vegetarian in a leather jacket: July 2013

Nautilus Cup, Dutch (Utrecht), 1602. Nautilus shell, gilt silver. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Sebastian, Austrian (Salzburg), 17^th century. Ivory. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Oracle Figure (Kafigeledjo), Senufo culture, Côte d’Ivoire, 19^th – mid-20^th century. Wood, iron, bone, porcupine quills, feathers, commercially woven fiber, organic material. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Terracotta Hadra hydra (water jar), Ptolemaic Crete, late 3^rd century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Dead Christ with Angels, Édouard Manet, 1864. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Amemo (Mask of Humankind), El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944), 2010. Aluminum and copper wire. Installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

Pierced Screen, Mughal India, second half of the 16^th century. Red sandstone. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Marble funerary altar of Cominia Tyche, Roman, ca. 90–100 CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Peak (?), El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944), 2010. Installed at the Brooklyn Museum.

Central Governor, Saul Melman, 2010, installation with gold leaf and saliva, and Untitled, Matt Mullican, 1997. PS1, Queens.

Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer

Afrum I (White), James Turrell (American, b. 1943), 1967. Projected light. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

E 65th St. and Lexington

Line outside the Rain Room, MoMA, July 20, 2013.

Rain Room, rAndom International (based in London), 2012. Installed in lot beside The Museum of Modern Art, West 54 St.

Ronin, James Turrell (American, b. 1943), 1968. LED light. Collection of the artist, on display at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Gli (Wall), El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944), 2010. Aluminum and copper wire. Installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

Detail from a Scene of the Legend of Saint Germain of Paris and the History of His Relics, Île-de-France, Paris, ca. 1245–47. Pot-metal and colorless glass with vitreous paint. The Cloisters.

Aten Reign, James Turrell (American, b. 1943), 2013. Rotunda, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Twisted Face Mask, Veracruz (Mexico), 600–900. Ceramic and pigment. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Reclining Nude, Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884–1920), 1917. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Two Hands, Claudette Schreuders (b. 1973, Pretoria, South Africa), 2010. Jelutong wood, enamel, oil paint. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Terracotta comic actors, Greek, late 5^th–early 4^th century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter and the Law to Saint Paul, Germany, Westphalia, 1150–1200. Elephant ivory. The Cloisters.

The Third-Class Carriage, Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–79), ca. 1862–64. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Atrium of the Greek and Roman Galleries, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Upper East Side, Manhattan.

Pair of ewers with wild men, Nuremberg (?), ca. 1500. Gilt silver, enamel, and paint. The Cloisters.

House exterior, Harlem, July 21, 2013.

Cuxa Cloister, The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park.

Pool, Meg Webster, 2013. Installed at PS1, Queens.

Commemorative monument, Mayan (Guatemala), first quarter of the 8^th century. Limestone with traces of paint. Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan from the Guatemalan government.

Eagle Attacking a Mountain Lion, Kawanabe Kyōsai (Japanese, 1831–89), 1885. Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Roundel with silver stain. The Cloisters.

Handle in the Shape of a Dragon’s Head, Eastern Han dynasty (China), 1^st–2^nd century. Gilded bronze with traces of red pigment. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Christ Child with an Apple, workshop of Michel Erhart (Ulm, Germany), ca. 1470–80. Willow with original paint and traces of gilding.

Space Womb, Long Island City, Queens.

Colony, a77 (Argentinian). Installed in PS1, Queens.

Somewhere in Manhattan.

5 Pointz, Long Island City, Queens, as seen from the 7 train.

Tomb of Ermengol VII, Count of Urgell, Catalan, Lerida, ca. 1300–50. Limestone with traces of paint. The Cloisters.

Terracotta statuette of a grotesque man with a shield, Greek, 2^nd–1^st century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Roch, Normandy, France, early 16^th century. Oak with paint and gilding. The Cloisters.

Beaker with Apes, South Lowlands, probably Burgundian Territories, ca. 1425–50. Silver, silver gilt, and painted enamel. The Cloisters.

Three Apes Assembling a Trestle Table, Germany (?), 1480–1500. Colorless glass with vitreous paint and silver stain. The Cloisters.

Ink Splash, El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944), 2010. Aluminum and copper wire. Installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

5 Pointz, Long Island City, Queens.

Langon Chapel, The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park.

All photographs by Renée DeVoe Mertz, July 19–21, 2013.

Looking out over the Middle Causeway at sunset.

For our last stop of the day, we made our way from Monasterboice, over the invisible border to Northern Island, through Belfast, and along the island’s northern coast. Thanks to the M-1, we reached our destination well before nightfall.

Giant’s Causeway, a natural formation of thousands of basalt, mostly hexagonal columns along the Antrim Coast, is one of Ireland’s three UNESCO World Heritage sites and the only one located in Northern Ireland. It must be reached on foot, but the walk is a pleasant and brief half-mile or so from the parking lot.

Giant’s Causeway consists of three peninsular outcroppings of increasing size which are appropriately dubbed the Little, Middle, and Grand Causeways. Woven into and around the site are still more evocatively named natural features, including Aird’s snout, the Wishing Chair, the Organ, Chimney Stacks, and Giant’s Gate.

According to legend, the causeway was constructed by the Irish warrior and giant, Finn MacCool, so that he could combat his Scottish counterpart, Benandonner. However, upon discovering that Benandonner far surpassed him in size and strength, MacCool retreated to his home where he disguised himself as a baby. When Benandonner crossed the causeway, he found only the Irish giant’s wife and what appeared to be their very large offspring. Thinking that the father of such a child must be enormous, Benandonner retreated back to his homeland. A slightly different version of the myth is also the subject of the opening sequence of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3 (2002).

In reality, the closely packed, nearly uniform columns were formed around 60 million years ago when Tholeiitic basalt lava cooled, shrank, and cracked into polygonal shapes beneath the ground’s surface. Much later, at the end of the Ice Age, sea ice eroded away the upper layers of earth to reveal the rock formations beneath.