My monthly dose of culture

[venta]

Trotted down to London last night to see the preview of the V&A's Gothic exhibition. Having made the error of trying to use the Circle line, I was slightly late to meet snow_leopard, who very kindly let me piggy-back on her V&A member's right to go to previews.

And, it transpired, very kindly put up with me making facetious comments all the way round the exhibition. It's not my fault - the armour-for-horses did have a distinct look of jelly-mould about it.

I also commented repeatedly on how many things just didn't look like they were 500-600 years old. Now, I'm quite prepared to believe that it's my concept of gothic art that's at fault, but many things looked to me like modern art, done along slightly traditional lines. In particular, there was a large, gilded eagle lectern whose stylized bird and uncluttered pedastal looked to me as if they'd been designed in the last 20 years or so. Shows how much I know.

On a sort of related note, a lot of the objects on show weren't "real" ones - instead of swords used for fighting, for example, there were a number of ceremonial swords. I guess the objects which were used every day wore out, and weren't preserved. This meant that a lot of things looked like romanticized copies of themselves - pretty to look at, but slightly disappointing. I also would have liked to have seen more furniture: I like wood.

There were, however, large numbers of beautiful illuminated books. I'm a sucker for a nicely done capital, me. And as ever, I'd made the same mistake - that of thinking that before the days of synthetics and the like, bright colours simply weren't that bright. So the displayed pages of books of hours, prayer books and charters amazed me with the vividness of their colours. And, as ever, staggered me with the intricate details that went into every last curlicue on the page. Makes me think that Messrs Penguin, Puffin and Faber just really aren't trying.

For people who read the small print, too, the labels on the exhibits also had a strange aspect of history to show: huge numbers of the artifacts were found in, or washed up by, the Thames. (No, not including the books :) I suppose it just made me think that London's been there for a long, long time, and sooner or later, everything fell in the river.

I just had time to be immensely confused on the way out. Various web sites describe Fairford Church as "the only church in the British Isles with an almost-complete set of 15th. century stained-glass windows". Why almost? you might ask. Well, it seems to be "almost" because some bugger at the V&a has half-inched the West window, and bunged it in an exhibition. I'm sure this can't be the case. But the little card by the large, stained glass panels in the V&A did certainly suggest that they'd been borrowed... have they lent Fairford a big lump of perspex or something ?

Surprise event of the evening goes to addedentry and I doing a simultaneous "are you who I think you are?"-style double-take. LJ-ers out doing things in the real world ? Who'd 'ave thought it ?

And, in attempt to be organised, I'd consulted the London Compendium (or "Joe", as he's better known), and got a recommendation of a vegetarian Chinese restaurant just down the road. Only it wasn't any more. It had turned into a largely carnivorous Thai restaurant. Its location is sufficiently out-of-the-way that the proprietor demanded to know how we'd found it, but did give us nice food. Must remember: "with Thai herbs" is a euphemism for "slightly more chilli than you expect".

Comments

[kneeshooter]

The history and development of London is really quite interesting - and I always look out for references of the different characters of the towns and villages that were all slowly subsumed into the great messtropolis of today.

Mind you that's like a lot of towns - what we see as one market town often started off as a number of different villages that came together over time.

Hmm, enough ill-informed musing. I'll stop before any historians get here...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup... at one point we were reading off one of the large information boards, and it was talking about London being the only English city to rival the continental cities at the time - because it had 50,000 people. I was just trying to remember what its current population is (~6M?) when snow_leopard noticed that further down they were talking about Southwark as a completely separate habitation.

It's easy to forget things like that.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

The population of Greater London in the 2001 census was 7,172,036 - an underestimate, but still more than Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

As for the exhibition, I was impressed by the reconstruction of altarpieces and roodscreens assembled from surviving bits, spoilt only by the invisible monks chanting. The Scrabble player in me also liked the juxtaposition of a pax and a pyx.

Going home on the District Line, I sat opposite my girlfriend's mother's cousin. Hello again!

[venta.livejournal.com]

spoilt only by the invisible monks chanting

Indeed. I'd been impressed at the absence of generic-background-historical-noise until we got to the the Church section.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

And as ever, I'd made the same mistake - that of thinking that before the days of synthetics and the like, bright colours simply weren't that bright. So the displayed pages of books of hours, prayer books and charters amazed me with the vividness of their colours.

Have you seen the Bayeux Tapestry. I was similarly amazed how bright that was. I'd expected it to be all dowdy, but it was much better than it looks in history books.

Fair blows the wind through Fairford Church

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

There's clear glass behind the stained glass: http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1220_gothic/videos/transcripts/gothic_et4.html

Re: Fair blows the wind through Fairford Church

[venta.livejournal.com]

Blimey.
I really didn't think they'd do that.
I'm not even very sure I approve - seems hard on the good citizens of Fairford.

Re: Fair blows the wind through Fairford Church

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I'm just surprised the glass has survived B-52s taking off from RAF Fairford...

Books and food

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

Not at the same time - the Thai Veg places that have sprouted up opposite Angel and Camden Town tube stations are pretty good, the one in Angel accompanied by a host of Indian Vegetarian restaurants within about five minutes walk (or less).

Oh, and on pretty books - there's an exhibition on Lindisfarne-stylee volumes at the British Library atm, or at least there was a few weeks ago - no doubt the website would be more informative, but my computer's a bit low on memory as it is on mostly text-only pages, so I daren't go look myself...

[(Anonymous)]

Those of you who think colours arrived with synthetics might like to know that marquetry/parquetry on centuries-old furniture, which we see as a subtle study in wood tones, has simply faded from the incredibly bright reds, blues, greens etc to which the woods were originally dyed. Also, 'shocking' pink was originally Schiaparelli pink, after fashion designer of that name who thought it up well pre WW2.
And, Venta, you grew up in a village subsumed into a town. Why should the Great Wen be any different?