My trip to the museum in New York.

I started my trip from Egyptian art. There were lot of sculptures, ancient arts, jewelry and much more. There were few exhibitions running also which was included in an admission ticket. So, we decided to join the group that was lead by a guide. I just stood alongside them and listening to the guide what he was telling them. The exhibition was about Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition. Byzantine Empire ruled around 7th century the land-areas were extending from modern day Syria to modern day Egypt and North Africa from its capital, Constantinople which is a modern day Istanbul. These provinces were influenced by Greek-Roman traditions and there were Orthodox, Coptic, and Syrian Christians, Jewish communities. Great pilgrimage centers attracted the faithful from as far away as Yemen in the east and Scandinavia in the west. Major trade routes reached eastward down the Red Sea past Jordan to India in the south, bringing silks and ivories to the imperial territories. Major cities made wealthy by commerce extended along inland trade routes north to Constantinople and along the Mediterranean coastline. Commerce carried images and ideas freely throughout the region. In the same century, the newly established faith of Islam emerged from Mecca and Medina along the Red Sea trade route and reached westward into the empire's southern provinces. Political and religious authority was transferred from the long established Christian Byzantine Empire to the newly established Umayyad and later Abbasid Muslim dynasties. The new powers took advantage of existing traditions of the region in developing their compelling secular and religious visual identities. This exhibition follows the artistic traditions of the southern provinces of the Byzantine Empire from the seventh century to the ninth, as they were transformed from being central to the Byzantine tradition to being a critical part of the Islamic world. The exact information that I have mentioned was on the brochure that guide gave it to us. However this Empire was something new that we hadn’t discussed in the class. That’s probably because our class material covered empires and history since 1500’s. But this was a part of fun to learn about because it seemed that I was sitting in a history class but visualizing it also.

There was another exhibit was “The Dawn of Egyptian Art”. During the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods (ca. 4000–2650 B.C.), people living in the Nile Valley began recording their beliefs through paintings, sculptures, and reliefs made for their shrines and tombs. These works of art capture the evolving world view of these early Egyptians. Images of people, animals, and landscapes, some of which give rise to hieroglyphs, include forms and iconography that remained in use throughout the art of Pharaonic Egypt. This exhibition brings together some 175 objects gathered from the Metropolitan Museum's important collection of early art and from the collections of twelve other museums in the U.S. and Europe to illustrate the origins and early development of ancient Egyptian art.

I was pretty excited when I reached a room where there were exhibits from Nepal also. We all were excited and we said look here there are things from Nepal also. We were so much disappointed that we found at least some exhibits from most parts of the world but not Nepal. Well, we were told not to shout by the security officers. That was absolute absurd (ha-ha). Since that place was little dark and I had no fancy camera, my phone camera didn’t take a good picture but I found some on the web.

I watched some of the Renaissance and European galleries. The museum is so big that I think even if I spent the whole day here, I still wouldn't be able to see everything. It really is a brilliant museum. The art of exhibits itself can be considered as an art since it was displayed together with the different layouts and lighting highlights the art so beautifully.  I will in the future come to see this museum again since there is so much to learn about.