What was the first thing I wanted to do? Go to the Victoria and Albert Museum! It's a huge museum in South Kensington full of art from all over the world. However, it specializes in British and Renaissance artwork. Mostly, it has pieces of furniture, statues, and clothing. Not as many paintings- though there are quite a few of those as well. Allison, Jackie and I took the tube down to Kensington, and then it was museum time!
The first exhibit I went through was the fashion exhibit! There were articles of clothing from as early as the 1700's, and they were in quite brilliant condition. I loved this gallery, and had never seen anything quite like it before. In addition to all of the historic clothing, there was also a room full of new conceptual fashion art done by advanced art students.
Just a warning- this post is going to have so many pictures. I feel like museums can be expressed better in photographs, even lame photographs like mine, than in just words. And, since I took 277 pictures today apparently, I feel like I might as well share them!
The next gallery we went in was all British art, from 1500-1800, which was very cool. The vast majority of it was decorative art, but there were all kinds of different pieces to look at. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even though we just sort of stumbled upon it.
Next we went through the statue gallery, where we had entered the museum. It was very impressive. There were many works by Rodin, as well as others whom I had not heard of before. Here were a few of my favourites- including the most gruesom statue in the entire room. I'm talking about the one where the man is shaving off the other man's skin with a knife. The children are happily playing instruments, watching this atrocious act happen. Yikes.
That last one is a little scary too. The statue itself was a little frightening, but I think my camera angle made it, well, a little bit more so for all kinds of reasons.
The next gallery was my favourite by far! It's apparently a quite new part of the Victoria and Albert. It just opened this past fall. This would be the Medieval and Renaissance gallery. It was unbelievable. I knew it would be cool, but I was decidedly unprepared. Before this, the best medieval and renaissance collection I had seen had been in the Philadelphia Art Museum. This was jut massive. We only saw a part of it. And that's not the only way that it was massive- there were some statues in this gallery that were probably three or four stories high, and wider in diameter than my room. I was wondering how on earth they get those type of things into the museum, or how they moved them in the first place. They must cut them to pieces and then reassemble them in the gallery. I can't even imagine being the person who has that job. Make one slip, and historians and art lovers will hate you for life.
Beyond that- I wondered why some of the pieces were there. I mean, I was overjoyed that they were, but I was wondering who moved them and why. For example, there was a huge collection of medieval grave effigies. Richard I's effigy was there, in the museum! But why was it not on his grave any more? Was the grave destroyed, or was it sold or what? It seemed kind of disrespectful, really. There were also two church entrances from renaissance cathedrals. What happened to the rest? Was it still standing there, frontless, or was it knocked down to build a McDonalds? Just food for thought.
That last photo is of one of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks!
Here are a few other photos from around the V&A. I love how juxtaposed this first one of the great entrance is... with the modern art, victorian architecture and medieval church entryway...
what is that blue and green glass-blown sculpture?!?! SO AWESOME.
ReplyDeletep.s. love from Joan & Jen <3