sort of presenting the following ideas as fact, I don't claim to know much about painting or anything about Impressionism, but I am completely fascinated with the movement—actually head over heels infatuated. I want more than anything to understand how it works, so please forgive the following inelegant suppositions as the workings of a mind tussling with understanding.

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«It's been a long day. You've been knocked around a couple of times. You sit down, and your eyes slowly begin to close. It's time to breathe a sigh of relief, take a break, and transport yourself to a different, more peaceful place. Two works by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840–1926) allow you to do just that.

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«As the nineteenth century drew to a close, popular art experienced a number of changes, many of which were influenced by the rapidly changing culture and environment of the day. The prevalent, Salon-accepted style of painting in the 1870s and 80s valued the seamless blending of paint and focused on classical, historical themes. As society was redefined by the Industrial Revolution, a new art form began to take shape. Artists such as Édouard Manet (1832–1883) began to present works that were much less uniform in their surface texture and had visible brushstrokes. We now know these painters as the Impressionists.

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«Sweet, elegant, loving, beauty: these are the words that come to mind when I look at Springtime by Pierre-Auguste Cot. After hearing one of our amazing educators, Kathy Galitz, speak about it, though, I have a new feeling about what this and the other pieces in gallery 827 represent.

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«The Teen Advisory Group recently set out to learn about Impressionist art. Captained by Associate Museum Educator Kathy Galitz, we actually began our journey not with Impressionist art itself but with a brief exposé on what is lovingly referred to as "academic" art. Yes, academic.

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«Sometimes, in discrete moments of boredom-induced reflection, I begin to think about why certain things have survived from the past and others haven't. I wonder whether it is through sheer dumb luck that some artworks are preserved while others are lost, and whether the creators of the surviving works had any idea that their work would last for so long and be seen by so many eyes.

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«Curator Jeff L. Rosenheim recently spoke to the Teen Advisory Group about the current exhibition Photography and the American Civil War. As part of his talk, he showed us an 1864 photograph of Union soldiers posing on the front steps of Robert E. Lee's Virginia home, which the government had confiscated in 1861.

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«Photographs play an important role in history by documenting moments in time. When people look at historical photographs, they are able to peer into worlds they previously could only imagine.

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«Seeing the work of Henri Matisse—the French artist who experimented with different methods such as painting, printmaking, and sculpture—makes me want to know more about art in general.

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«My family has a penchant for strolling through museums. I've appreciated this more as I've gotten older, but as a kid I got bored easily. Pausing before a piece by Salvador Dalí was always an incredible relief, and I came to crave the fluid style and disturbing clutter of his work.

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«"A painting is not a picture of an experience; it is an experience." –Mark Rothko

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«The Teen Advisory Group recently visited the Museum's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art to talk about the work of Henri Matisse. Our guest speaker, Met lecturer Deborah A. Goldberg, PhD, asked, "What do you first think of when you think of Matisse?" There was a great variety of answers.

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«In our recent tour through the Met's galleries with lecturer Deborah A. Goldberg, we looked at Henri Matisse's paintings and Fauvist works by other artists that incorporate techniques such as mixing an enormous array of colors. Although my brain is still processing the information, one of Matisse's methods particularly stood out to me. It's called "non finito."

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How many times has the word "perspective" appeared when referring to one's impression of, well, any artwork or art gallery? "Perspective" is like the bacon of art vocabulary; you sprinkle it over any conversation and it can spark a delicious array of reactions. In my experience, abstract art produces the most varied responses.

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«When you enter the Met, you leave the buzzing streets of Manhattan behind and are transported back in time and to foreign places. As an artist, intern, frequent Met visitor, and New Yorker, I can say the Met is my favorite place to "vacation" when I need to get away from the bustling world outside.

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I'll admit it. There are some pieces in the Met's collection that I am very tempted to touch—the smooth, cold sculptures, for instance, and paint globs that dry seemingly inches off the canvas. It's due in part to this inclination that I enjoy visiting the Musical Instruments galleries so much.

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When I think of the Greek and Roman Art galleries, the first color that comes to mind is white, thanks to the slick marble statues that fill the courtyards and halls with both a sense of calm and a buzzing chit-chatter. So I am always somewhat surprised and very delighted to stop in on this primarily black fresco. I love that it seems to be at odds with almost every other piece in the collection.

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«Have a favorite nook at the Met? A quiet space where you can truly be alone with the pieces? Whether your answer to this question is "yes" or "no," I suggest you explore the smaller special exhibitions scattered throughout the Metropolitan Museum.

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