The Cuxa Cloister 1

by Sarah Loft

Title

The Cuxa Cloister 1

Artist

Sarah Loft

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

This is one of the four cloisters that form part of the Cloisters Museum in Manhattan, New York, photographed in early June.

Per Wikipedia: The Cloisters is a museum in Upper Manhattan, New York City specializing in European medieval architecture, sculpture and decorative arts, and is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its early collection was built up by the American sculptor, art dealer and collector George Grey Barnard, and acquired by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1925. Rockefeller extended the collection and in 1931 purchased the site at Washington Heights and contracted the design for the Cloisters building.

The Cuxa Cloisters are located on the south side of the building and structurally and thematically are the museum's centerpiece. They are from the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, on the slopes of Mount Canigou in the northeast French Pyrenees, founded in 878. The monastery was abandoned in 1791. Around half of the building was relocated to New York, after it was purchased by Barnard in 1906 and 1907. Until then it had been in disrepair; its roof had collapsed in 1835, followed by its bell tower in 1839. They were then acquired by John D. Rockefeller Jr in 1925, and their installation was one of the first major undertakings by the Metropolitan after it had acquired and absorbed his purchase of Barnard's collection. After intensive work over fall and winter 1925–26, the Cuxa cloister was opened to the public on April 1, 1926.

The Cuxa cloisters are placed at the center of the museum; its quadrangle-shaped garden once formed a center around which monks slept in cells. Its original garden seemed to have been lined by walkways around adjoining arches lined with capitals enclosing the garth. The oldest plan of the original building describes lilies and roses. It is impossible now to represent solely medieval species and arrangements; those in the Cuxa cloister garden are approximations by botanists specializing in medieval history. The intersection of the two walkways contains an eight-sided fountain.

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Featured in the Wisconsin Flowers and Scenery group, July 2017.

Featured in the Images That Excite You group, July 2017.

Uploaded

June 7th, 2017

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