This year marks Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday, so this month we’ll be featuring works fr

This year marks Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday, so this month we’ll be featuring works from the collection along with commentary from Whitman’s writings.In the 1850s, Walt Whitman frequented an exhibition of Egyptian artifacts now part of the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. He befriended the original collector, Dr. Henry Abbott, and even read through a two-volume history of ancient Egypt (a rare feat for the poet, who notoriously left books unfinished). The royal effect and calm expression of statues like this one resonated with Whitman, who called the Egyptian collection “a place to go when one would ponder and evolve great thoughts.”Continue the Whitman celebrations on October 25, when we unveil a new artwork inspired by the famous Brooklynite in One: Xu Bing and use the #ASKBKM app to tour the Museum in the author’s footsteps.Posted by Forrest PelsueHead of an Early Eighteenth Dynasty King, ca. 1539-1493 B.C.E. Sandstone, pigment. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.38E. Creative Commons-BY  -- source link

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