It has found its audience, and, especially in Brooklyn, it's good that the majority of young people find something of real interest to them at the borough's major museum. Roberta Smith, writing in the New York Times , found nothing to get excited about, let alone protest or censor. In fact, it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. If you cannot read Mandarin Chinese or even identify a single ideographic character some of the calligraphies from the John B. Elliott Collection are still very impressive as designs or images. In fact, this very special show is all about the images evoked by strong calligraphies.
Thoughtful texts explain symbols and meanings for the uninitiated.
Chosen from the works of Chinese masters, some 55 calligraphies are now on display. They cover a range of a thousand years, up to the present. Ancient Egyptian beauty-aid from Eton College's Myers Museum current loans to Met Museum. Compared with the Met Museum's already vast collections of Egyptian art, the small room devoted to the treasures of the Myers Museum on loan from Eton College may seem like more or less of the same. But by the severe selectivity of the objects chosen and their intrinsic beauty of design and execution this show focuses attention on details often lost in large-scale stretches of exhibition cases crammed with scarabs and the like.