We are amused

Off to the Victoria and Albert Museum today; this is always a surprise for me, as it is lodged in my mind from childhood as an old fashioned, fusty museum for experts and grey bores only.  Nothing could be further from the truth - as the V&A has developed over recent years, it has added a whole range of excellent galleries, and the layout is sophisticated and modern.

We spent time looking at the "new" British galleries (they're about 5 years old, I guess).  These are wonderful, with lots of fine artefacts of all kinds, from Henry VII to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, superbly laid out.  And there are increasingly things to do - facsimiles of the books to look at and handle, short but interesting films (eg, on bookbinding, building the Crystal Palace, and hand printing William Morris wallpapers), as well as practical things such as designing a bookplate or a coat of arms, and a remarkably heavy Inverness Cape to try on - I rather fancied it, but luckily the photographs have been destroyed.  This child of 50 designed a coat of arms (appointing himself merely a gentleman, eschewing higher honours available) and choosing martlets, the footless birds of heraldry (they appear on the arms of Sussex) and an appropriate motto, neither desire nor fear:

Also very interesting was the superb long gallery of ironwork, strong and graceful at the same time.  It made me think of Hal o' the Draft in The Wrong Thing  (Kipling, Rewards and Fairies - more here). Hal has done a piece of work for the king, which is all decoration and frippery and foolishness, and his master, Torrigiano, sets him "to draft out a pair of iron gates .. a week at that settled my stomach handsomely, and I put the work through the smithy, where I sweated more of my foolish pride".  He says that "iron's sweet stuff if you don't torture her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reason and a support for every curve and bar of it" - and this superb gallery is wonderful evidence of that.

Finally, on our way out, we saw a Chinese procession, complete with cymbals, drums and dragons for the festival of the largest full moon, which apparently falls on Tuesday next!

Comments

[Lindsay]

Dark Puss' astronomy leaves me well behind, I was merely quoting a museum attendant. I bow to his superior knowledge, and hope one day to understand it.

[Peter the flautist]

According to my British Astronomical Association Handbook (2007), the apside of the moon with the largest apparent diameter occurs this year on October 26th at 02 hours. Tuesday is the 25th, but again my handbook has the date of 28th September as an apside of perigee. Now the Chinese are historically excellent astronomers so I am puzzled by the mismatch here. My astronomical charting software (SkyMap Pro V7) confirms the BAA information. Ah maybe it is literally the 100% full moon (not the same as the apside which may be fractionally less than 100%) - no that isn't the case. Oh well it isn't really that important, and thank you for getting me to look it up!

Dark Puss

[Peter the Flautist]

Why no desire? I am looking very much to seeing the "Art of Lee Miller" exhibition at the V&A, hope (in vain I bet) that there won't be huge queues and crowded rooms. Dark Puss

[Karen]

I see the coat of arms is 'sans canard', but perhaps that wasn't an option!