General Chat

I don't like to visit museums, art galleries or National Trust properties. They do absolutely nothing for me.

They should be preserving the past but I don't want to go there unless there is something I don't undestand and need to see in the flesh.

You're right - I don't understand at all.

I love to look at beautiful pictures, artifacts and buildings. It gives me a real lift.

Now that we're retired we go somewhere like that at least once a week.

The Pre Raphaelite pictures in the Tate a couple of weeks ago were breathtaking.
The jewellery in the Staffordshire hoard is spectacular, given the times in which it was made. The De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill is a little miracle of design.

We live near a wonderful moated house at Baddesley Clinton, with a priests' hole and an immovable bloodstain I love it more with every visit.

I can't understand how anyone can not appreciate beauty

Gwynne

I too can't understand your thinking Sharron. We love to visit NT properties, museums, art galleries (Not modern art though because we don't appreciate it.)
Loved the National gallery when we went, and Coughton Court near droitwich. Also like to visit the NT gardens when they are 'put back' to how they would have been.

Each to their own of course but I always come away feeling uplifted and knowing I have increased my knowledge. We prefer not to travel too far for visits and some are accomplished while on holday but we do have quite a few within reach.

What do you like to do instead though Sharron.

My father brought me up to appreciate our wonderful and varied history.

When growing up he took me to all the museums and galleries in London and we talked about this all the time until he died. He would have loved the internet and all the information that would be at his fingertips.

Thanks to his interest which has passed to me I love history and the knowledge you can gain by visiting the many wonderful Museums, Art Galleries and NT properties. :-)

I can see a holly tree across the road.In front of it is a bramble with convolvulus entwined in it.There is also a little elm tree and a rather sparse looking apple tree in the group.

So many greens, so many shapes,so many textures.I am totally enchanted by it and spend far too muchlooking at it.

Not too far away is Petworth House. It has a big bed and some large views over man-made parkland. There are some paintings in the opulent rooms, a few of which are by Turner. The portraits are a bit like looking at the photographs of somebody's grandchildren and the real view is always more breathtaking than the painting.

The kitchens are of more interest, they do have some practical items on display but are still dead and dull.

I love visiting museums,art galleries and castles and we are so lucky in this country that there are so many and that most of them are free to visit.
Our New Zealand cousins who came to stay last year are jealous of our historical sites etc.there's so much to learn from them.

I find it odd you research the history of your family but not interested in how they lived in times gone by,but then there are the 'living museums' like Beamish so can understand a bit :-)

Mau xx

My family didn't live in a museum.

I can find far more from other sources. Maps, books and different perspectives.

Museums and art galleries are not really providing an authentic view and I find them lgenerally very romanticised. Their job is to attract customers with revenue which is so important for their preservation.

You really would not want to encounter a poor little skivvy with period pains and chilblains stinking of BO in the scullery on your tour. Nor would you be able to find her in the first place.

Hi Sharron,

i have visited many nt houses and gardens, castles, abbeys to neolithic sites, and have found it fascinating and interesting.
Gardens are my favourite though, and natural landscapes. Although it is interesting to see how landscape gardeners , architects, etc., have created places of relative beauty.
I fully understand what you are saying about the little group of trees, and also appreciate that kind of thing. Not sure what to call it really beauty is not quite the right word for me but the thing is that it is living, and it is natural.
Hope you will continue to admire your lovely view.
Sue

I take your point Sharron.

My family didn't live in a museum either but now that their 'way of life' has gone forever I'm always interested to see how they lived their lives.Although I am old enough to remember seeing some of the hardships they endured I couldn't possibly know of their ancestors' history.
That's why I thought you'd be more likely to visit the living museums.Have you been to any? just asking, as some of them are not romanticised in any way.

I think I understand what you mean Sharron, might be reading it wrong though.

Is it a bit like the difference between seeing the living breathing river and a 'frozen in time snapshot ' of it? There are museums I don't find riveting, painting that are 'flat', houses that are just 'preserved' but all the essence of the lives lived there has gone.

