Documenting Inspiration from the MET

As someone with a huge love for art history, which often has a huge presence in my work, I LOVE going to art museums. It's the perfect place to relax a bit and gather some inspiration! Unfortunately (and fortunately), there are far too many pieces to be inspired by so I don't always have enough time to sketch them all. My solution: take pictures of every detail I find interesting and look back on the images later!

In this post, I will be discussing what I look for in different exhibitions, specifically focusing on my pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as that is the museum I know the best!

One of the best ways, I think, to get good at design is to take note of the past; how past designers/artists organized their work i.e. analyzing work through the elements and principles of design. Now, of course, I don't stand in front of every single painting, architectural fragment, artifact, etc and list off the elements and principles one by one. While that certainly would help, it doesn't make for a good museum experience (and quite frankly, that would take forever). I tend to walk around, read a couple boards to get some context, and let my eye wander to things that stand out to me. I scan through the objects to find shapes/motifs, color palettes, textures, etc that I think are worth going back to later. For example...

Above is a picture I took of a detail of a Roman column. When I took this picture, I recall taking note of the leaf motif that repeats over and over again on an egg-like shape, and how that motif flows into the next shape, then repeats horizontally (this is called a "running pattern"). I think it's also worthy to note how that pattern works with the vertical lines created in the column's flutes (the carved out spaces that go down the length of the column). The simplicity of the flutes balances out the complexity of the running patterns above it. The opposing directions of these designs also adds to the balanced feel, with the flutes being vertical and the running patterns going horizontally around the column.

For this next one, I don't exactly remember what this panel is, but I do remember this is from the Egyptian wing of the MET! I believe I took this picture (above), to take note of the texture of the repeating blue/green rectangles. It has a monochromatic look and a weathered texture that I found to be quite lovely. To me, the aged look creates interest which can be intentionally recreated through different mark-making and brushwork on paper.

Something I love to do is look at objects themselves as motif inspiration (it's something I did in the Imperium Swatch Collection). For this, I specifically like to look at jewelry. An illustration of these earrings (pictured above on the left) or those interesting shapes on that necklace (pictured above on the right) can be fit into a pattern as a motif! The shape of the earrings is quite interesting, as the inner circle is completed, while the outer circle is cut off to make a half circle. The necklace utilizes shape and line in a unique way, with the slim triangular forms coming from the circular base being reminiscent of sun rays or even fingers. It's pieces like this that led me to think about and organize geometric shapes in more complex ways to create more rich and detailed pattern designs.

Frescoes and mosaics like the ones pictured above are some of my favorite places to look for color palette inspiration. It's fun to bring these pictures into an app like Adobe Capture or open the image in Photoshop and use the color picker to save the palette for later! Other pieces I find to be useful for this are paintings from the Renaissance, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, the Fauvists...the list goes on and on. I especially enjoy frescoes and mosaics though as their colors are a bit muted (as usually they've aged quite a bit) and they are also rich in texture!

I encourage you to think about these details and more the next time you visit an art museum! Hopefully COVID dies down soon so they can open. In the meantime though, the MET has a great digital archive of their collection that you can look through (click here to take a look). You can view it in chronological order by place or just type in keywords. Objects descriptions are always very good to give you some context and they usually also provide you with links to related essays, which reminds me: They also have a great collection of over 1,000 essays on there that you can read for free! It's a great way to experience the museum without the ability to actually be there in person.