British Museum (Jan. 11)

The British Museum is literally around the corner from the flat yet we didn't visit until today. I was able to better appreciate the objects I saw this time; when I was last here in 2007, I wasn't aware of the historical significance of most of the things I saw. The Rosetta Stone is important, but I also appreciated the carved letterforms and its contribution to the development of our writing system. 

We saw the Elgin marbles--the Lord of Elgin took the fragments of statues and pieces of the friezes in order to protect them from vandalism and weathering. According to the museum plaque, Elgin received reports of destruction of the monuments so he asked permission from the Ottoman Empire to remove them. Now Greece is asking for the marbles back, and while I agree the marbles should be in their original location, they weren't being taken care of. At this point, the marbles should remain in the British Museum, where they will be well-preserved. I also like the idea of having more people being able to see the relics of history.
At the top of the British Museum was the exhibition, 'Picasso to Julie Mehretu: Modern Drawings from the British Museum Collection.' I really liked that these works were imaginative and individualist expressions, spontaneous thought on paper. The informal qualities made the drawings feel personal. Robert Michel's 'Zwischen Himmel und Erde I (Between Heaven and Earth I)' was done in pen, black ink and black wash--it was composed of geometric shapes, but I still thought they nicely conveyed a feeling of plummeting. The dynamic arrangement of shapes and space indicated the artist's interest in architecture and advertising design.

drawn in MSPaint!

I saw this frog everywhere in the British Museum gift shop. Maybe I'll return to buy one of the sketchpads with this on the cover.

I'm not sure what work it's from.