{"id":972,"date":"2009-08-29T19:05:50","date_gmt":"2009-08-29T23:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=972"},"modified":"2009-08-29T19:10:12","modified_gmt":"2009-08-29T23:10:12","slug":"972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2009\/08\/972\/","title":{"rendered":"Endless Eccentricities of the Victoria and Albert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we wandered, via the scenic route, over to the Victoria and Albert Museum <\/a>in South Kensington.\u00a0 We knew that it would be an eclectic and eccentric collection, but we were in for a surprise…<\/p>\n

Upon exiting the convient tunnel linking the Tube to several well-visited museums and sites in the area, we found ourselves in a ground floor sculpture hall.\u00a0 Randomly picking a direction to walk in, we wandered into in the fashion section.\u00a0 (Aidan and Brandon were thrilled.)\u00a0 In this collection we found\u00a0everything from hautecouture to Elizabethan-era ensembles.\u00a0 Some of these clothes were truly shocking!\u00a0 One such item reminded Kelley of a woolly mammoth, but alas, it was a apres ski jacket.\u00a0 While we were lingering by a shirt made from a parachute and some heavily-sequined items, we could see into an exhibit of Raphael’s cartoons<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The

The Woolly Mammoth, erm, Apres Ski Jacket (picture taken from the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum)<\/p><\/div>\n

A cartoon is a preliminary drawing for either a tapestry or a painting.\u00a0 In this case, the drawings were for a series of tapestries commissioned for Pope Leo X and they depicted a number of scenes from the Bible.\u00a0 We were impressed with the sheer size and careful preservation of the drawings.\u00a0 As one of the completed tapestries was present, it was also interesting to see what the finished product looked like.<\/p>\n

We decided simply to wander from exhibit to exhibit in order to understand the Victoria and Albert collection as a whole.\u00a0 We were met with limited success.\u00a0 While the museum contains an extensive array of\u00a0artifacts from around the globe, we found that there was no logical flow pattern in the museum.\u00a0 For example, we went from Korea to the European Cast Court<\/a>\u00a0(essentially a large number of copies of well-known facades and memorials) and again from finely-painted late 19th century tables to the radios of the 20th century.\u00a0 Essentially, we were confused.\u00a0 Why were these objects here and what is the purpose of their order?\u00a0 What is the collection of the Victoria and Albert trying to say to the visitor?\u00a0 It reminded Grace of a really nice yard sale.\u00a0 To Kelley, it was like searching around her grandparent’s basement.\u00a0 We found the artifacts to be very interesting and laid out well within their exhibits,we just question the museum’s purpose as a whole.\u00a0 That said, it was a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon.\u00a0 (We highly recommend going out into the garden and watching the children playing in the paddling pool!)<\/p>\n

\"The

The architecture of the V&A from the garden<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we wandered, via the scenic route, over to the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington.\u00a0 We knew that it would be an eclectic and eccentric collection, but we were in for a surprise… Upon exiting the convient tunnel linking the Tube to several well-visited museums and sites in the area, we found ourselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,744,77,1],"tags":[12,982,984,983,980,981],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace","category-kelley","category-museums","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-cast-court","tag-fashion","tag-raphael","tag-victoria-and-albert","tag-woolly-mammoth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}