Eddie don't like furniture, na na, na na
Feb. 23rd, 2004 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaHaving had really rather a nice meal with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snow_leopard at Bankside on Friday night (modulo the scary deep fried risotto), we branched out randomly into a bit of culture on Saturday.
So, the Wallace Collection, which promised us "one of the best collections of French 18th-century pictures, porcelain and furniture in the world, a remarkable array of 17th-century paintings and a superb armoury".
Yup, they're right about the armoury; it's great - in particular the oriental section is intriguing to someone used only to seeing European arms and armour. However, it did make me feel that, to be honest, the weapons manufacturers of today just aren't trying. I mean, look at your average hand gun. Probably black, plain, serviceable. Where's the chasing, engraving, etching ? Where is the elegant working and moulding on even the most hidden part of the mechanism ?
Mind you, I can't help feeling that if Glock produced next season's automatic with finely enamelled flowers covering the barrel and stock, there'd be some sort of international outcry. Words like sick and inappropriate would be used, in screaming 14-point headlines. And maybe they'd even be right. But in general, it makes me sad that objects bought today don't have that amazing attention to detail, nor the suggestion that the craftsman who made them was determined to make every single part as well as he could.
The paintings were, to be honest, something of a mixed bag. They have a fair number of the gorgeous, almost luminescent interior scenes that the Dutch went in for painting in the late 1600s, and I'd happily look at those all day. They have innumerable still lifes, all with obligatory bleeding game bird. The have a large number of Canaletti (or whatever the plural of Canaletto is), whose clean, clear lines I really like, and they have a pleasingly low number of saints in extravagant stages of matyrdom.
And they have staggering numbers of "society" potraits. At one point, I observed a potrait of (I think) Empress Frederick II, and found myself instantly drawn to it, stuffed though it was into a dark corner above a doorway. A moment's analysis suggested that it was the first "real" face I'd seen. The Empress looked like she had personality, like she'd be interesting to talk to. The indentikit portraits of her contemporaries suggested they were all fluffy-haired, simpering creatures, the fashionable expression of myopic vacuity rendering their features unremarkable and unmemorable.
I have also learnt from these pictures that everyone from servant girls to shepherdesses, grieving widows to biblical heroines, was completely incapable of keeping their dresses on. Decolletage was, it seems, somewhat eXtreme at that time.
And the furniture, ye gods, the furniture. This is early eighteenth century design philosophy - not the latter half of the century when, as Felix pointed out yesterday, anything so much as an unnecessary bend in a piece of furniture was punishable by the guillotine. They liked gilding. A lot. In that they liked a lot of it, a lot.
And then some. Imagine a pleasing wooden bureau, nicely proportioned, and with perhaps a simple marquetry inset. Now add gilded lions heads, acanthus leaves, scrolls and, in extreme cases, cherubs. Now add some more. Keep gilding until the poor thing looks like its slender, turned legs are about to buckle. Now it's done.
Even allowing for changing fashions, I just can't understand how anyone liked the stuff. Possibly, as Snow_Leopard pointed out, the main aim was to show how rich you were, and aesthetics came a pretty poor second. The things that era could do to clocks does not bear thinking about.
Oh, and we found afloralaetifica Minueting about in the Great Gallery, which was very entertaining to watch. I must admit, I'm a bit hazy about the niceties of the minuet, and hadn't imagined it involved quite so much, er, posturing. I blame the French.
However, I like a good rant, so still enjoyed gazing on the gilded horror that was the furniture and porcelain. And I now feel a lot more qualified to have opinions on the eighteenth century. Ten points to the Wallace Collection for free entry and free cloakroom, but lose some of them again for making you pay for a floor plan of the museum. Paying for a guide book is fair enough - but £2 for a map is a bit steep. And their restaurant may be nice, but is a bit on the pricey side (think £12 for a main course, rather than your average museum café). We avoided it and nipped out to a nearby Chinese.
Many thanks, anyway, to Snow_leopard for hospitality, good company and navigational competence.
In other news, does anyone want to confirm or deny that the riff from Franz Ferdinand's Matinée sounds a bit like Hava Nagila, or is that just me ?
snow_leopard at Bankside on Friday night (modulo the scary deep fried risotto), we branched out randomly into a bit of culture on Saturday.So, the Wallace Collection, which promised us "one of the best collections of French 18th-century pictures, porcelain and furniture in the world, a remarkable array of 17th-century paintings and a superb armoury".
