The Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria & Albert doesn't get nearly as much press as the other museums (and is blissfully free of school children) but it is well worth visiting. Pick up a floor plan. Reaaly really pick up the museum map. Whoever designed the museum has a similar sense of malign amusement to, well, several of my male acquaintences that I can think of. It's the sort of place where suddenly you come to stairway J, you have take stairway J to get from 22a to 33b (from Floor 2 to Floor 3) because if you simply wander up to Floor 3 you will find that you can't access room 33b. In other words, the rooms are not all interconnected as logical flow would suggest. Instead there's a labrynth of stairways, walkways out to jutting tors of exhibit platforms, hidden rooms and various galleries. It adds a great deal of fun to the experience. You find yourself suddenly chacing upon a renaissance dance room that has been moved from the manor or nobles's home where once it resided and has now been encapsulated within the womb of the museum. If they are very lucky it will breed with the Tudor antiquities (there are several bedrooms recreated with original furniture) and not only allow the museum to start it's own furniture pron site but will also give them startling new exhibits that can perhabs be auctioned at Sotherbys.
Another delight of the museum is that despite it's far greater focus on luxuriating in the visual splendour and opulence that surrounds you then really teaching you anything (a different weighting to the Science Museum) there are discrete touchscreens that will provide you with a great deal of information should you wish to delve into their digital databases. There are also cute little activity centres tucked away around corners where you can design and print your own heraldry or do rubbings etc.... (free souvenirs are all good!).
The range of what the museum displays is also fantastic. There's an entire gallery just on silver objects; another on metal work (largely grills and suchlike); one on musical instruments; galleries on Japan, China and Korea; an extensive western European collection from the middle ages onwards - artwork, furnishings and clothing. There is also their exhibit on Raphael. They have displayed six of his cartoons - the wall sized paintings that he treated as works of art in their own right but were functionalyl used as guides for the loomworkers to turn them into tapestries for wall hangings (for a Pope). One of these was followed a reasonably short time later to also make a tapestry for hanging in Britain. It hangs opposite the cartoon and the differences in colour help to indicate the way that the top pigments have faded over time to reveal the base colours underneath (specifically in regards to the mix he used for the shade of red he preferred and used on Jesus robes in the scene where he tells the soon to be disciples to cast out their empty nets).
In two huge (huge in every dimensional capacity) galleries they hold a collection of plaster work. They have historical value in their own right in that they date back to the a trend in such things during the Victorian age. At first one feels a little cheated to be seeing plaster copies of originals (in some cases I had seen the originals elsewhere) until one moves into the rooms and one istead feels a sense of awe. The level of detail is exquisite. The sizing is incredible. Entire vaulting church fronts have been recreated. Parts of rooms or chapels are their in their entirity. There are copies of statues by Michaelangelo, there are medieval coffins and many other things.
One church front was fascinating. You have to sit on a bench and just take it in and gaze upwards. If you look carefully you can see a statue of the original crafter kneeling in front of the church behind one of the columns and yet part of you wanders if such work, if such a creation of man, honours more the works of God or of man himself. In fact, although most of the saints and church elders are looking upwards towards God (literally, there is a figure of God or the Christ centred at the highest point), if you scan across all of them you realize that one is instead looking straight back at you and he appears to be laughing...
There are also columns from Italy that (in the original) date back to late Rome and tower meters upon meters up to the lofty arched roof above. The level of detail in the carvings on them, from the base to the top, is beautiful and inspiring.
Another delight of the museum is that despite it's far greater focus on luxuriating in the visual splendour and opulence that surrounds you then really teaching you anything (a different weighting to the Science Museum) there are discrete touchscreens that will provide you with a great deal of information should you wish to delve into their digital databases. There are also cute little activity centres tucked away around corners where you can design and print your own heraldry or do rubbings etc.... (free souvenirs are all good!).
The range of what the museum displays is also fantastic. There's an entire gallery just on silver objects; another on metal work (largely grills and suchlike); one on musical instruments; galleries on Japan, China and Korea; an extensive western European collection from the middle ages onwards - artwork, furnishings and clothing. There is also their exhibit on Raphael. They have displayed six of his cartoons - the wall sized paintings that he treated as works of art in their own right but were functionalyl used as guides for the loomworkers to turn them into tapestries for wall hangings (for a Pope). One of these was followed a reasonably short time later to also make a tapestry for hanging in Britain. It hangs opposite the cartoon and the differences in colour help to indicate the way that the top pigments have faded over time to reveal the base colours underneath (specifically in regards to the mix he used for the shade of red he preferred and used on Jesus robes in the scene where he tells the soon to be disciples to cast out their empty nets).
In two huge (huge in every dimensional capacity) galleries they hold a collection of plaster work. They have historical value in their own right in that they date back to the a trend in such things during the Victorian age. At first one feels a little cheated to be seeing plaster copies of originals (in some cases I had seen the originals elsewhere) until one moves into the rooms and one istead feels a sense of awe. The level of detail is exquisite. The sizing is incredible. Entire vaulting church fronts have been recreated. Parts of rooms or chapels are their in their entirity. There are copies of statues by Michaelangelo, there are medieval coffins and many other things.
One church front was fascinating. You have to sit on a bench and just take it in and gaze upwards. If you look carefully you can see a statue of the original crafter kneeling in front of the church behind one of the columns and yet part of you wanders if such work, if such a creation of man, honours more the works of God or of man himself. In fact, although most of the saints and church elders are looking upwards towards God (literally, there is a figure of God or the Christ centred at the highest point), if you scan across all of them you realize that one is instead looking straight back at you and he appears to be laughing...
There are also columns from Italy that (in the original) date back to late Rome and tower meters upon meters up to the lofty arched roof above. The level of detail in the carvings on them, from the base to the top, is beautiful and inspiring.
posted by Nixie! at 8:05 am
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