Five Highlights at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Death of Socrates- Jacques Louis David
This is one of the most famous artworks by French Neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David. It shows the Greek philosopher Socrates about to drink poisonous hemlock after the Athenian government gave him an ultimatum: he could either stop espousing his supposedly dangerous views or kill himself. David paints him with compositional techniques which he picked up years earlier a student at the French Royal Academy; Socrates, despite being an old man, is rendered as a heroic, muscular figure positioned in a bold, defiant gesture. He immediately catches the viewer’s eye as he’s bathed in light and framed in the centre of the canvas by his grieving disciples. The pro-revolutionary David may well have chosen Socrates as the subject as he was an inspirational antiauthoritarian figure who was willing to die beliefs.

The Harvesters- Pieter Bruegel The Elder
This autumnal scene is one in a series of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder which depict the seasons (the most famous from this cycle is undoubtedly the wintery Hunters in the Snow). Here we see a group of harvesters working in the fields, some toiling, others taking a well-earned rest. If we zoom in on the valley in the background we see other villagers enjoying the last of year’s warm weather. This and the other works in the series were so groundbreaking in the way that they helped shift painting away from classical or religious themes and towards a more secular focus, which captured the lives of regular people, and elevated the status of landscape from background to subject.

View of Toledo- El Greco
This otherworldly painting of the Spanish hilltop top Toledo where El Greco lived for much of his life is one of the artist’s most celebrated works. Rather than depicting the view as it actually appeared, El Greco took some creative liberties to accentuate different features of landscape. Few artists use color in such a dramatic way; the sky—a combination of black, blue and bright white— seems to be teeming with electric energy, and the town’s buildings are almost silver against the dark background. As a result it looks more like a dreamscape than a depiction of any real place, and it can be seen as an antecedent to the Surrealist paintings of the 20th century.

Young Woman With A Water Pitcher- Johannes Vermeer
This lesser known painting by Dutch Golden Age master Vermeer is another example of the artist’s unique ability to transform seemingly mundane events into beautiful scenes. Vermeer’s works are imbued with such a perfect stillness that they give the impression that we’re observing a significant moment frozen in time. In this instance a woman wearing a deep blue robe which stands out against the muted colours of the wall, goes about her domestic duties; the pitcher and basin on the table symbolize cleansing and hints at the woman’s virtuousness.