I went for Egyptomania, but as always, the entire museum was too much for a single day.
When CMA announced they were bringing in their Egyptomania exhibit, I knew I wanted to go see it. It took a couple months, but I managed to make it this week and as usual, I'm so glad I did.
They're not only presenting Egyptomania, but they have Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster, The Book of Hours, Imagining Rama’s Journey, Animals in Japanese Art, and A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur.
All that on top of the normal amazing collections.
For those of us lucky enough to live near Cleveland, our museum houses a massive collection of more than 61,000 works of art and is free to the public.
All due to a historic endowments in the past, making it the fourth-wealthiest art museum in the United states.
They provide free programming, classes, entertainment, and public education and Cleveland, blue collar town that it is, USES it.
We use it.
Table Fountain, about 1320-40, France, Paris
Only one in the world
They have so much to see on a daily basis that it's worth going regularly, but I don't make it as often as I'd like. I've missed several exhibits, but, I didn't miss this one!
EGYPTOMANIA
As a kid who loved all thing Egyptian as a kid, the impact of Egyptian mythology, ancient tradition is visible all around us.
Western civilization has borrowed from from the architecture and tombs of Egypt for centuries.
In the words of CMA, "Egyptian art has long served, and continues to serve, as a primary inspiration for fashion designers, solidifying the legacy of Egyptomania—the influence of the art of ancient Egypt. This exhibition, on view in the CMA’s textile and Egyptian galleries, brings together around 50 objects that explore the influence of Egyptomania in fashion by juxtaposing contemporary fashion and jewelry loaned from around the world with fine and decorative artworks from the CMA collection.
Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession examines designers’ interpretations of themes, such as Egyptian dress, funerary process, and religion, that shape our contemporary perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture.
....
Numerous questions raised by the intersection between Egyptomania and fashion in today’s social climate are also examined in the exhibition. Dialogues about cultural appropriation, ancient Egypt’s place in African history, and Black empowerment continue to bubble to the surface, critiquing fashion’s conflicted obsession with Egyptian art."
To see more about it on their site and video they put together on it, please visit:
In addition to Egytomania, the Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster exhibit was stunning.
(Saint Jerome and the Lion, produced for the Benedictine abbey church of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany)
According to CMA, "(t)he majority of the objects in the exhibition come from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art and allow insight into the production of alabaster sculptures in this period. It is striking that these works are of such a particularly exquisite quality and that the material was used especially for high-ranking commissions, such as the tomb of Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy in Champmol near Dijon. A few loans from North American museums complement the exhibition."
For more information on the alabasters, https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/riemenschneider-and-late-medieval-alabaster
The trip was as wonderful as always. And we didn't see even half the exhibits, let alone standing collections.
I still have to go back and see Imagining Rama’s Journey, Animals in Japanese Art, and A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur before they leave.
Why am I sharing? Because where I lived growing up there was no access. Not to museums in general like these, let alone these level of exhibits. If I can share, I want to for those who can't get to them, and to remind those who can get to them, to go.
Support your local museums. Support conservation of history.