We limited our ambitions for today: a second trip into central Glasgow, and home early enough for a cooked dinner. (Hence, me writing tonight.)
The
Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum was wonderful. Generally, art galleries are not really my thing (the State Russian Museum being the only exception that springs to mind). Occasional pieces of art might grab me, but I can walk past rooms of the works of the Masters without much trouble. The Kelvingrove Gallery was curated very well, with labels posing questions to the viewer that helped me engage with the works.
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| Two strings to her bow by John Pettie (1867). A computer display below ran you through a Cosmo-type quiz to help you identify your perfect match. |
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| Oliver interpreting The Briar Rose, an artwork on the Sleeping Beauty story. |
The Art Gallery and the Museum components blurred into each other. One gallery was about using art to explore how Scots see themselves ...
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| Yeah, what he said. |
... while others emphasised the artistry in what would usually be considered museum pieces.
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| Fulton's Orrery. The model was made over 4 years in the 1820's as a hobby by a shoemaker (!) who really, really loved astronomy. No Neptune, and the major asteroids are presented as small planets (which puzzled the kids initially). |
One highlight for me was the arms and armour gallery (surprise, surprise), which provoked another interesting discussion with Ben about advantages and disadvantages of different weapons and defences.
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| Nice use of parallels between animal attack and defence modes, and technological implementation of the same strategies. |
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| Mercenary's armour. Much less fancy than most of the suits of armour we've seen so far. Truly wicked single-handed "ice pick" in the left hand. |
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| Graceful full-sized models holding some of the many different swords. |
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| A WW2 boardgame. No rules on display (nor online), but seems to be roughly at a Stratego level of complexity. |
The other highlight was the
Christ of St John of the Cross by Dali. I have loved this work ever since Reverend Les used it in a church service many years ago. Shame on me for not knowing, or forgetting, it was a work by Dali. Apparently he went through a period of intense Catholic religiosity (and simultaneously, an interest in atomic science) in the post-war period. One feature of the work that I had missed before today - Christ is not actually attached to the Cross in any way: no nails, no ropes.
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| Images from the "cosmic dream" that Dali said inspired the painting. Initially he interpreted the image on the left as showing an atomic nucleus. Only subsequently did he see a depiction Christ (and presumably the crown of thorns) in the image. |
Just as we finished up the displays, there was a performance in the central hall of the museum from the organ. This was the boys' favourite part of the visit, as we sat down for 15 minutes or so and nibbled on our bikkies.
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| Organ recital |
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| Anna Pavlova by John Lavery - Julie's favourite artwork in the museum. |
After a packed lunch, we rounded out the day at the Riverside Transport Museum. The boys pretty much loved all of this. It was a combination of _many_ different trams, cars, motorbikes, bicycles ... but also discussion about the evolution of transport.
A great example of this was a Model T Ford side by side with a similar vintage car (??Argyle). The Argyle was stunning, but made before the introduction of the production line. A workforce of 1000 would turn out 800 (highly individualizable) cars a year. At the same time, Ford changed to a production line model, dropped all variations, and had a single factory spit out 7000 cars a year. 2 years later, Argyle closed its doors.
Anyway, enjoy the photos!
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| Mockup of a Glaswegian street from the early 1900's ... |
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| ... including the neighbourhood pub! No tables. No kids. No women (unless they were picking up a take away order for their other half at home). By law needed to serve food: heated pies. |
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| Glasgow had the 3rd subway system in the world, after London and Budapest. Unlike the others, it was cable driven (like San Francisco's cable cars): no motor on the carriages, they just clamped onto, or released from, constantly moving under-rail cables. |
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| Eat your heart out Goodies! Trandems were developed to break speed records, on the assumption that 4-manpower would be faster than 1. |
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| Ben working hard. |
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| And another very unstable rear-engined car. Owners reported needing to stack cans of food and bricks in the front end to keep it on the ground. |
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| My, my, how spacious ambulances were in the early 1980's! |
