Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Museums and cultural oddities...

Today, I had my first field trip. We went to the Bowes Museum in Durham. It looked something like this:
It's a huge French style mansion in the middle of northern England. It's literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by giant green fields in every direction for about 4 miles. Inside, apart from all of the cool 18th and 19th century paintings and furniture, there are some crazy little odds and ends...














These are the artsy farts macro shots I took. I know it's dumb to take odd angle pictures of the radiator when surrounded by a mansion full of beautiful art, but where else on the internet can you get a first hand look at the Bowes Museum's heating system and closet doors? Next we have some of the more picture worthy exhibits...














Here we have an automaton goose from around 1774. I guess a giant metal goose that swings it's head around when a coin is inserted couldn't provide enough entertainment for a 21st century audience, so they added the sign to keep people interested. Funnily enough, this is the museum's prize exhibit, but I like these:














On the left we have two naked toddlers lying together in a bed in a very "comfortable" position. Sure, you can defend the innocence of this sculpture by saying that it's depicting a brother and sister lying in a cradle or something. But I see babies in the post-coital position, and there's not much to be said that will make me think otherwise. On the right we have a 19th century depiction of an "African". This is just a face shot, but the body was naked black porcelain complete with loin cloth and spear. Yay, racism!

Also, it was a very pretty day today, but here's what it looked like when I looked out the museum window...
AH! It's The Mist! Run!!!

The group that went was entirely American. One day I'll relate the experience of traveling around Europe while part of a large group of Americans, but not today. Next comes my first of many 5 day weekends. I'll let you know the goings on..:-)

-Matt

1 comment:

Melissa said...

where's all the ART?