Roosters, teddy bears, shepherd's pie and Freud
Woo, was yesterday a doozy! Such a doozy, in fact, that I slept in today until after 11AM and so am getting a late start. Thank goodness I have a whole year to discover this place.
Yesterday was the second installment of "How many times can I look at a map and then walk in the opposite direction of where I should be going?" The answer: a lot. I probably spent about two hours wandering around with no sense of direction. It's very freeing, actually. Kind of like when you play that trust game where you fall back and somebody has to catch you... if it took two hours to do that.
I finally got where I wanted to be, my first stop: the Percival David Museum of Chinese Art in Bloomsbury. Now, this is a place where unless you have a specialized interest in the fine art of decorating and glazing porcelain, you don't need to spend a lot of time. If you're in a real hurry, go straight to the second floor, because that's where the really fabulous pieces are -- more than your standard blue-and-white inking. I'm talking brilliantly colored and amazing detailed landscapes and designs -- including a complete twelve-cup tea set of a richly painted rooster and flowers. In the changing exhibition room I learned a fun fact -- when artists painted dragons (which stand for royal authority and the protection of that authority) on these pieces, they varied the number of claws on the dragons' feet depending on the status of the receiver of the piece. So officials' dragons have three claws, princes' have four, and emperors' have five claws. Naturally, I had to start counting claws on every piece of dragon china, and there were quite a few emperors' flasks and incense burners lying around the place. Definitely a fun place for a quick half-hour or so.
Next up, Pollock's Toy Museum, a little further into Bloomsbury. Or as I would like to rename it, "Pollock's Kitsch Magnet." You know all that crap you try to hawk on other people at garage sales or end up just throwing out when you move? Yeah. In London, a guy is charging people £3. 50 to look at it. Floor to ceiling full of toys and old comics; even on the stairways, there are glass display cases full of crap. Some of it is entertaining, especially the roomful of toy theaters (elaborate dioramas featuring sets, actors, curtains, all on one-dimensional paper cut-outs). And now, thanks to the information sheets posted, I know that "Chutes and Ladders" was actually an old Indian game used to teach children reincarnation -- you're bad, you go down; you're good, you go up -- and that the weird game pieces for Monopoly were from the creator's wife's charm bracelet. But there were several rooms of old dolls, many of them staring out from their displays with a palpable hatred for those who disturbed their slumber. Those rooms I walked through very quickly, so I couldn't tell you much about them. In one room, though, I looked up as I ran, only to see a display case full of teddy bears arranged on tree branches in such a way that it looked as if there'd just been a lynching party. Sick.
I happened upon the Correspondence section of something called "The Girl's Own Paper," circa 1888, glued to the back of a door. The ladies writing this stuff sure were sassy! I wrote down a couple of choice tidbits, to show all of you that snarkiness is not a product of the late 20th/early 21st centuries:
Priceless!
Next I took a break from my "museum day" and had a leisurely lunch with the latest edition of TimeOut London at the Fitzrovia, your typical English pub, where you order and pay at the bar and have the food brought out to your table. Clearly the Fitzrovia has a large number of tourists in its clientele, as they had signs explaining this procedure everywhere. I was delighted to find that "traditional" did not mean "we hate vegetarians" -- I had my first English shepherd's pie, with spicy beans instead of beef. Yum, mashed potatoes and beans. And garlic bread! Sometimes, it's the simple things.
To round up the museum tour I made my way to the British Museum. At this point, though, my several hours of being lost, on top of a full stomach, were catching up to me... so I decided to stick to one exhibit for starters. Luckily the BM is right near my university, so I plan to do such shorter visits often over the course of the year. On this day I went to the "Prints and Drawings" section to see the "From Matisse to Freud" exhibit, taken from the recent bequest of Alexander Walker, a well-known and apparently very wealthy film critic for the London Evening Standard. The exhibit focused mostly on art from the last half of the twentieth century -- so there was some Lucian Freud, as the title says, but also the Op Art phenom Bridget Riley, some Jasper Johns, and some great minimalist etchings by a woman I hadn't heard before, and whose name I don't have with me now. If you're that interested, just ask and I'll give it to you later.
After a long day, I headed back to the hostel, drank some water, and changed for another outing to Poetry Unplugged, an open mic event at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. But that will have to wait for our next installment, as it is past lunchtime -- and I can't go see Henry VIII's enormous armor in the Tower of London on an empty stomach, now can I?
