The last exhibition I saw was at Tate Britain. British Baroque: Power and Illusion covers the reigns of the last Stuart monarchs, from the restoration of Charles II in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714.
I particularly enjoyed the variety of content displayed in ten rooms: Restoration, the Restoration Court, the Religious Interior, Illusion and Deception, Wren and Baroque Architecture, Country Mansions and Courtly Gardens, Painted Interiors, Beauty, Triumph and Glory and the Age of Politics. There was a lot to look at and, usually, admire. However, there was one aspect that irked me.
This delightful picture must get a woke curator in a tizz-wizz. The black boys wear the same metal collars as the Duchess’ dogs. Personally I think visitors should have been warned that her boobs are on display.
The room devoted to illusion was enjoyable. I liked this trompe l’oeil door; it is a real door but the upper panel is a painting.
In another part of the exhibition there were four marble reliefs by Grinling Gibbons. It is interesting that there is no shamrock – it had not yet been adopted as an Irish emblem.
It took us about an hour to see everything by which time we were ready for lunch in the Rex Whistler Restaurant.
Sitting at home starved of culture you might like to go to a museum and what better one than the Hermitage in St Petersburg. I spent six hours there in January and saw just a tiny fraction but I’m going back for an hour and forty minutes; Russian Ark is on YouTube. Here’s the gist of it and a trailer.
“Russian Ark is a 2002 experimental historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. In Russian Ark, an unnamed narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, and implies that he died in some horrible accident and is a ghost drifting through the palace. In each room, he encounters various real and fictional people from various periods in the city’s 300-year history. He is accompanied by “the European”, who represents the Marquis de Custine, a 19th-century French traveler.
The film was recorded entirely in the Winter Palace of the Russian State Hermitage Museum on 23 December 2001 using a one-take single 96-minute Steadicam sequence shot. Russian Ark uses the fourth wall device extensively, but repeatedly broken and re-erected. At times the narrator and the companion interact with the other performers, whilst at other times they pass unnoticed.” Wikipedia.
The door is charming, but the glaring overhead lighting shows up the illusion by being too reflective on the paneling at the bottom of the door. One wonders why they couldn’t mount lighting more in keeping with that in the painting to the reverse of the open doorcase? The exhibition sounds delightful, and just the right size to be enjoyed without being too intense. So many treasures sit unappreciated now, except those available via online tours. When we are able to convene in public spaces again, I have every intent to sustain a renewed energy to take advantage of the many opportunities to see and hear the beautiful things I too often take for granted in the course of “normal” life. (Insert cliché about not appreciating things until they are gone, absence making the heart grow fonder, etc.)
I haven’t seen the movie, but the blurb mentions the Marquis de Custine (who had rather a remarkable life!). If you haven’t read it already, you might enjoy his Russian travelogue, with its tart opinions on Russian society, national character, official duplicity, bureaucracy, etc. A highly enjoyable book.