Rendez-vous with Art
About this ebook
Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford talked in art galleries or churches or their own homes, and this book is structured around their journeys. But whether they were in the Louvre or the Prado, the Mauritshuis of the Palazzo Pitti, they reveal the pleasures of truly looking.
De Montebello shares the sense of excitement recorded by Goethe in his autobiography—"akin to the emotion experienced on entering a House of God"—but also reflects on why these secular temples might nevertheless be the "worst possible places to look at art." But in the end both men convey, with subtlety and brilliance, the delights and significance of their subject matter and some of the intense creations of human beings throughout our long history.
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About the author
Philippe de Montebello is the longest-serving director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in its history. His retirement in 2008 was described as the end of an era “in the cultural life of the city, the state, the nation, and the world.” He is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and has a worldwide influence on cultural policies, often in an advisory capacity. He is now Fiske Kimball Professor in the History and Culture of Museums at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York.
Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable, and Michelangelo. He is the author of My Heart Is This: Tracey Emin on Painting, A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, Venice: City of Pictures, The World According to David Hockney, among others.
