I admit my previous post did not do justice to The Cloisters. After all, it is the largest repository of medieval art (in various forms) in all of North America. In fact, it might be the *only* museum in North America devoted entirely to the Middle Ages.
And why would that be, I wonder. What do *you* think of when you hear the words "medieval times?" Crusades? Pillories, racks, thumbscrews? Pigs feet?
Yeah, so who would visit a monument to those times? That's probably what Rockefeller was thinking too. And so he built this amazingly serene monastery on the banks of the beautiful Hudson River. The building itself is constructed (in part) of architectural artifacts, frescos and stone of the Middle Ages gathered from all over the world. The rooms are breathtaking.
Furthermore, simply stepping into the building works quite well as a time machine. The museum director doesn't even need to hire people to dress in dark capes, paint their teeth brown and talk in bible-ese. Now don't you want to visit, too?
2 comments:
I would have thought that if you build it with stone blocks taken from multiple sites in Europe, the blocks would not line up from one wall to the next. Yet, in your pictures and in the ones I saw on the net, they do. How can that be? Something clever must have been done.
Oh well, yes, a few modern walls were thrown in too.
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