Monday, July 29, 2013
Battersea, London
Waking up to the sound of trains is
a novel experience but a nice romantic one. There is a railroad line that runs
just outside my window here in Battersea and planes on the Heathrow Path, not
to mention helicopters ascending and descending over the helipad poised over
the Thames where river boats ply all day long—all these journeys, these to-ings
and fro-ings are deeply romantic to me.
I worked for three steady hours
after a muesli brekkie. Waking early provides me with the opportunity to do
focussed editing work and to redraft my proposal to the publishers. I also had
a request letter for a transcript to draft and sundry other email
correspondence items to complete. Before I knew it, it was 11.30 am—where does
the time go? It was great to have Alexander, Roz’s son, for company as he
pottered around on the lower level having come in after 2.00 am last night. He
leaves for Oxford (where he lives) later today. As I worked on my laptop, I
watched birds—a variety and a great multitude of them in Roz’s garden—Alexander
informed me that the small yellow ones are probably blue tits—go figure! There
were also large strange ones I’d never seen before—wood pigeons, he said. Llew
would have loved it.
At 11. 30 am, I was at the bus stop
intending to get to Vauxhall to take the Tube to start my ambles around Albertopolis
as the area around the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum is called. But I
have become strangely proficient in the use of the red buses and when one came
along proclaiming “South Kensington” as its destination, I was on it like a
bonnet! It was a lovely ride—through Chelsea (I love the King’s Road and Fulham
Road and could dally on them forever) and the Bluebird Cafe where I have been
intending to eat for ages and into “South Ken” which is Little Paris, really,
what with the plethora of French shops that have cluttered the area.
Revisiting the V&A:
It wasn’t long before I entered the
V&A that looked very different from what I remembered. It didn’t take me
long to realize that a whole new wing had been added to it on the right—a wing
that was under renovation while I had lived in London—it turned out to be the
new Medieval and Renaissance Wing that was opened soon in late 2009, soon after
I left. Naturally, I had to take a tour of it and to my good luck, there was
one beginning in just two minutes: a special tour of the Medieval and
Renaissance Wing. It wound around the Museum’s treasures—from the court on the
ground floor where the guide pointed out the Italian medieval stone wells, the
stema (signature stone) of Pope Leo X and Giamdebologna’s Samson Wrestling the Philistine—which is one of the museum’s
treasures. (Indeed, it did not take me long to discover a wonderful leaflet
entitled ”Twenty Treasures of the V&A” that points visitors in the
direction of its most notable items in a collections whose number is staggering.
And naturally, I resolved that I would return tomorrow to do a self-guided tour
of them as instructions and directions are very clearly marked on the leaflet.
However, one does now have to pay one pound for the Floor Plan (as also in the
National Gallery)—so it is now worth holding on to these after one’s visit
instead of consigning them to the trash bins.
Upstairs, our tour took us to a
stone Gothic Altar, to the Gloucester Candlestick (made of gilded base metal
using the lost wax technique), to the stained glass window panels from La
Chapelle in Paris (not clear how they got to the V&A), to completely
different stained glass panels from the Church of the Stained Blood in Bruges
in Belgium (also not clear how they got to the V&A), to the massive
tapestry entitled The Boar Hunt—one
of a series of four that details all kinds of medieval hunting (bear, boar,
deer) among lords and ladies dressed to kill (pun intended), a most unusual marble
bas relief of the Ascension of Christ by Donatello in a space
devoted exclusively to his work (as the V&A has the most works by him
outside of Italy) and finally a studiola with very interesting ceramic ceiling
rondels by Lucca della Robbia that portrays the 12 months of the agricultural
year.
By then, it was nearly 12. 30 pm and
I rushed downstairs to the Information Desk to join the Introductory Tour which
is what the Museum’s Highlights Tour is called. This docent, named Deborah, was
simply amazing—passionate and energetic and so knowledgeable. She started with the
Ardabil Carpet which is dimly lit for
just 10 minutes on the hour and the half hour—it is indeed the largest carpet
of its quality in the world and arrived in the V&A via Persia and Los
Angeles (having fallen temporarily in the possession of J. Paul Getty).
Upstairs, we paused at the terracotta Bust
of Henry Tudor that remained in the possession of his son Henry VIII and stopped
at the Hereford Altar Panel—a confection
of Victorian design in multi-media: metal, studded semi-precious stones,
marble, gilded wood, terracotta (figures of Christ and the angels) meant for
the church and designed by the great Sir George Gilbert Scott but never installed
there. This vantage point gave us an opportunity to gaze upon one of my
favorite works in the Museum—the softly colored Chandelier by Dale Chihuly that cascades over the Main Information
Desk echoing the soft colors on the Victorian stained glass window panes from
where Chihuly took his inspiration when commissioned the work.
In the Renaissance and Medieval
Galleries (constructed in imitation of the Millennium Dome installed in the British
Museum), she pointed out the New Court
(with its fountains and its sculpture), we skimmed past the Casts Court that was temporarily closed
(the casts are taken from the world’s greatest sculpture so that the V&A
has plaster casts of Rome’s Trajan Column
and Florence’s David, both by
Michaelangelo and by Donatello and loads of Gothic altars from French
cathedrals including the famous entrance to Chartres
Cathedral. We saw the side of a timber building from Bishop’s Gate in
London that was left untouched by the Great Fire of 1666 and then went on to
the Back courtyard where we saw a new bronze sculptural installation named The Three Graces by a contemporary sculptor
Georg Baeslitz—a truly ugly installation that the guide said was “like Marmite—you
either love it or hate it”. And I hated it!
