All the Beauty in the World

A captivating journey through art and life

Patrick Bringley's book, part memoir, part art history, is page after page of fascinating insights into artwork, the artists who created them, a museum that collects and exhibits them, the museum goers who look at them, and—above all—the museum guards who stand unobtrusively against the walls of each gallery, quietly watching and thinking.

Patrick Bringley leaves a cush job at The New Yorker after the death of his beloved older brother and he becomes a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work offers time for reflection and over the course of five or so years, Bringley heals. He and his wife have two children, and he continues to work at the Met for five more years. Bringley develops close friendships there and thinks about art and life and death and meaning.

A lovely, thoughtful book. I enjoyed Bringley's reflections on life as well as the anecdotes he shares.
My favorite part was the last day he spent at the Met.

He decides his favorite piece of art is a Crucifixion by Fra Angelico. “My fondness for it owes something to my biases...I like old Christian art and its luminous sadness. I like that the picture makes me think of Tom, however painful that may be. Christ's body looks like it's been nailed to the mast of some storm-tossed ship. It's the center around which the rest of the world seems to rock and wheel. A graceful, broken body, it reminds us again of the obvious: that we're mortal, that we suffer, that bravery in suffering is beautiful, that loss inspires love and lamentation.”

He takes away much from his experiences in the museum. “Artists create records of transitory moments, appearing to stop their clocks. They help us believe that some things aren't transitory at all but rather remain beautiful, true, majestic, sad, or joyful over many lifetimes—and here is the proof, painted in oils, carved in marble, stitched into quilts.”

And more: “But when I took up my post ten years ago there were things I didn't understand. Sometimes, life can be about simplicity and stillness, in the vein of a watchful guard amid shimmering works of art. But it is also about the head-down work of living and struggling and growing and creating.”

A delight. Rarely have I encountered a non-fiction book about art and not craved most to be standing in front of those pieces being discussed, but the author's journey brings a unique and personal viewpoint to that art, to the time in his life where he chose to guard it as a profession, to the people he encountered there, to the events in his life that began and ended this period. It's beautiful in and of itself, for loving both art and life.
Bringley speaks with such a simple solemnity about grief, such a peaceful levity about appreciation, about humanity. I sincerely hope to read more from him in the future. 
If you get the chance, I recommend a tandem read. The meditative pace at which the author himself reads the audio book invites quiet contemplation, and the physical book includes both a handy reference guide to what works are discussed, and also studies in sketches of various of these works by a modern illustrator.    
⚠️terminal illness