All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
by Patrick Bringley
Related videos
7:22
Author interview plus footage of Met artworks + family photos
20K
457
Mar, 2023
Spoiler:
Describing grief as “a loss of rhythm,” the author sought solace in the confines of the Met after his brother Tom’s death at age 26. Bringley describes his brother as focusing on the things that mattered, which motivated the author to make a career change and become a museum security guard. In his new job, he found that many of the paintings “gave off a feeling, a presence, a sort of power” that reminded him of Tom. He says he repeatedly went back to Pieter Bruegel’s painting “The Harvesters.”
28:04
Interview with author + slides of selected Met artwork
8K
449
Mar, 2023
Spoiler:
The author worked for ten years as one of 500 security guards at the Met, seeking out the job because he wanted to be “speechless” and “still” after the death of his older brother from cancer. He says one of the ways we can use art is to let its stillness and silence quiet us, acknowledging that on the other side of that stillness is an artist “chewing up a paintbrush.” His favorite non-Met piece of art about New York City is the Dylan song “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”
4:54
Author sits down with CBS News + family and work photos
1K
25
Feb, 2023
Spoiler:
Patrick Bringley shares the origins of his foray into security-guard work: his older brother died of cancer while the author was working at The New Yorker, and Bringley decided he wanted to “stand still awhile” and to do something “straightforward and honest” like protecting precious works of art. Although he worked at the Met for ten years, he says he still visits and would even if he had worked there for fifty years because the museum is “inexhaustible.”
114:04
Author presents via video and shares photos of Met
426
14
Feb, 2023
Spoiler:
The author gives an insider’s view of the Met, which sits on twelve acres of Central Park. He describes the area where he entered and prepared for work as “an endless series of labyrinths” that includes a working armory where a medieval helmet might be repaired, for example, and endless yellow signs that warn “Yield to Art in Transit.” He says one of the great things about being alone at his post before the visitors arrived was that there was no need to think rational thoughts.
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