From there, we moved on to the
Indian Wing where she led us to Tipu’s
Tiger (of course!)—maybe the museum’s best-known object: a music box that when
wound plays the sounds of a tiger’s roars and the screams of the Englishman who
he is mauling to death--really gruesome but a good indication of the hatred
with which the English were held in Mysore where Tipu Sultan fought hard to
keep them at bay. The large wooden music box is entirely Indian made and very
impressive indeed. She also pointed out Shah
Jehan’s nephrite Jade drinking cup exquisitely carved with a lotus base and
the detailed head of a ram on the handle. And finally our tour ended at the Raphael Cartoons on long-term loan from
the Queen to whom they belong. Commissioned by the same Leo X who built the
Sistine Chapel, they are colored drawings in tempura by Raphael for the
tapestry weavers who ultimately wove the masterpieces that hang in the Vatican.
The V&A has one of the tapestries and it is hung right opposite its Cartoon
illustrating the manner in which the finished tapestry was a mirror image of its
cartoon.
I cannot leave the V&A without
visiting its splendid cafeteria which is probably the best in the world. It is
composed of what is known as the Morris, Poynter and Gamble Rooms, each of
which has been designed and decorated by one of the great Arts and Crafts
practitioners of the day. I particularly loved the ceramic walls and the
stained glass windows and I settled down with a cheddar, celery and apple scone
served with butter and a lovely pot of Darjeeling—which served as my lunch, to
enable me to take in the grandeur of my surroundings. How much I love the
V&A, I realized, and what a treat it is to return to this place, time after
time.
Off to Pick up my Suitcase:
Leaving the museum unwillingly behind
me, I arrived at South Ken Tube station (using the useful underground passage way
that links the V&A with the station) in order to get to Abbey Road to pick
up my suitcase from Raquel’s place. I was there in 20 minutes and was
disappointed not to find anyone at home. I cleared out my case and the fridge
that had a few of my food items in it and was on my way walking towards the
Tube station in order to get my case to my new digs in Battersea when along Grove
End Road came Raquel with son Jonas and a huge shopping trolley in tow—she had
just gone to the supermarket. We had a long and affectionate reunion on the
street but because my case was heavy, I did not return to her place. Instead, I
carried on to Battersea and was amazed to reach there in about half an hour.
A rest and a nap was called for
after hauling my 20 kg case across London (although I have to say, given the
lifts and escalator everywhere, I did not have a hard time of it at all) and
curled up on my bed on the top level of the house for my 20 minutes shut-eye.
A Walking Tour of Alberotopolis:
At
5. 15pm, I left the house with camera, map and Oyster card in my pocket and on
the bus I went back to South Ken to start my Walking Tour of Albertopolis—as the
area is known. It was the brain child of Prince Albert (Victoria’s beloved
husband), a German who brought with him all the culture and polish of the
German court to an England that was in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Marrying
England’s manufacturing genius with Europe’s artistry seemed like a no-brainer
for Albert who came up with the idea of the Great Exhibition (of 1851) to showcase
the amazing wonders that man was capable of creating. He was also a dedicated lover
of architecture and in founding the Royal Academies of Music and Art and Geography
and Organists and Science, what he created was a miniature town—full of
wondrous red brick buildings with elaborate black wrought-iron balconies
(slightly imitating the French windows of neighbors across the Channel), fancy
stucco embellishments and often exuberant carvings. And that is Albertopolis. I
thought so much of Chriselle, because on her last trip to London when she had
visited the area with me, she had simply fallen in love with it and with its
architecture and couldn’t get enough of it.
Everyone
knows the story of how heart-broken Victoria was when she lost Albert to
typhoid when he was merely 41 and how determined she was to create a memorial
to him that would stun the viewer. Well, my walk wound me around the spherical
Royal Albert Hall where there was a serpentine queue waiting for Standing Room
to see the BBC Prom concerts that occur throughout the month of July and into
August. I was sorely tempted to stand in it myself because for a mere five
pounds, I could have listened to a world-class orchestra—but I had told my
friend Roz I would be home with her for dinner.
So
instead I took pictures of the wonderful sculpture of Albert at the back of the
Hall and made my way to Kensington Gore—the road in front which is dominated by
George Gilbert Scott’s brilliant Albert Memorial designed to look like a
medieval market cross—but lavishly gilded. Albert who has recentlty been re-gilded
sits there in larger-than-life mode with the catalogue of the great Exhibition
on his knee (brilliant idea!) on a dais surrounded by at least 200 personages
from the past that represent art and science and learning and flanked on four
sides by marble sculpture that represents Asia (elephant), Africa (camel),
Europe (bull) and America (bison). It is a truly an extraordinary piece of work
and I felt the same kind of awe that I feel at the Taj Mahal as I circumnavigated
its splendor. Many many pictures later, I was finally ready to leave and take
the bus back to Battersea where I reached at almost 7.00 pm.
Roz
helped me throw in a load of laundry and then I was ready to go on a long walk
again, at her suggestion, along the Thames Path. What a great suggestion it
was! We strolled, on a perfect summer’s evening with only the slightest hint of
rain in the air, to the waterfront, past the helipad to arrive at the lovely Georgian
church of St. Mary where William Blake had married and on to her ‘local’, The Woodman of Battersea, where I had “a
swift half” pint of Guinness and she sipped a Sauvignon Blanc and we gabbed
non-stop as we tried to catch up on all that has happened in our respective lives
since the last time we chatted. It was a simply fabulous evening with a dear
friend of whom I am really fond.
Back home, where Oscar, Roz's beautiful Burmese cat is making himself very much at home on my lap, at nearly
10.00 pm, we had a very light but very delicious dinner: smoked salmon with
buttered bread and salad with ice-cream for dessert. What a great day! At close
to midnight, I reviewed and responded to email and fell asleep.
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