Courtauld Gallery + Tate Modern

The day began with a quick stop at Somerset House cafe, WatchHouse, for a flat white and, one of my happiest memories of Lisbon, a luscious Pastéis de Nata.

As soon as I entered the first gallery, it was love at first sight. Twenty-two works by Parmigianino. I was enchanted by how easy he makes it look, his economy of line, his sprezzatura.

The tenderness of gesture.

All this, and large magnifying glasses were available to see every mark distinctly. Heaven.

Tiepolo has that same innate bravura. Paint is his servant; loose without being sloppy. His virgins do not simper. This is a Virgin who knows what’s what. 

From triumphant to doomed. This portrait was a heartbreaker. A beauty, young and full of promise. But what does the museum card tell us?

George Romney painted this portrait around the
time Georgiana Peachy married the politician
Lord Greville… Georgiana died on
her first wedding anniversary, aged 19, a few
days after giving birth.

How grim is that?

Another woman whose life doesn’t turn out well as she’d hoped. Eve and a serpent who is more mirror than a reptile.

I’m glad I didn’t miss the photography exhibition in a small room off the stairs. Anthony Kersting’s Kurdistan in the 1940s, vintage photographs of a vanished world.

The expression of this monk. I see compassion, benevolence, and humor. Maybe it’s just the dimples, but I can believe he knows the secret to the meaning of life.

The skeptical gaze of the tribal girl.

From here I skedaddled to the maze of the Tate Modern for the cheese of the perpetually sold-out exhibit of Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life, by Yayoi Kusama. I arrived on time and chose one of the two queues at random. Thus I saw Chandeliers of Grief first, followed by Infinity Room, 19 minutes in each line, two minutes in the rooms. It reminded me of Nabokov’s line from Speak Memory, “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
For me, it was worth it.

I’d booked the lunch that accompanied the exhibition, and Em met me there. Nice view and a fancy meal.

Food delivery was slow as the Troubador, but not as friendly. On the upside, they offer a super fancy delicious sober beverage.

We took an Uber boat back down the Thames to the Embankment. That turned out to be more of a romantic idea than an enjoyable experience. I was queasy from the stink of fuel and pitch and roll of what amounted to a river bus. Nevertheless, I’m glad to have given it a try. I may not have floated down the mighty Thames like the royal barges of yore, but I did get a river’s eye view of the city of London.

Cupid, You Little Rascal

A drizzly day of getting things sorted out. Emily took the laundry to a place that will give it back tomorrow. We went to the nearest post office for stamps and to mail a card, and upon leaving found ourselves in Covent Garden. We walked under a flower arch – my ideal photo op.

The Jubilee Market featured rows of tables selling vintage bits and bobs; silverware, beaded reticules, costume jewelry, and, befitting season 2 of Bridgerton, an ivory dance card. It had a high-end Estate Sale vibe. I bought a commemorative coin for a friend and Em found a ring she liked.

Picked up a baguette from le Pain Quotidian. We got takeout Thai coconut soup and I popped what I thought was a baby carrot in my mouth. Wrong. A hotter than the surface of the sun pepper. I spit it out but not before a few vigorous chews ignited the inside of my mouth and burned like holy hellfire. Yikes.

After a restorative nap, I trotted over to the National and stopped in front of this painting of Venus at her toilet.

I noticed not only the luscious pearl earring held aloft in Cupid’s fingers, but precisely how it corresponds to Venus’s anatomy.

Was it intended as a pictorial guide for the fumbling males of the aristocracy? I know it was not placed there by accident. I could argue it’s the intentional focus of the entire work. Welcome to the Devil’s doorbell, gentlemen. I’ll leave it there.

This man has a stern expression, but it’s completely at odds with the small dog gazing up at him worshipfully, wearing a jaunty red bow. And are those bells on his collar?

Just before I left for the day. I watched the media installation by Kehinde Wiley, Prelude, 2021: a six-channel digital film shot in Norway of black men and women in snowy fjords. They traipsed through a frigid glacial landscape pelted with snowflakes – a compelling metaphor for living as a black person in a world controlled mainly by whites. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.”
I’m still thinking about it.

Consider Eternity

I held onto Emily’s arm and she got me through the streets and into the tube and out again safely, explaining as we went her hacks for keeping Google maps up even underground, and ways to double-check the different lines to make sure you’re going the right way.

London streets were shut down for a marathon so we changed our plans. Instead of returning to the V&A, we went to Brompton Cemetery.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The turf was starred with daisies and spangled with grape hyacinths. Daffodils were everywhere. I dawdled down different paths and read inscriptions and let the sweet melancholy and peace seep in.

All the stones monuments and statuary lean as if they are on the billows of a wave. Many inscriptions are lost to the depredations of time and weather. We took our time.

We spent a couple of hours wandering down the path and around the graves. The words on the stones are a kind of shorthand, haikus packed with grief and pain and appreciation, pleas for mercy instead of judgment, and sometimes a glimpse of deep attachment and love. You know a child was cherished when his parents call him their darling little sputnik.

