Hello again my lovelies!

 

 

✨Exciting news!  I went to the Postgrad Pub Quiz with my Museum Studies cohort. We got second place!!! Awesome sauce. ✨

 

Before doing that I managed to visit not one but TWO museums!  Exciting stuff. Museum no. 2 will be in the next post.

First up,

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Tate Britain

 

 

The Tate Britain primarily displays work by British artists beginning at about 1540.  It’s younger and slightly more famous sister Museum is the Tate Modern that features work from all around the world created from about 1900 onwards.

 

 

The Tate Britain is located on the banks of Thames rather close to Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

 

 

There was a fun exhibit about “A poor man’s picture gallery.”  It displayed four slides of Stereoscopes or Stereopticons.  The slides in the stereoscopes create 3-D images.  Slides recreated famous paintings of the time and famous artists would draw inspiration from the popular compositions of the slides.

 

The stereoscope was always one of my favourite objects at Roedde House and it was great to see them again.  They function as a middle class way  of viewing the world unlike the elite images that surround them in the Tate Britain.

 

 

The Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse!

 

 

Ena & Betty by John Singer Sargent.  These girls look like a lot of fun and have awesome taste in clothing.  Too bad you can’t be friends with paintings. That’d be a little weird. (Or not??).  You may quibble that Singer-Sargent is American but he lived and worked in Great Britain for most of his life.

 

 

The top painting is called “Love Locked Out” by Anna Lea Merritt.  It was a surprise to see here.  I thought it was fictional to be honest.

 

The painting figures prominently in my favourite novel, What’s Bred in Bone, by Robertson Davies.  It helps set the main character, Francis Cornish, on a path to his future.  Reading that book is what helped me choose Museum Studies oddly enough.  It may not be the most special painting but its important to me and Francis, too.

 

 

Rating: 4/5

Pros: Its really easy to navigate, find and has fun smaller exhibits.  The main floor is chronological with easy to find years on the floor boards. I love the Pre-Raphaelites and got to see so many of theyr most seminal works. Great gift shop!  The Turner wing is a real treat as well.

 

Cons: The Museum had a bunch of rooms closed and I couldn’t find the painting I most wanted to see- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer-Sargent.  The big special exhibits didn’t grab my attention but September/ October is usually the time for exhibit turnover.