Yesterday was the second installment of "How many times can I look at a map and then walk in the opposite direction of where I should be going?" The answer: a lot. I probably spent about two hours wandering around with no sense of direction. It's very freeing, actually. Kind of like when you play that trust game where you fall back and somebody has to catch you... if it took two hours to do that.
I finally got where I wanted to be, my first stop: the Percival David Museum of Chinese Art in Bloomsbury. Now, this is a place where unless you have a specialized interest in the fine art of decorating and glazing porcelain, you don't need to spend a lot of time. If you're in a real hurry, go straight to the second floor, because that's where the really fabulous pieces are -- more than your standard blue-and-white inking. I'm talking brilliantly colored and amazing detailed landscapes and designs -- including a complete twelve-cup tea set of a richly painted rooster and flowers. In the changing exhibition room I learned a fun fact -- when artists painted dragons (which stand for royal authority and the protection of that authority) on these pieces, they varied the number of claws on the dragons' feet depending on the status of the receiver of the piece. So officials' dragons have three claws, princes' have four, and emperors' have five claws. Naturally, I had to start counting claws on every piece of dragon china, and there were quite a few emperors' flasks and incense burners lying around the place. Definitely a fun place for a quick half-hour or so.
Next up, Pollock's Toy Museum, a little further into Bloomsbury. Or as I would like to rename it, "Pollock's Kitsch Magnet." You know all that crap you try to hawk on other people at garage sales or end up just throwing out when you move? Yeah. In London, a guy is charging people £3. 50 to look at it. Floor to ceiling full of toys and old comics; even on the stairways, there are glass display cases full of crap. Some of it is entertaining, especially the roomful of toy theaters (elaborate dioramas featuring sets, actors, curtains, all on one-dimensional paper cut-outs). And now, thanks to the information sheets posted, I know that "Chutes and Ladders" was actually an old Indian game used to teach children reincarnation -- you're bad, you go down; you're good, you go up -- and that the weird game pieces for Monopoly were from the creator's wife's charm bracelet. But there were several rooms of old dolls, many of them staring out from their displays with a palpable hatred for those who disturbed their slumber. Those rooms I walked through very quickly, so I couldn't tell you much about them. In one room, though, I looked up as I ran, only to see a display case full of teddy bears arranged on tree branches in such a way that it looked as if there'd just been a lynching party. Sick.
I happened upon the Correspondence section of something called "The Girl's Own Paper," circa 1888, glued to the back of a door. The ladies writing this stuff sure were sassy! I wrote down a couple of choice tidbits, to show all of you that snarkiness is not a product of the late 20th/early 21st centuries:
Lottie we are sorry to hear of the sad accident to your
eye. But your innoculating yourself was a crazy action for which you paid
dearly, and risked giving infection to others. Learn to spell and write
and to speak English.
Fiona your "water colour drawings" so called, are fearful
achievements. Pray do not waste your time in pursuing the study of
painting, nor our time in sending us examples.
Priceless!
Next I took a break from my "museum day" and had a leisurely lunch with the latest edition of TimeOut London at the Fitzrovia, your typical English pub, where you order and pay at the bar and have the food brought out to your table. Clearly the Fitzrovia has a large number of tourists in its clientele, as they had signs explaining this procedure everywhere. I was delighted to find that "traditional" did not mean "we hate vegetarians" -- I had my first English shepherd's pie, with spicy beans instead of beef. Yum, mashed potatoes and beans. And garlic bread! Sometimes, it's the simple things.
To round up the museum tour I made my way to the British Museum. At this point, though, my several hours of being lost, on top of a full stomach, were catching up to me... so I decided to stick to one exhibit for starters. Luckily the BM is right near my university, so I plan to do such shorter visits often over the course of the year. On this day I went to the "Prints and Drawings" section to see the "From Matisse to Freud" exhibit, taken from the recent bequest of Alexander Walker, a well-known and apparently very wealthy film critic for the London Evening Standard. The exhibit focused mostly on art from the last half of the twentieth century -- so there was some Lucian Freud, as the title says, but also the Op Art phenom Bridget Riley, some Jasper Johns, and some great minimalist etchings by a woman I hadn't heard before, and whose name I don't have with me now. If you're that interested, just ask and I'll give it to you later.
After a long day, I headed back to the hostel, drank some water, and changed for another outing to Poetry Unplugged, an open mic event at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. But that will have to wait for our next installment, as it is past lunchtime -- and I can't go see Henry VIII's enormous armor in the Tower of London on an empty stomach, now can I?
posted by HB @ 12:00 PM
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