There were the usual complements of angels, standing guard over the souls of the departed.

Many headstones were in the shape of open books. I love this.

Truly it was an exceptionally peaceful morning. If you haven’t been there, I recommend it.

Afterward, Emily looked up somewhere for lunch nearby via Google. The first prospect was too small and crowded, the second had a notice on the door that the kitchen was unexpectedly closed, but the third was just right. The Goldilocks option.

Inside The Troubadour, a long-time music venue, it was weathered and intimate, with a decor of memorabilia. Perfect for my daughter who’s in the band Dehd. Did you know their single ‘Bad Love’ is #1 on SIRIUS XMU? Now you do. Just sayin’.

Instruments hung from the ceiling and the music was from the seventies – Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. It’s what all the photographers were playing back in the day when I lived and worked in London. It was like being inside a time capsule. All this and poached eggs, streaky bacon, sourdough toast, and a mocha. The service wasn’t fast but it was friendly. I needed the rest.

We returned to the hotel the way we came.  I was barely limping. She went back to her hotel for a nap and some quiet time to draw, I took a nap and worked on my blog. A fine day.

Another Happy Day at the British Museum

Up, out, and over to the British Museum for an early Introduction to the British Museum tour. We were a small group led by a woman who delivered an entertaining account of the origins of the museum from its inception to the edifice we are visiting today. Two young and curious boys were with our group and they became a focus for the guide. The simplicity of her explanations benefitted us all.

The entire tour took place in the Enlightenment rooms. Although our guide acknowledged that the museum’s initial collection was built and sustained on the fortune Hans Sloane acquired through marriage to a Jamaican plantation heiress, she skirted deftly around the taint of riches reaped from slavery, referring to instead to wealth that flowed from the commodity of sugar. Moving on, she explained the context of specifics pieces in a lively and engaging way, especially the copy of the Rosetta Stone and the Holy Thorn Reliquary.

At the end of the tour she pointed out some vintage postcards collected in North Africa

and suggested postcards are soon to become obsolete artifacts in our own time because everyone uses text and emails.

Afterward, I paused for coffee and a croissant and drew the first postcard of the trip. I had to buck the trend.

I’m looking forward to other museum tours I’ve booked, especially since audio guides, once a reliable source of context for me, are unavailable (thanks, Covid). Trying to pick up commentary online at different sites was hit or miss. Luckily I have enjoyed listening to A History of the World in 100 Objects since it first aired in 2010, and have listened to it many times over. I was able to recognize objects and find the podcast episodes.

Warren Cup (detail)

Every bit as exquisitely rendered and sexually explicit as described, it fairly shimmers with a potent homoerotic charge. Lift this cup up and you’d feel these repoussé images of beautiful naked men in the palm of your hand.

The Lewis Chesspieces

Always referred to as Chessmen, but it’s the queen I can’t forget. She puts me in mind of Lady Macbeth; ambitious, intense, and grim. She’s fighting a battle, recall, and a clever strategy is her only hope. Who to sacrifice next?

Sutton Hoo Helmet

You see at once how this hollow stare captured the public imagination. What made it come alive for me was seeing the bird in flight created by the shapes of nose, eyebrows, and mustache. I relate not so much to the warrior, as I do to his funerary artisan.

It is very different to experience these things directly instead of through a photograph. Three dimensional, fine details in context, and the frequently shocking reality of scale are the reasons I travel thousands of miles for these moments.

 A few other things that caught my eye –

A Thomas à Becket reliquary casket. I’m enamored by metalwork caskets and even made a few myself. There are hundreds of these, Becket must have been cut into very small fragments.

A mother/goddess/bird holding her child.

A curse tablet, condemning thieves to suffer, was a private vengeance arranged with the help of the God Mercury. One such curse tablet, inscribed and meticulously folded, read “Honoratus to the holy god Mercury, I complain to your divinity that I have lost two wheels and four cows and many small belongings from my house. I would ask the genius of your divinity that you do not allow health to the person who has done me wrong. Not allow him to lie or sit or drink or eat whether he is a man or woman, whether boy or girl, whether slave or free unless he brings my property to me and is reconciled with me. With renewed prayers, I ask your divinity that my petition may immediately make me vindicated by your majesty.”

I had a lovely light lunch of Welsh rarebit and crab in the museum’s restaurant.

I left in search of a post office, following the path of Google Maps laid out. This is where it led me.

Ha.

I don’t have a plan, I have a purpose

London weather is fickle, one minute a cloudless blue, blink, and there’s an icy wind and sleet. April Fool, indeed.

Nothing went the way I expected, the way I planned, but everything worked out.

My first stop was the Virtual Veronese at the National Gallery. I was excited for this. I pictured gazing around aged stone walls flicking in candlelight and seeing the rich colors of the painter’s hand in vibrant detail. Nope. Total Fail.

