May 18, 19, 20 & 21: Three museums, lots of organising & two Glaswegian vegan eateries
The last few days have been busier, more hectic and more stressful than I would have liked. Between sorting out customs forms to send our bags back to Australia, sorting out customs forms to post things back to Australia, sorting out customs forms to send the tagger to Washington and organising all our belongings, we still wanted to see some of the history and art that Glasgow had to offer. It’s now Thursday and I’m sitting outside the apartment waiting for someone to collect our bags. It’s 9.50 and the timeslot they’ve given us was the generous 9-6, so it could well be a long day.
Anyway, the 18th was Monday and
we were due to head to Kelvingrove to visit the museum there. I really have a lot of love for
Victorian-style museums and galleries that don’t have the art/science
distinction that came about afterwards.
There were two distinct sides to the building – one for art and one for
natural and human history – but they all sat together under one roof. I would’ve liked them to be a little more
intermingled, but can imagine that some people would find that chaotic.
Highlights included the Scottish wildlife
section, where they had a display ‘Haggis’ creature and included local whiskeys
to illustrate different aspects of Scottish culture (Loch Lomond Whiskey went
with Loch Lomond, Grouse Whiskey went with the birds). They had quite a good Darwin/evolution section
that carefully tiptoed across sweeping statements like, “people believed the
world was created over millions of years” which I always find enjoyable. They had a beehive, which I had mixed
feelings about, but the bees seemed quite content and I’m all for educating
people on the coolness/necessity of bees.
The "Haggis" (this was weird)
How did the universe come into creation? Cthulhu perhaps?
One other that stood out to me was a series
of archived objects stationed together that represented Beauty and Ugliness,
selected by (presumably) Glaswegian laypeople of all different
backgrounds. They didn’t earmark which
person picked which objects from the archive, but each artifact had a statement
about why it was beautiful or ugly. Most
people cited weapons as being ugly, because of their purposes. One cited a taxidermy fox eating a bird as
beautiful, because it was the circle of life.
Another claimed a spoon was the most beautiful. I agreed.
I quite like spoons.
The Helmet & The Hare
My favourite part of museums are signs for things that have been removed.
This building is fantastic
Kelvingrove Museum
The following day was another visit to a
museum of sorts, The Burrell Collection.
It literally was a huge, elaborate collection of art and objects and
artifacts, all collected by a rich shipping merchant who invested his money in
collecting and put the collection on display.
In the end, he got knighted. We
wondered if the guy who made MONA would get knighted, because he’s done,
essentially, the same thing. We doubted
it.
Nicholas and I often feel like we came into
these things at the wrong time. It
doesn’t matter how much time you spend scouring the beach and going to shops
like Wunderkammer and collecting
strange and unusual wares, because all the good stuff has already been found
or, if you found it now, you’d have to donate it to a museum or pay all the
dollars for it. Anyway, the Burrell
had some amazing stuff on display; paintings, pastels, furniture, weaponry,
Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifacts, ancient Chinese objects, Turkish rugs and
carpets.
Pollok Park
The Thinker
I’ve got a pretty good general knowledge of
ancient and modern histories, but the one place I have huge knowledge gaps is
Chinese ancient history. I just never
learned it, and haven’t ever placed it in a lot of context with other
history. Even when we went to places
like Skara Brae in Orkney and they did ‘comparative histories’, they used
things like The Pyramids of Giza and the creation of the wheel in Mesopotamia
to draw a comparison. Perhaps it was
largely my own ignorance that I felt so much shock seeing Chinese objects, made
of metal, that dated back to 10 000 BC.
I cannot fathom such ancient people smithing metal. It kind of blew my mind.
The building the Burrell is housed in is
also very beautiful, and it’s in this magical little place that feels very
removed from the bustling Glasgow that’s jostling along just a few minutes away. Pollok Park is a sprawling, green development
filled with lots of birds, trees and bluebells.
We hoped to make it to Pollok house to view some of the work they’ve got
on display (apparently lots of Blake) but ran to the doors just as they were
closing them for last entry. We’d spent
far too long in the café at the Burrell, drinking tea and musing about what on
earth we were going to do with our lives once this trip was over.
I love galleries and museums painted in this muted green. I bought a pot of it in university for my studio and it was called Misty Moor.
The final museum-going day of excitement
before this day (where we sit and wait on the stoop outside the apartment
block) was yesterday. Yesterday was also
quite a day for organising and housekeeping: waking, packing, going to the post
office, getting some printing done, buying cable ties to secure our bags and
dropping some things off to goodwill.
After all this was out of the way, it was lunchtime, and we decided to
head to a dog-friendly vegetarian bar called 13th Note. It had a distinctly relaxed air, a decent
cocktail menu (anything with apple & elderflower has my name on it) and
fantastic food. Nicholas and I felt
completely spoiled for choice, so decided to get a few things to share. The Cajun chips were a little spicy and
delicious, the pizza was faux-meaty and comforting, but the crispy pesto
gnocchi was my personal favourite. It
had huge chunks of saucy broccoli and crispy gnocchi has textures unlike
anything else (how is it I’ve never seen this sensation anywhere except
Scotland? Scotland doesn’t strike me as particularly Italian. Then again, they do boast a lot of macaroni
cheese, which is a delicious Italian bastardisation if ever there was
one). Needless to say, it was
amazing. Not quite as well priced as The
78, but just as tasty.
From here, we were headed to the St Mungo
Museum of Religious Life and Art, named after Glasgow’s patron Saint. As far as dealing with a lot of conflicting
religions and ideologies goes, they did a really excellent job in discussing
and displaying all artifacts relatively impartially and with dignity. They had a really great range of sculptures
and paintings, though I feel like most Christian-related artwork pales in
comparison to Islamic and Hindu works.
Indigenous Australian, Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures were
represented, as well as mixed Islander cultures, though not many.
There was an emphasis on The Big 6 (Islam,
Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism) in the next room, which
focused on lifestyles, beliefs and the afterlife. Nicholas preferred the first room, which showcases
a selection of artwork but doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the religions
themselves. I found the second room more
fascinating, as it delved into rites and rituals and the afterlife.
We took a wrong turn on our way to the
Acropolis and were invited into the cathedral before it closed. To be fair, the originality and interest that
Christian painting and sculpture lacks, is made up for in their architecture. We didn’t have too long to look around, but it
was dwarfing and beautiful – as most cathedrals tend to be – reminiscent of
huge caves and with acoustics to match.
We found ourselves at the Necropolis and wandered through the
tombstones, talking about death and about religion, musing on what we’d learnt
and seen and disagreed with at St Mungo’s.
That kind of gets us up-to-date. We’re currently sitting outside our apartment
and waiting for our bag to be collected. It’s been a long morning so far. The issue is that there’s no bell up to the
apartments and DHL can’t guarantee that they’ll call you when they arrive. If you miss them, they’ll just leave and you
have to pay again, which is a bummer. So
we sat on the stoop, caught up on postcard-writing and let lots of mailmen and
delivery people into the building.
St Mungo's Cathedral
Glasgow Necropolis
We also stumbled upon a Tardis, so here you go.
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