London: Amphitheatre, V&A
Aug. 28th, 2018 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackAmphitheatre
Logically, I knew London was a major Roman settlement, and hence presumably had an amphitheatre, but I didn't stop to ask, is it still there? Do we know where it was?
So I was surprised when I stopped at the Guildhall's Art Gallery, and they advertised having it in their basement, even if I shouldn't have been.
There's not that much there, the remnants of stone entrance way, and part of the arc. Most of the area would be outside the building. But they did a nice job illustrating it. Metal lines on the floor showed where relevant walls would have been, and wooden tiered seating. And a wooden (rectangular) drain with silt trap is visible under the floor, covered with glass.
And there's several athletic figures picked out in a glowing network of lines, like some 3d cyberpunk thing, showing that people would have been doing stuff there, not admiring the architecture.
V&A
And we went to the V&A. The Frida Kahlo exhibition was sold out for the day, and we didn't quite make it to the future exhibition, but we ended up seeing a lot of the permanent collection.
It's a glorious riot of stuff collected loosely by theme. We walked through the Rodin gallery entering and leaving. I only actually know vaguely of Rodin, but it was really impressive: sculpture which is both very realistic, and very dramatic, often oversized, often influenced by classic statuary, e.g. in missing heads, and sometimes by, apparently, wanting to portray many naked bodies writhing together.
We went on a quest for the contemporary glass exhibit, hoping to see more of Chihuly's amazing tentacly sculptures (spoiler: we did), but we ended up getting confused by the different staircases, and by the absence of a middle in the second main floor (and all of the mezzinine floors), and ended up crisscrossing through almost everywhere on our way.
We saw more sculpture, Japanese, Chinese, Buddhist, Middle Eastern, etc galleries, all a mix of notable things and beautiful things. The second main floor was more mixed, with collections of manufactured stuff, and library of art books, and stained glass and ecclesiastical gold, and we were flagging by then, so we made a last push to the glass, which was indeed very interesting.
And we had pea and lime cake which was surprisingly palatable.
And felt like we'd made good use of a random day off work with no major goals.
Logically, I knew London was a major Roman settlement, and hence presumably had an amphitheatre, but I didn't stop to ask, is it still there? Do we know where it was?
So I was surprised when I stopped at the Guildhall's Art Gallery, and they advertised having it in their basement, even if I shouldn't have been.
There's not that much there, the remnants of stone entrance way, and part of the arc. Most of the area would be outside the building. But they did a nice job illustrating it. Metal lines on the floor showed where relevant walls would have been, and wooden tiered seating. And a wooden (rectangular) drain with silt trap is visible under the floor, covered with glass.
And there's several athletic figures picked out in a glowing network of lines, like some 3d cyberpunk thing, showing that people would have been doing stuff there, not admiring the architecture.
V&A
And we went to the V&A. The Frida Kahlo exhibition was sold out for the day, and we didn't quite make it to the future exhibition, but we ended up seeing a lot of the permanent collection.
It's a glorious riot of stuff collected loosely by theme. We walked through the Rodin gallery entering and leaving. I only actually know vaguely of Rodin, but it was really impressive: sculpture which is both very realistic, and very dramatic, often oversized, often influenced by classic statuary, e.g. in missing heads, and sometimes by, apparently, wanting to portray many naked bodies writhing together.
We went on a quest for the contemporary glass exhibit, hoping to see more of Chihuly's amazing tentacly sculptures (spoiler: we did), but we ended up getting confused by the different staircases, and by the absence of a middle in the second main floor (and all of the mezzinine floors), and ended up crisscrossing through almost everywhere on our way.
We saw more sculpture, Japanese, Chinese, Buddhist, Middle Eastern, etc galleries, all a mix of notable things and beautiful things. The second main floor was more mixed, with collections of manufactured stuff, and library of art books, and stained glass and ecclesiastical gold, and we were flagging by then, so we made a last push to the glass, which was indeed very interesting.
And we had pea and lime cake which was surprisingly palatable.
And felt like we'd made good use of a random day off work with no major goals.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-28 11:17 pm (UTC)And the amphitheatre sounds worth a visit, too.
Sigh. So much to see, so little time...
no subject
Date: 2018-08-29 01:24 pm (UTC)Both the amphitheatre and the glass might not be worth making a lot of effort to get to, but they're both free entry (with an optional donation suggested, but not a prerequisite), and if you're anywhere near, well worth popping in.
I assume the glass rotates somewhat, since it's a contemporary exhibition, but I assume whatever they have will be interesting. I'm really glad I saw the Chihuly exhibition at some point, even though IIRC I randomly ended up seeing it on holiday.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-29 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-30 10:27 am (UTC)