In late February-March 2020, I took a short class called the Art of Seeing based at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For two weeks, my classmates and I would convene daily in the galleries and spend about 3 hours simply observing and discussing pieces of art, ranging from the Old Masters to contemporary sculpture. After class concluded, I would wander the galleries, savoring the opportunity to finally explore the depths of this museum that represented some of the best of what my city had to offer. Little did I know then that this would be my last real in-person experience before New York City, and soon the rest of the country, closed down for the pandemic.

In All the Beauty in the World, Patrick Bringley takes us behind the scenes at the Met through the eyes of a museum guard. His narration take me back to the halls and galleries in my mind’s eye, and I find myself tracing the paths he describes through familiar wings. His language is evocative and he has a keen attention to detail that slowly fills in the empty space with the art and the people who inhabit it - art lovers, tour groups, children’s school groups, and the other guards who stand watch over it all. This visualization is guided by delicate illustrations by Maya McMahon with just the right amount of detail to conjure the scene without removing the role of the reader’s imagination to fill in the details. Readers expecting a technical look at the work of the Met won’t find it here, but this book is a lovely tribute to art and perhaps even more so to art appreciation itself, and what we gain from taking the time to connect with each other.