Much like many other art students, I expected my 2025 winter break to be filled with a lot of free time to spend making and seeing art that inspired me outside of the classroom level. However, much like many of you may have also experienced, my winter break went by far too fast and was unexpectedly busy. However, I was lucky enough to take a day trip to NYC this past week and visit the MET museum! I could not have thought of a better way to end the break and inspire while beginning this new semester than to experience so many beautiful and historic pieces of art. So, to hopefully inspire some of you as well, I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces that I saw!

This piece was a part of the Chinese calligraphy section and although there were many similar beautiful pieces, this one in particular stood out to be because of the effortless calligraphy, beautiful flowers, and simplistic but beautiful artwork.

As someone whose preferred media is oil painting, the European painting section was the one that I was most excited to visit. As an avid cat lover as well, of course this picture was my favorite. I particularly love how there is a black cat in the picture who you can only see by his eyes because I have a black cat at home who looks the same in the dark!

The last piece I want to share with you is Psyche revived by Cupid’s Kiss. Despite being mostly a painter, this sculpture became my favorite piece from the museum because of the emotions it evokes from the viewer. The sculpture has such a beautiful feeling of love, warmth, and tenderness that is perfectly captures in their poses.

As the spring semester begins, I hope that you all find the inspiration and excitement for this semester that visiting the MET gave me. Whether it be through your own work or other’s, I hope that we all are able to ignite the passion we need to become the best artists we can be this semester!

~Ragan P.