A Tour of The Cloisters | Metropolitan Museum of Art | Manhattan | New York City

Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel. Today I would like to take you to the Cloisters. Let's go check it out. The Cloisters, also known as the Mad Cloisters, it's a museum in Washington Heights, Manhattan specializing in European medieval art and architecture with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. This museum is governed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it contains a large collection of medieval artworks shown in the architectural setting of French monastery. Its buildings are centered around four Cloisters. That's where the name comes from. These Cloisters were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Barnard in France before 1913 and they actually moved them to New York City. Barnard's collection was bought for the museum by financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and some other sources and objects were from the collections of J.P. Morgan. The museum building was designed by the architect Charles Collins on the side of the steep hill with upper and lower levels and it contains medieval gardens and a series of chapels and some galleries including the Romanesque, Unicorn, Spanish and Gothic rooms. The design, layout and ambience of the buildings are intended to evoke a sense of medieval European monastery. It holds about I would say 5,000 works of art and architecture, all European of course and mostly dating from the mainly during I would say 12th through 15th centuries. All these art objects include some stone and wood sculptures, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings. All these artworks are displayed across a series of rooms and spaces mostly separate from those dedicated to the installed architectural artifacts and the Cloisters has never focused on building a collection of masterpieces rather it's just a collection of art objects you know simply arranged to enhance the atmosphere created by the architectural elements in a particular setting or room in which they are placed and to create the atmosphere of a functioning series of Cloisters many of the individual works including capitals, doorways, stained glass and windows in Washington Heights in 1930 and donated it in Bayard collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1931. Upon its opening on May 10, 1938 the Cloisters was described as a collection shown informally in a picturesque setting which stimulates imagination and creates a receptive mood for enjoyment. Actually speaking of Rockefeller, he financed and purchased many of early collection of works after buying independently and then donating them to the museum so basically he not only financed the museum he also financed several collections in this museum he also financed several independent artworks in this museum so he was the major donor of this particular museum and the second major donor of this museum was the industrialist J.P. Morgan. You probably heard about him he is the founder of the Morgan Library and the museum which is also located in New York City and he spent about 20 years of his life acquiring different artworks and he probably spent around something like 900 million dollars that's what I heard in total and after his death his son J.P. Morgan Jr. donated a large number of works from his private collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and these two people because of these two people guys we actually able to go and see this wonderful museum which is located in Manhattan. A lot of people don't know about this museum they think that Metropolitan is only located on Fifth Avenue in Central Park but they have this section and I highly recommend you to come and visit because this museum is pretty cool especially if you're interested in medieval art.