Yup, they're right about the armoury; it's great - in particular the oriental section is intriguing to someone used only to seeing European arms and armour. However, it did make me feel that, to be honest, the weapons manufacturers of today just aren't trying. I mean, look at your average hand gun. Probably black, plain, serviceable. Where's the chasing, engraving, etching ? Where is the elegant working and moulding on even the most hidden part of the mechanism ?
Mind you, I can't help feeling that if Glock produced next season's automatic with finely enamelled flowers covering the barrel and stock, there'd be some sort of international outcry. Words like sick and inappropriate would be used, in screaming 14-point headlines. And maybe they'd even be right. But in general, it makes me sad that objects bought today don't have that amazing attention to detail, nor the suggestion that the craftsman who made them was determined to make every single part as well as he could.
The paintings were, to be honest, something of a mixed bag. They have a fair number of the gorgeous, almost luminescent interior scenes that the Dutch went in for painting in the late 1600s, and I'd happily look at those all day. They have innumerable still lifes, all with obligatory bleeding game bird. The have a large number of Canaletti (or whatever the plural of Canaletto is), whose clean, clear lines I really like, and they have a pleasingly low number of saints in extravagant stages of matyrdom.
And they have staggering numbers of "society" potraits. At one point, I observed a potrait of (I think) Empress Frederick II, and found myself instantly drawn to it, stuffed though it was into a dark corner above a doorway. A moment's analysis suggested that it was the first "real" face I'd seen. The Empress looked like she had personality, like she'd be interesting to talk to. The indentikit portraits of her contemporaries suggested they were all fluffy-haired, simpering creatures, the fashionable expression of myopic vacuity rendering their features unremarkable and unmemorable.
I have also learnt from these pictures that everyone from servant girls to shepherdesses, grieving widows to biblical heroines, was completely incapable of keeping their dresses on. Decolletage was, it seems, somewhat eXtreme at that time.
And the furniture, ye gods, the furniture. This is early eighteenth century design philosophy - not the latter half of the century when, as Felix pointed out yesterday, anything so much as an unnecessary bend in a piece of furniture was punishable by the guillotine. They liked gilding. A lot. In that they liked a lot of it, a lot.
And then some. Imagine a pleasing wooden bureau, nicely proportioned, and with perhaps a simple marquetry inset. Now add gilded lions heads, acanthus leaves, scrolls and, in extreme cases, cherubs. Now add some more. Keep gilding until the poor thing looks like its slender, turned legs are about to buckle. Now it's done.
Even allowing for changing fashions, I just can't understand how anyone liked the stuff. Possibly, as Snow_Leopard pointed out, the main aim was to show how rich you were, and aesthetics came a pretty poor second. The things that era could do to clocks does not bear thinking about.
Oh, and we found a
floralaetifica Minueting about in the Great Gallery, which was very entertaining to watch. I must admit, I'm a bit hazy about the niceties of the minuet, and hadn't imagined it involved quite so much, er, posturing. I blame the French.However, I like a good rant, so still enjoyed gazing on the gilded horror that was the furniture and porcelain. And I now feel a lot more qualified to have opinions on the eighteenth century. Ten points to the Wallace Collection for free entry and free cloakroom, but lose some of them again for making you pay for a floor plan of the museum. Paying for a guide book is fair enough - but £2 for a map is a bit steep. And their restaurant may be nice, but is a bit on the pricey side (think £12 for a main course, rather than your average museum café). We avoided it and nipped out to a nearby Chinese.
Many thanks, anyway, to Snow_leopard for hospitality, good company and navigational competence.
In other news, does anyone want to confirm or deny that the riff from Franz Ferdinand's Matinée sounds a bit like Hava Nagila, or is that just me ?
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-23 08:49 am (UTC)I suspect, by the way, that if you gave a C18 oriental peasant an ornately crafted pistol with a finely carved engraving of cherry blossoms, he'd say (once you'd overcome the language barrier) "Thank you very much!" Then he'd sell it, and use the proceeds to buy a less ornate pistol, some pistol shot, a pig, two chickens, and a big sign saying "Western Time Travelers Welcome!"
The point being that it's all down to economics. If, like the nobility, you already have everything money can buy then it makes sense to spend your remaining cash on art. If you're not so well off, or if there are simply more things around to spend your money on, you will have other priorities.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-23 09:49 am (UTC)Aha, so pneumonic plague was not in fact yersinia pestis but avian 'flu caused by the recipients of such time-travelling generosity keeping pigs and chickens together.
Damn those time travellers.