Natural History Museum

The animal and plant decoration on the museum’s exterior

I have posted before about my love for the Waterhouse Building, home of London’s Natural History Museum (The Sculpture of Nature). This time I thought that I would share a few photographs showing the outside of this beautiful and eccentric building, specifically, a few of the many, many animal and plant sculptures and reliefs that decorate its rich exterior.

A Cathedral to Science – entrance to the museum

The ambition of Alfred Waterhouse’s design is breathtaking in its complexity, with literally hundreds of sculptures and gargoyles adorning a façade that is already a busy excursion into the Gothic fairytale-land of the German Romanesque. Such richness of detail could easily have disintegrated into a jumbled mess, yet through careful control of scale and proportion, together with the cohesive force of the strong lines running through the design, Waterhouse never loses the overall coherence of the building.

Iconic landmark – The towers of the museum seen from South Kensington underground station

Primitive reptiles and a dire-wolf? beneath one of the many windows

This magnificent feline is high up, against one of the building’s central towers

A whole menagerie of beasts and gargoyles look down on visitors

This lion, like all the other beasts, was modelled from Waterhouse’s own drawings

The building also has more subtle decoration, such as this fox and birds over the entrance

Smaller creatures are represented on tiles such as these

Apart from the animal in the roundel, note the birds in the rooftop ironwork

The famous pterodactyl

I fell in love with this building on the day I first saw it and in the decades since I have only grown to appreciate it more. If you have a chance to visit London then please make a trip to the Natural History Museum one of your priorities.

(As always, thanks are due to husband Alex for helping to put my thoughts into words.)

Fierce Creatures

We have just spent a few days in London visiting our daughter Isla and one highlight of our trip was a visit to the British Museum to see the Ice Age Art exhibition. In many ways this show was a shock because the artefacts are all so small. I knew a number of the pieces from reproductions and was taken aback to discover that these apparently monumental objects are in fact only a few centimetres tall. Monumental figures of women are one recurring theme through the show, the other being animal figures, with many being very powerfully conceived.

Sadly, photography was not permitted in the exhibition (though I did see some surreptitious clicking using mobile phones going on), so here are a few other nice animal objects to be found in the BM.

Bull’s head decorating a lyre from Ur (Sumerian)

Another object from Ur – the famous ram in a thicket

Persian griffin drinking horn

Bronze age silver bull

Lion?

Leaping ibex (originally a vase handle)

The one on the left is clearly a goose; not sure about the one with the nice false eyelashes!

Rather dragon-like dogs on a bronze flagon

Powerful bronze bull’s head

Leaping dog on a Roman pot

Japanese netsuke deer

More Museum Favourites

Here are a few more of my favourite objects in the wonderful British Museum.

There is no story here, just images that excite me, selected more or less at random. – Or if there is a kind of general story, it is just about what various creative people have done using stone, metal, wood or clay.

The great treasure-house that is the British Museum

Weighty majesty – from Greece

Flowing movement in stone – also from Greece

Chinese jade ritual blade – just a polished bit of stone?

Fish-shaped ritual headdress, with beautiful shadows – Africa galleries

Shiny piece of abstract metalwork – (European) bronze age gold brooch

More bronze-age metal – corroded Chinese bronze vessel

Metal blade in the form of a bird – Africa galleries

Practical metalworking – Chinese finger-nail protectors

Exquisite modelling on a Chinese phoenix-headed ewer – White porcelain (9th to 11th centuries)

Shang dynasty (1600 BC to 1046 BC) – bronze ritual vessel

As always, photographs are a poor substitute for seeing the real thing – Visit a museum again soon!

Threads of Silk and Gold

Last weekend we travelled to Oxford to see a groundbreaking new textiles exhibition at The Ashmolean Museum. “Threads of Silk and Gold – Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan”, presents textile pieces using traditional Japanese skills but made primarily for a Western audience. (Sadly, there was no photography allowed in the exhibition but I did sneak a couple of snaps to give a flavour of the show.)

Cover of the beautiful catalogue

Japanese art and crafts were hugely popular in the West between the 1870’s and the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912. Textiles were part of this export trade but have been little studied until now.

Although there are token exhibits of weaving and Yuzen dyeing, this is an exhibition of Japanese embroidery. Ranging from superb exhibition pieces and large artworks to examples of what are frankly “tourist kitsch”, the craftsmanship is uniformly superb and shows a level of hand labour that is now unimaginable.

Detail of Cranes and Wisteria – Size 201cm x 279cm (Ashmolean collection)

This screen of cormorant fishing is the star of the show

Many of the largest pieces (up to nearly 4 metres high) were exhibition works for various World Fairs, or were produced for the richest foreign tourists to take home from their visits.

