The British Museum
I went there for a few hours on Thursday and the place is incredible. It's hard to find words to describe it actually because it really is awe-inspiring. It's free to visit (always a bonus) and has a fantastic shop that I desperately want to spend money in on things that I know that I don't really need but want anyway. [It's easier to start on the trivial and work one's way out..].
If you've watched The League of Extraordinary Gentleman or even Beauty and Beast ... both of these films have library scenes. The kind of libraries that geeky little scholarly book lovers such as I dream of. The kind where you walk in and there is a high valuted ceiling above you. The book cases run from floor to ceiling thus requiring little narrow multi-storied walkways and laddders. Walking into the Reading Room at the British Museum is like walking into just such a movie. It really looks like that. There are rare books adorning the shelves and many of the books you can request to be brought down for reading.
You walk into the exhibition hall for ancient works and the first thing that you see is the Rosetta Stone. Just wow. Then you turn right into the hall on ancient Egypt. The first thing that strikes you is the fact that the statues and artwork are on open pedestals. These artefacts that are thousands of years old aren't behind glass or barriers. The attitude seems to be that if they've survived sand storms, adverse weather conditions, wars, looting, earthquakes etc... for this long then they can survive tourists. One still has a sneaking feeling that one day some errant youth will take a permanent marker to one and leave their tag but perhaps the sense of awe inspired is enough to deter such activity. Being able to walk right up to them, to touch them... it is incredible. People sit on the feet of sarcophogai and have photos taken or balance soft toys on statues to include them in the shot. The sense of age and of a different time and culture is intense. The huge sarcophogai are also a hugely different artistic, cultural and religious contrast to say the royal tombs in Westminster.
Then there's a corridor that simply displays the wall hangings from Ancient Assyria... some are in pieces and others are significantly intact for several meters. It's fascinating too reading the historical texts about them and seeing reconstructions of what they originally looked like. I didn't grasp immediately that they had all been full painted originally. The stone work has such fine detail and all of the paint has long flaked away over the centuries.
The ancient Roman and Greek collections are beautiful. I didn't quite get through all of it as it's huge. It was interesting to reading about the way different political situations and expansions had affected the interchange of religious and artistic ideas through the mediterranean and middle east. I can't remember what it was but there was something that I had always thought was Greek which turned out to have originated somewhere else entirely.
The other incredible thing is that they allow cameras all through the museum! Cameras are banned at some churches, like Westminster, and all of the art galleries but it looks like the museums allow them. So next time I will get many many pictures!
If you've watched The League of Extraordinary Gentleman or even Beauty and Beast ... both of these films have library scenes. The kind of libraries that geeky little scholarly book lovers such as I dream of. The kind where you walk in and there is a high valuted ceiling above you. The book cases run from floor to ceiling thus requiring little narrow multi-storied walkways and laddders. Walking into the Reading Room at the British Museum is like walking into just such a movie. It really looks like that. There are rare books adorning the shelves and many of the books you can request to be brought down for reading.
You walk into the exhibition hall for ancient works and the first thing that you see is the Rosetta Stone. Just wow. Then you turn right into the hall on ancient Egypt. The first thing that strikes you is the fact that the statues and artwork are on open pedestals. These artefacts that are thousands of years old aren't behind glass or barriers. The attitude seems to be that if they've survived sand storms, adverse weather conditions, wars, looting, earthquakes etc... for this long then they can survive tourists. One still has a sneaking feeling that one day some errant youth will take a permanent marker to one and leave their tag but perhaps the sense of awe inspired is enough to deter such activity. Being able to walk right up to them, to touch them... it is incredible. People sit on the feet of sarcophogai and have photos taken or balance soft toys on statues to include them in the shot. The sense of age and of a different time and culture is intense. The huge sarcophogai are also a hugely different artistic, cultural and religious contrast to say the royal tombs in Westminster.
Then there's a corridor that simply displays the wall hangings from Ancient Assyria... some are in pieces and others are significantly intact for several meters. It's fascinating too reading the historical texts about them and seeing reconstructions of what they originally looked like. I didn't grasp immediately that they had all been full painted originally. The stone work has such fine detail and all of the paint has long flaked away over the centuries.
The ancient Roman and Greek collections are beautiful. I didn't quite get through all of it as it's huge. It was interesting to reading about the way different political situations and expansions had affected the interchange of religious and artistic ideas through the mediterranean and middle east. I can't remember what it was but there was something that I had always thought was Greek which turned out to have originated somewhere else entirely.
The other incredible thing is that they allow cameras all through the museum! Cameras are banned at some churches, like Westminster, and all of the art galleries but it looks like the museums allow them. So next time I will get many many pictures!
posted by Nixie! at 7:24 am
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