For my contribution to (or should that be consumption of) Culture Day I went to the National Gallery.
At least I went to the Modern Gallery first, but it was full of those tedious video installations. Don't get me wrong, I like modern art, so I would normally go there first, but I really hate most of the video installations I see. I don't have the patience to sit through 15 mins of someone talking on a screen. We all once went to a gallery in Berlin and sat down on the floor where everyone was watching a projection on a blank wall. There was a group of normal-looking people camping by a lake, probably in Scotland. Suddenly a traditionally robed Jesus rose from the water and ascended into heaven, (in about 5 seconds, blink and you would have missed it). Then everyone got up and went, leaving us. New people wandered in and sat down too. We had to watch for about 20 mins, as the normal people on the screen arrived, pitched their tent, changed their clothes, made a fire, pumped up their lilos, did all the camping things people do, and then Jesus ascended again. What the hell was all that about?
So to the National Gallery, which it seems I had already visited but didn't remember anything. It was rather full. In one room there was an excellent display of hand-made books. They had all the characteristics of ancient handmade books: neat gothic handwriting, illuminated capitals, hand-painted illustrations, hand made paper, leather covers painted and with that 3-d sculptured effect. But all these books had been made by school kids. That was great. There was even a book aiming for the Guinness book of records in that it was 2m long and 1 m wide. Impossible to turn the pages, not just because of the weight, but also because they were made in 3 sections and sewn (rather loosely) together.
To celebrate writing there was a table where kids could try using quill pens and ink from bottles. Now imagine this was in the UK. All kids would have to wear aprons, there would be special non-spill containers for ink, and all parents would have to sign a form saying it was OK for the kids to ruin their clothes with ink and damage themselves with the nibs in the quills. But there was none of this fuss here. Ordinary bottles of ink were waiting to be knocked over, and even small children were let loose to have a go. It looked great fun.
Older kids were going round the gallery with a white piece of paper and some crayons. On the paper was a coloured detail from one of the paintings, which they had to find and then draw their version of the painting, with the detail in the right place. You can see their dedication here.
Some of the adults were also going round with their "homework" ticking off the paintings they had to find.
The best bit was a special show of Plecnik's architectural drawings which needs a separate post and some pictures I need to find, but I managed to get round the permanent collections as well. The usual portraits of smug looking bourgeois families, (not so many royalty), lives of saints, still lifes (lives?) and gloomy landscapes in contrasting colours. You can see where the painters for tourists get their inspiration. There were some paintings from the Antwerp school who managed some really slimy fish and a rather chirpy looking crab, considering it was dead. There were some winter scenes from post-impressionists, which I would like to collect one day, to make a change from all those flowers. But the painting which puzzled me most was a tryptych by a Marx Reichlich from the turn of the 15th century. I don't usually look at those in any detail, but this one really caught my eye.
The left hand panel had a lady saint with pre-raphaelite long hair and a sword, who was reading a book. In the middle panel was Mary with Jesus being held (at arms length) towards the nanny. Male saints looked on approvingly from both sides. Lower down, a bourgeois couple were protrayed together with a leopard and a very black king (some distant relative?). At the bottom were two coats of arms (presumably for the couple). The right hand panel also had a lady saint, with more restrained hair. Although the artist had gone to great lengths to emphasise her figure with a tiny waist, he had draped her garments in such a way as to suggest she was pregnant. She carried a goblet which had a luminous ping pong ball on top (or perhaps it was extra icecream) and also (and this is what really made me start looking) a scimitar. It was rather long, but it was definitely curved and not a normal sword. Perhaps at the end of the crusades, there was a bit of technology transfer and scimitars were fashionable in the west for a time.
I wish I had time to do a course in art history and know what it really was all about.
