Here is the thing nobody puts in the caption. Almost nobody really sees the Rosetta Stone. I have stood in front of it twice at the British Museum in London, six years …
Museums & Art
Everything else at the National Gallery was, if I am honest, a warm-up. I had come for one painter. Van Gogh has pulled at me for years, and with a trip to …
- London
The Lewis Chessmen: A Grumpy Medieval Court at the British Museum
by Bubblyby Bubbly 8 min readI have stood in front of the Lewis Chessmen more than once, and not one of them has ever looked pleased to see me. They are small, carved from walrus ivory, more …
- London
The Post-Impressionists at the National Gallery: A Word Invented in London
by Bubblyby Bubbly 8 min readThe word post-Impressionism was invented in London, by an Englishman, about a group of French painters who never once used it themselves. In November 1910 the critic Roger Fry took an open …
I have stood at the edge of Monet‘s pond in Giverny, watched the water lilies wrap around me in the Orangerie in Paris, and then, not expecting it at all, found the …
- London
Manet, Not Monet: A Cut Canvas Reunited at the National Gallery
by Bubblyby Bubbly 6 min readA small public service before we start: this is Manet, with an ‘a’, Édouard Manet, and not Claude Monet, with an ‘o’. The two are forever muddled, and I will come back …