London Museums

July 19th, 2018

Detail of Parthenon sculpture, British Museum

It seems like ages ago when we were in London, but it's been less than two weeks.  (I guess a lot has happened ....)  I did want to include one additional post on our trip there, though, focusing on visits to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The British Museum holds a special place in my heart because of an oft-told ridiculous family story.  When I was pregnant with Kate, I wanted to take both of the older girls on separate trips before the new baby arrived.  It turned out that I had two business trips planned to interesting locations, New Orleans and Cambridge, England.  So I took Anna to New Orleans (accompanied by my sister Katie) and Caroline to Cambridge and London (accompanied by my Dad).  Both trips were great successes, although perhaps Caroline was more vocal afterwards about her trip.  In particular, she loved the British Museum and spoke often about having seen the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone.  Anna, it turns out, was a little envious that Caroline had seen the Rosetta Stone and started agitating for a trip to London.  Ok, we told her, we will keep that in mind and try to plan something at some later date.  A new baby is on the way, though, so it might not be for a while.

Several months later, new baby having arrived, Glenn and I decided to attend a conference in Toulouse, France.  We would not have childcare to leave the kids at home, so we decided to make a family trip of it, trading off attendance at the conference.  I was in charge of booking the plane tickets, and let's just say that I was not as mindful of the connections as one might often be when traveling with two small children and a baby.  We ended up with a ridiculous flight that had us changing not just planes but airports in London, with a several-hour layover in between.  Frustrated when I realized it, I was determined to make the best of it.  We would use that opportunity to visit the British Museum!  I will not go into the very complicated logistics of stowing our luggage, traveling into and back out of London, getting from Gatwick to Heathrow, etc., but suffice to say it was a pretty exhausting day.  In the middle of it, though, a delighted young Anna was able to spend several minutes gazing in amazement at the Rosetta Stone.  And we had enough time to squeeze in glances at other impressive Egyptian artifacts, the Elgin Marbles, and sculptures from Easter Island.

So, 15 years later, we revisited the British Museum and enjoyed remembering that crazy day.  The highlight this time, though, was an exhibit of Rodin's sculpture.  He, apparently, was deeply influenced by the Greek sculptures in the British Museum, making many trips there to study them, and this exhibit was conceived to discuss and explain those connections and influences.  (I loved the meta aspect to it:  an art exhibit in the British Museum about the effect that the British Museum had on that art, and, hence, really an exhibit about the power of exhibits and the role of museums.)  

Ancient Greek on left, Rodin on right

Two casts of The Thinker

Detail from The Burghers of Calais

The exhibit touched on the biographic---details of the trips to the British Museum, what Rodin saw, how he reacted.  It also discussed similarities of his work to the ancient Greek in technique and subject, from a more traditional perspective of art criticism.  Finally, it displayed some of his actual tools and explained the sculpting process.

Overall, I thought it was an excellent and educational exhibit.  I hope to make it to the Rodin Museum in Paris before we leave and while this exhibit is still fresh in my mind. 

Below are photos of a few other items we saw at the British Museum that caught my eye, Roman sculpture, a tile with an architectural drawing, and the Lewis Chessmen.

On Sunday, we made a trip to the V&A.  I've always enjoyed that museum as a pure visual experience---full of things that are simply lovely to look at, regardless of how important or famous or intellectually demanding.  One might imagine that such a museum would inspire many photos of their simply lovely collection.  In fact, I hardly took any, for some reason.  Here is one, though, a photo of a tennis costume in an exhibit of women's clothing through the ages.  I liked it, although those green squares would have rendered it ineligible for Wimbledon, I think.