A Bug's Life

I was one today, when I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum for the first time ever despite having lived in Cambridge for three years. I've been a bit spoilt by the London museums: "Art and Antiquities" - I was kind of expecting it to be like the Victoria and Albert, the British Museum, the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery all rolled into one. I'd walked past the imposing wide building before, but had a Doctor Who moment - it's smaller on the inside :-)

Lunch with 1ngi was nice - the café did a nice vegan spicy aubergine salad and watermelon smoothies :-)

Then we walked around a bit. I had Byzantine perspective explained to me: it looks odd to us because it is not designed to draw you deep into the picture, but to enhance things and move them to the foreground so you can have a more intense interaction with the picture elements - ideally like a religious experience. (So now when people criticise my composition, which tends to give each element the same weight, I can claim that it is intentional)

Walter Sickert paints like my great uncle John Duguid! The images I can find online are not good examples of this, but the brown blobby canvasses in the museum were strikingly similar. I don't know if they met; their painting careers overlapped and they both lived in London.

A sculpture of a horse, bronze I think, so dark it's nearly black. On close inspection I see it has no skin. 1ngi tells me this is how Stubbs used to paint horses - he would gradually dissect them over several days to see how they were made. Sometimes with a clothes peg on his nose. When I was young we used to visit Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath, and my favourite painting was Whistlejacket, a large and striking painting of a horse that dominated the room. I've, er, kind of gone off it now...

Pottery next - I like the Chinese and Japanese aesthetic, but was disappointed by most of the pottery there as it was the fussy style I've seen far too many Victorian reproductions of. And loads and loads of twee figurines! Next time I visit, I might have to bring a bull. Something that did catch my eye was puzzle jugs! An ordinary-looking jug, with a wide base and narrow neck, handle and spout, but the neck is perforated. Hang on, how do you pour from such a jug without it dribbling out of the holes? They have a huge collection of the jugs, which look jolly good fun.

The other interesting pottery, a welcome relief after the endless shepherdesses and frilly teacups, was some 13th century Iranian stuff. The dishes on display were fairly plain in shape, but with vivid turquoise glazes sometimes alone and sometimes painted over black slip decoration. I want to fill the house with turquoise now :-)

If I could take something home with me, it would be one of the specimen tables - they have two, inlaid with different marble and types of stone, malachite, that kind of thing. Very pretty, and the stone patterns are so varied I'd never have got any homework done if I'd had to sit at that table, daydreaming instead of alien beaches. Apparently there is a twin to one of the tables, which is kept in the geological museum :-)

And then I met my Mum's cousin in the gift shop! I've not seen her for several years and was struck by the familial resemblance.