Liked it as much the second time as the first. Nicely spaced out, enough people to give a bit of life, not so many as to be crowded. Minor irritant in the form of a lady talking into her tape recorder; perhaps an art teacher or a journalist.
One impression that I took away was that rich Victorians liked to make a splash, to celebrate themselves and their money with chunks of obviously expensive art. And if this exhibition is anything to go by they rather like metalwork art. We had, for example a very elaborate casket, the sort of thing you would take for a reliquary if it was in a church. Sadly, the only catalogue to be had cost £40 and someone has been careful not to let many images leak onto the internet, so I cannot now find out what the thing was called or what it was actually for.
Another impression was that while some of the sculpture was very accomplished, some of it was also very cold. So while the carving of the veil on a kneeling figure of a woman was stunning in the illusion of veil it created from stone, it did not move one otherwise.
Once again, I liked the rather unusual low relief, mixed media, mainly in brown, of 'Perseus and the Graiae' by Burne Jones. I shall post a copy from wikipedia after this one, but despite the number of pixels it does not do much justice to the thing. So if you leave it a bit, visit the National Museum of Wales, where it lives when not on tour. Maybe the Cardiff site; I couldn't persuade the web site to tell me which bricks and mortar site the thing lived at.
We also took the opportunity to take a look at the exhibition of early photographs - mainly from 1840 to 1860 - called Salt and Silver. What most struck me most was how much better and how much more interesting the photographs which we saw at the Queens's Gallery in February (see reference 3) had been, dating from not much later than the end of the period of this exhibition. Maybe they were produced using a different process. I think I would have got more out of this exhibition if I had brought more to it, if I knew more about photography. Perhaps there could have been more in the way of tutorial material.
Waiting in the new entrance to the side of the old entrance, I decided that I liked it. A good space, although the Lumia did not capture it at all well.
Once outside, we took a stroll in Millbank Gardens, the place where we saw the flower at reference 2. There was also the contraption illustrated left which I found a much less comfortable ride than the similar but rather better looking contraption by the river at Tavistock. This last was called a space walker and I was so impressed that I thought it might be fun to have one in the garden but sadly, the very prompt reply from Wicksteed (the people who made the playground equipment of my youth) was that one would cost, with carriage but without VAT, £2,148.30. Plus installation looked to involve popping the foot of the thing in a cubic metre of concrete. Quite apart from the price being rather out of proportion to the fun to be had out of the thing, a hole of that size might have been a problem in the place in the garden, near established trees with established roots that I had in mind. Idea abandoned.
Maybe I ought to write to Westminster Council and tell them that Wicksteed are the people to use for such stuff rather than http://www.tgogc.com/.
Wandered along until we came to an establishment called the Old Wash House and Baths, some sort of a council operation which included a quiet and reasonable café where we took lunch.
Out and along Victoria Street, past a very flashy looking new office building, the front of which seemed to be made of four intersecting planes of glass with a bit of steel. I rather liked it - but will it age? Will I still like it in a year's time? Sadly, nearly opposite, one of the last remaining cigar shops in London, Jayems, has gone down. Not sure where I would go now if I wanted a fancy cigar - maybe Harrods still have a proper tobacconists. Maybe the Saudis still puff at home, not being allowed alcohol. Man does not live by coffee alone, although one does sometimes wonder, the number of coffee shops that the world seems to be able to support.
And so onto a bus to carry us back to Vauxhall Cross.
PS 1: the graiae only managed one eye between the three of them, which left them a bit vulnerable to attack by a hero, particularly when they were passing it around.
PS 2: I was absolutely sure that it used to be the borough of Camden & Westminster, but perusal of google offers no support for this surety. Yet another failing of aging memory - with getting something positively wrong in this way being much worse than just forgetting. Or do I get a get out of jail free card in that the two boroughs were once into joined up operations in some areas of business?
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/big-fugue.html.
Reference 2: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/flowers.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/old-chablis-old-pix.html.
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