Museum Exhibit Review:
European Helmets, 1450-1650: Treasures from the Reserve Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY
January 25, 2000 through January 31, 2001

 

No fencer needs to be told the importance of wearing a mask. Similarly, no reasonable horseman would mount even the gentlest horse without a riding helmet. The head is easily the most vulnerable areas of the body, and even a minor injury can have grave consequences. Throughout the centuries, whenever man has sought to fashion a second protective skin for himself, the head had always been one of the first areas to be armored. The beauty of the armorer's art is that, from sheer physical necessity, a variety of ingenious and beautiful forms of specialized protection have been developed.

The current exhibition in the Arms and Armor wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases over two centuries' worth of helmets. Ranging from comparatively simple Medieval sallets, elegant in their compound curves, to a bizarre seventeenth- century "spider helmet" that releases a spring-loaded protective cage at the touch of a button, each piece is unique. There are sixteenth-century Milanese helmets fashioned to look like something out of Greek myth, close helmets etched with wonderfully detailed engravings, and tournament helms whose stark plainness bespeaks the dangers of this knightly sport. In all, some seventy-four helmets, most never exhibited to the public before, have been crammed together into the small gallery at the rear of the Arms and Armor department.

The age-pitted surfaces of these utilitarian artworks seem to almost have stories inscribed in them. What men sweat, bled, lived, and died in this steel headgear? What would life have been like through their eyes (or, rather, oculariums)? Each piece can not help but to spark the viewer's imagination.

If there can be any criticism of this fine exhibition, it would perhaps be that its scope is not wide enough. Perhaps pieces of less artistic, though more historical, merit, such World War I "doughboy" helmets, should have been installed for comparison with the earlier pieces. The historical context of each individual item might also be hard to establish, for, to the non-specialist unversed in the development of arms and armor, the exhibit merely looks like a bunch of helmets and associated factoids. Also, though interactive learning is not a hallmark of the Met's exhibitions, we cannot help but wonder if perhaps a modern reproduction or two might have been provided for hands-on examination by the public, as is done at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worchester.

Finally, more than a few pieces seem to have been altered or have vital pieces "associated" that is, added on to the whole so as to achieve a different "look," or to replace a damaged or missing part. Whereas we cannot blame the Met's staff for what has happened to the pieces before they came into the Museum's possession, we may wonder if perhaps endowment funds might be found to have pieces that are anachronistic or incongruous in style replaced with reasonable facsimiles manufactured by modern armorers.