Detail of the Cormorant Fishing showing the free stitching technique

Detail showing the fire basket. This is painting with stitches!

I have long loved Japanese embroidery but always felt that there was a stiffness and very “rules-driven” approach to its execution. With the notable exception of the Cormorant screen, this is still visible here but where the designs are so grand and original the end-result totally escapes any limitation from the fact that every feather on every bird is executed using precisely the same stitch technique. Indeed, the whole exhibition is an object lesson in the possibilities and limitations of craft techniques;  the truly original works exceed the limitations of technique while even the best craft skills cannot rescue the dreadful pot-boilers.

Detail of the peacock shown on the catalogue cover. (Photo of catalogue illustration)

Outside the exhibition was an education exhibit on Japanese embroidery techniques (where photography was allowed) and on the day we visited there were also embroiderers staging demonstrations.

Many exhibits feature 3D embroidery. This is a modern imitation

Demonstration piece showing basic stitches

Techniques for couching gold thread

Modern, embroidered handling-piece

Silk-weaving is now the only affordable substitute for large fully-embroidered pieces

“Threads of Silk and Gold” runs at the Ashmolean until 27^th January 2013. For more information see the Ashmolean website

New Jewellery in Pink and Purple

Recently I have been producing a lot of work in pinks and purples.

Here are  images of just some of the pieces in this very pink theme.

A new choker with lots of pink velvet

A pink and purple version of the blue neckpiece I made a little while ago.

Close-up of the new neckpiece

Back view of the neckpiece

Matching earring for the above

Another pair of earrings in a style inspired by seashells

More Eden

Here are a few more photographs we took on our visit to The Eden Project last week. This time we present some of the more unusual / abstract / eccentric images we came home with. Hope that they inspire you!

The Sculpture of Nature

Terracotta relief sculpture in The Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum in London houses one of the world’s great collections on the living world but it is also one the nation’s truly amazing buildings. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse (1830 – 1905), the Museum is like a Romanesque Cathedral to Science with a touch of Victorian railway station thrown in. Waterhouse’s design is not only striking in terms of style but also for its innovative use of materials, with the entire building being clad in fired terracotta tiles in an interesting buff and blue colour scheme. The extravagant, nature-inspired decoration was also produced in terracotta with huge numbers of sculptures and sculptural reliefs both inside and out.

Romanesque Cathedral crossed with a railway station – A Temple of Science

I studied art at a time when Modernism was still very much the dominant force in architecture. I seem to remember that a building like the Natural History Museum was not so much attacked in discussions of good architecture (except by implication), it more just totally ignored; but I loved the building the first time I saw it and love it even more today.

Waterhouse’s Museum is as far from Modernism as you can get

These images are just a small selection of the reliefs and other decorations to be found in just the main hall of the building; the same decorative scheme is carried on throughout the building and can be the basis of an interesting museum trip all on their own.

Birds at the bottom of the grand staircase

Each piece of decoration was drawn by Waterhouse himself, then checked for scientific accuracy by Richard Owen, the museum’s director, then sent to a sculptor for modelling in clay before being cast and fired.

A canine – probably a domestic dog

The great sculpture of Charles Darwin by Sir Joseph Boehm now commands the grand staircase.

The greatest figure in biology looking over the main hall

A ram’s head decorating the base of a main pillar

A feline with her young

Another bird

Darwin

For further information see Natural History Museum – History and Architecture
 and the RIBA Natural History Museum pages
or make a trip to see the museum yourself.

Gardens of Eden

Alex and I went to visit Cornwall’s world-renowned Eden Project last weekend. This was our first visit for a couple of years and it was interesting to see how the various parts of the site are developing. “Eden” is marketed very much as an experience in horticultural education (and there is much of interest to be learned there) but I always find my experience of it is more as a work of art.

The iconic Eden domes

Art is certainly important to the creators of Eden (there are sculptures to be found everywhere) but the entire experience seems to be primarily an aesthetic one for me.

The Eden Project is situated in a disused china-clay pit

Most interesting has been seeing the changes in the developing plantings over the years. The Tropical Biome (as the giant greenhouses are named) seemed mature from very early in its life but I can recall when the Warm-Temperate Biome was a rather barren affair with little plants struggling to be interesting. Now this area has matured into a very pleasant space with a warm, calm feel.

The Tropical Biome at Eden

Only some areas of the outside plantings now leave me feeling a bit underwhelmed. This is partly a lack of any mature trees but is also the problem of some mass plantings looking a bit like the sort of horticulture found around municipal car parks. Another serious issue is where too many different displays have been packed into too small an area, so that they are out of scale with the grandness of the architecture.