Best piece of 'art' I have seen this week was the huge spider's web outside the window with raindrops on and the sun behind it , it was 'living', much as your holly tree etc...

I love the National Gallery, but for perhaps 10% of the paintings which to me are 'alive', the rest I can admire for the artist's technique .

I have been to Beamish and the Weald and Downland which I don't like very much at all. My grandfather actually lived in one of the houses there.

Most museums are a little along the lines of Downton Abbey. They will show you what you want to see.

Have put on Anne's thread about Guedelon in Burgundy, which I really do hope to visit. That,I believe,really shows it like it was,with some concessions to modern H&S of course.

You can't show discontent and tedium in a museum.

Having dug into the family history, I can relate to how and where they lived and the conditions they endured at places like Blist's Hill at Ironbridge, the Black Country Musuem and more rural places like Acton Scott (where the TV Victorian Farm was filmed) and the Birmingham back to backs. I prefer this type of 'living' museum to the stately homes and castles of earlier times, although these are also of much interest to me.

(Am member of English Heritage, National Trust, Cadw, also RSPB, WWT and local Wildlife Trust)

Andy

If anyone ever gets the chance a visit to The Village of Little Woodham is well worthwhile - it is an enactment of 1642 - fascinating. Not open daily so need to check. It is at Rowner nr Portsmouth.

You actually go back in time - there is always something different each time we go.

You are greeted by a guide and it is 'thee and thou' from thereon.

Charcoal burners, sword makers, lace makers, dairy, pub, hurdle makers are some I recall. We must have gone about 5 times - g.children thought it was wonderful.

When you vist a, EH/NT property, museum or art gallery, its easy to 'overload' on senses or information. Since you might have paid an entrance fee or have travel expenses, you feel that you have to experience it all to get your monies worth.

Now that many places lend or hire personal taped guides, it does seem that many people walk around with it glued to their ears and not discussing what they see with their companions.

May be less is more when visiting places of 'interest'?

I'm not one for National Trust properties and I have a passion for natures art rather than just a portrait painting. I do appreciate craftmenship though, whether it is a sculpture, painting, textile or beautifully executed carpentry.
I really enjoy living museums, even if I have a recollection of some of the items :-0

I have to ask though.......surely no-one can deny their childhood amusement at the mummified Egyptian cat at the British museum?

I PREFER TO WONDER WITHOUT GUIDES I READFASTTO AND ALWAYS FINISHED BEFORE THE REST,I LOVE RUINS OR WILD MOORS,BASICALY ALL THE PLACES I CANT GET TO,

SHARRON HAVE YOU BEEN DOWN GAPPING GILL ,,,,NOW THATS A MUST,,,,

I always thought you were a "Naturist" Wend. :-D but as for the "Delaware Pavillion" :-S :-S Being a Miracle of Design??? it costs the local ratepayers £500.000.a year to subsidise it,its just concrete and steel,the best part is the Stairway,the rest is rubbish. :-S**M**

I love all the things you don't, and some f the things you do Sharron, but that's why I love people.we're all different, and our tastes are different.

As long as you don't mind me liking the things you don''t that's fine by me :-D

I do see where Sharron is coming from, and I think that museums and buildings can be sterile, unrealistic, biased towards how the rich lived and a bit dull. However I think there have been changes over the last 20-odd years and a move away from just the 'glass case' scenarios.

I do love visiting castles, houses, museums, galleries etc. but like some better than others, sometimes for no other reason than it has a nice 'feel', or a creaky floor, or smells nice, or has a great view, or is quirky and eccentric.

I like art galleries and museums ...up to a point....but I do understand that when you go on a tour of one of these stately homes you are shown what they want you see.
7 years ago we went in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the opulence in there upset me as I was amazed at how the ordinary people still live....the gold and expensive hangings,paintings,etc.and going back in the coach saw some hovels.

The same thing happened in Granada in Spain,went to an old monastery and it was dripping in gold...there was such a divide between the rich and poor.

Give me the old castles in Wales and archaeological digs...then you're really talking history and imagining what life was like instead of it being restored to someone's idea of what it was like.

I do like to see good old paintings though...but some modern art leaves me cold.