Duccio and the early Chinese Art at the Met

No visit to New York at Chrsitmas would be complete without a stop into the Metropolitan Museum to see the Neapolitan Christmas Creche. But there was an added holiday treat as the Mueum's recently acquired Duccio's "Madonna and Child" went on display.

It's small - maybe the size of a piece of paper, but beautifully delicate. While we were in the gallery I heard a man trying to explain to a friend why this painting was of any interest or any more important than the zillions of other Christmas card paintings the Met has hanging all over its galleries. He tried to put it in historical perspective, but I think the point that his friend never got was that changes in style and attitude even thematic shifts in art often happen so incrementally as to be almost unnoticeable. Who knows when the first Nativity Scene with snow was painted? But now, everyone see snow in Nativity scenes, even though Bethlehem was unlikely to have ever been dusted with more than rain.

But I digress, the Met's new Duccio is small -- not so grand as his Maesta Altarpiece, and maybe because it wasn't of enormous significance, Duccio felt he could take a bit of license with the usual idioms of Madonna and Child portrayal. Instead of looking godlike and lofty, the madonna has weight. Her child reaches for her veil, more like a normal baby, instead of sitting there with a hand raised in god-like blessing. Naturalism is somehow creeping into sacred pictures. Ordinary people are starting to have enough money to buy objections of personal devotion. Intimacy is a relatively new aspect of commune with God. And this painting in some way represents that enormous change in attitudes.

The exhibit "China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD," which spans the period from the collapse of the Han dynasty into the fabled Tang dynasty, was quite spectacular and comprehensive too. Featuring exquisitely crafted objects-- animals, figurines, pieces from Silk Road trade -- the exhibition traces a history of culture that I couldn't help but compare with the Hellenistic background covered so beautifully in the Alexander the Great exhibit at the Onassis Center.

It relieves me to think of the history of mankind not just including war but also enduring evidence of beautiful and refined things as well.