Nice autumn colour but there is still a great lack of mature trees

The iconic Eden domes

The Eden Project is situated in a disused china-clay pit

The interesting education centre with its architecture based on plant forms

Nice autumn colour but there is still a great lack of mature trees

The Tropical Biome at Eden

This little gecko is one of many small reptiles and birds introduced to the tropical biome

Waterfall in the tropical biome

A jungle pool

The Mediterranean area now has a very pleasant cafe

South-African planting in the warm-temperate biome

Tim Shaw’s “Rites of Dionysis” – sculpture among the vines

The Eden visitor centre up on the edge of the bowl

Detail of a dome

Rules of Colour

Many of the comments I receive when I speak to people about my work are about colour and the colour choices I make.

The same basic brooch using two different colour schemes

The most common question by far must be “what is your favourite colour?” and people are always seem surprised when I say that I do not have one. I believe that having favourites is dangerous for someone who works with colour as it is likely to restrict the choices you make; if you have favourites it means that you also have non-favourites.

I try to be open to every possible colour combination

Sadly for me, having no favourites does not mean that I can escape from having habits and habit can all too easily dominate an artist’s colour choices.

Apparently, I have a habit of resorting to rust reds and burnt oranges

The workings of colour, both from a technical and a psychological point of view is a complex subject but here are a few of my little rules of thumb.

1) How well colour-combinations work depends on context, for instance colours that look beautiful in a landscape would often look very dull if applied tone-for-tone to a small object.

The colours of a pretty landscape are usually very subdued

The great American artist and educator Hans Hofmann taught generations of young artists that no colour exists independent of its neighbours; that the effect of a colour, both perceptually and emotionally, is determined by the colours it is placed next to.

Equinox – Hans Hofmann – UC Berkeley, Berkeley Art Museum

2) When looking at objects close-up, our eyes (and our minds) find it hard to distinguish colour as a completely separate experience from tone and texture.  A flat area of colour is perceived very differently from an area where that colour has tonal variation, particularly rhythmical tonal variation.

This photograph is virtually monochromatic but we see the colour as attractive because of the rhythmic tonal variations

3) For a safe rule when creating colour schemes, use contrasting colours of similar tone or use closely related colours with contrasting tone.

4) Beware safe rules – Harmonious colours are calm and satisfying but nothing excites like an unexpected combination.

The black areas here give sparkle but they break the easy colour rules

5) Take risks – You will sometimes end up with a colour disaster but it is the secret to avoiding repeating yourself endlessly. (Amazingly however, I have found that no matter how weird the colours I use, it is likely that someone, somewhere will like them!)

6) Colourful is not the same as bright. Sometimes very subdued schemes can yield the most interesting effects.

This brooch used very subdued, even dull colours but the scheme received lots of praise

7) While there are lots of useful guidelines, the truth is that if you want to have a chance of really surprising yourself – there are no rules at all!

For anyone interested in learning more about colour in art I recommend the WebExhibits.org pages on Colour, Vision and Art

Pretty Boxes

When Alex and I went to London last week we decided that we were going to try and see some different kinds of museum work, apart from the textiles, Asian art, etc., that we usually look at. So Alex went to try and find a room in the V&A that he had not really appreciated before, where he would really study the objects and take a few photographs.

Lots of shiny diamonds but we both would have allowed more of the beautiful blue enamel work to show

Alex chose a room of displaying small gold or silver boxes in one of the Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert Galleries. These gem-studded boxes are clearly very precious and all showed evidence of the highest quality workmanship.

Miniature decoration with a musical theme

One of the most stunning aspects of that part of the V&A is the stunning view over the Madejski courtyard in the centre of the museum.

Morning sunlight filtering into the Madejski courtyard

When you love museums and visit them regularly, you tend to accumulate a list of favourites that you check out each time as old friends. With large National museums there are also lots of rooms that you wander through without really paying so much attention; maybe because you do not see a connection between your particular interests and the type of artefacts on display. This is particularly true of places like the V&A, where the range of material is huge and much of it consists of very specialised collections.

This is my favourite. Not sure if the centre is Japanese metalwork or a copy

The work I produce is mostly small and intricate so I would have expected to feel a natural appreciation for this type of very detailed work, yet I confess that I find some of it a little over-fussy. I cannot help feeling that setting off all that very fine detail against some empty spaces would allow the designs to “breathe” a bit better.

Really serious “bling” but I think that some less textured areas would set off the stones better

Nice moss agate but I am less sure about the metalwork on the lid

Really tiny mosaic work!

Next time you visit a favourite museum, make sure to have a close look at some very different objects!