In 1923, Picasso observed: “To me there is no past or future
in art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present,
it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of
the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other
times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive
today than it ever was.” And nowhere in New York this past
year has art’s life and breath been more apparent, more
revived, than at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beginning
last April, with the reopening of the final rooms of the
Met’s astonishing new Greek and Roman Galleries, one
magnificent reinstallation or exhibition has followed
another.

In the Met’s Greek and Roman Galleries, brilliantly
redesigned by the architect Kevin Roche and impeccably
reinstalled by Carlos A. Picón, the art of the past is
reborn as an art of the present. The galleries do not feel
like a collection or a repository. They are not an art
history lesson or a mere glimpse into the beginnings of
Western Civilization. Nothing is dumbed down, and nothing is
embellished. The sculptures, paintings, and objects, bathed
in natural light, are placed with aplomb, but also with a
casual, pragmatic elegance. There is no agenda, no meddling
curatorial thesis—except, perhaps, a firm belief in
classicism and idealism and in the sheer power of art.

Walking through those creamy, dreamy, sun-drenched
galleries—among tombs, monuments, vases, nudes, a bubbling
fountain, emperors, athletes,