To be fair, I’ve never had any kind of virtual experience. Between wearing progressive lenses and having limited vision in one eye, I wasn’t the best candidate for this.  Inside the headset I couldn’t see anything well. The virtual monks explaining why the painting was commissioned did not improve the experience . The goggles pressed on my sinuses and the Velcro caught in my hair. The virtual environment looked like an unconvincing Hollywood set. Let’s just say I’m glad the experience was short.

Yet directly afterward, walking into the galleries of actual paintings felt like being embraced by a cherished and trusted friend. And the quality of the art! Ye gods. Gallery after gallery, room after room of iconic masterworks.

I recognized many of them which added to the pleasure.

In honor of April 15th, Two Tax-Gatherers.

I paused at this painting because so many elements spoke to me; drapery, education, terracotta pots, watering. My people! I took a seat, started drawing, and began to settle down, be present, to look and really see. Time flew by.

The museum caption for this one reads in part, ‘Cupid, who holds an arrow suggestively.’ A fine example of British understatement.

Clouds were boiling up in the sky when it was time to leave to see something of the Lambeth Palace gardens. The clouds spit rain, then hail. Though I doubt there is much in bloom this time of year, it’s only open to the public for three hours on the first Friday. Made it to the Garden Museum just in time. Glad I didn’t hurry too much because entry to the Lambeth Palace garden was postponed until May.

Just outside the Garden Museum entrance was a warning to not walk under large trees because of the danger of falling limbs. It was posted directly underneath just such a tree. Talk about mixed messages.

Inside the Garden Museum’s garden is the final resting place of Captain Bligh, who brought back Breadfruit to England. The Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Yikes!

Being a passionate gardener myself I found the hand-drawn garden plans, the implements, the oral history and the special rose exhibition compelling.

I was delighted by vintage photographs celebrating the rose across genders and social ranks.

Walked back alongside the Thames River.

There I discovered an unexpected memorial to Covid victims along the southbank, between the bridges. Hundreds of hearts with hand-drawn notes of remembrance and grief, all the different signatures of loss.

Halfway back I knew I’d overdone it. It’s hard to enjoy the delights of London when your body is calling you an idiot. Tomorrow will be better because I will make it so by not walking further than my wonky leg can comfortably handle.

Natural History Museum, First Visit

For whatever reason I was wide awake at 2am, then slept in until 8:30. My plan was to go back to the V&A followed by the Natural History Museum. Crossing my fingers I’d have enough energy left.

That was the plan. Here’s how it turned out.

I bagged this visit to V&A and went shopping. Don’t judge. I’ve wanted to find sources for baguettes, good tea, and chocolate, plus stock my hotel mini fridge with butter and jam since the day I got here. The place I grabbed milk on day one was a dingy, cramped joint in a tube station that reminded me of a gas station Quik Stop.

After some frisking of Google maps, I realized I’ve been trudging past what I needed every time I walked to and from the British Museum. Somehow I had the impression that Covent Garden was just pricey cafés and tourist trinkets. I am so glad to be so wrong. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still pricey, but it has the goods.

I followed my Google map to the end of the rainbow; Le Pain Quotidien. Fabulous. The baguettes were still warm. I splurged on mini sandwich rolls (chicken/bacon/cheese, roasted vegetables, smoked salmon/ cucumber) and a pear upside-down tart (a sort of spice cake with pears). That was lunch and dinner sorted. Purchased shampoo at a parfumerie, salted caramel chocolates at Hotel Chocolate, and sachets of Earl Grey Imperial at Mariage Frères. YOLO. Picked up butter, sugar, prosciutto, apples, and bananas at a lovely Sainsburys.  

Back at the hotel, I ate a sandwich and called Uber. By two o’clock I was making my way into the magnificent building that houses the National History Museum. I meandered around until 5pm, with one break to draw. The pleasure in viewing a wide range of life forms was tempered by the constant reminder of species on the brink of extinction, along with those we have already wiped out.

I’m thinking they can add mirrors and can put humanity on that list, given the damage we are doing to the planet’s ecosystem.

The dinosaur section was more Jurassic Park than Paleontology, thanks to animatronics and moody lighting.

Elsewhere the overhead suspension of immense articulated skeletons is oddly elegant. The building itself is truly glorious. The vast entry hall is a space so grand it accommodates a blue whale skeleton with ease.

Elsewhere, the display of whales, dolphins, and sharks in midair offers a snorkel-eye view of sea creatures.

The amphibians and turtles were well represented. First hairy frog I ever saw.

The mineralogy wing features rows of the original 1881 oak display cabinets and is filled with light and calm. That’s priceless in a museum swarming with excitable tykes and restive school groups. There’s a section of precious gemstones of unusual size, which doesn’t blow my skirt up, but the Martian meteor that glittered like fool’s gold is as close to outer space as I’ll ever be.

I stayed until closing time, called Uber, and was back at the hotel by 6. Put together dinner from the supplies I bought this morning.
Now I’m yawning. Going to stay up until 10:30, then lights out. Tomorrow is the Virtual Veronese tour at the National, and if the weather is fair, a visit to the Lambeth Palace gardens and adjacent garden museum.