Pounding The Streets And Being Educated

I wrote earlier that I thought that I would spend some time today doing something for me. I planned to visit one of London's museums and I thought that I would go somewhere that I had never been before. My post left cb wondering where I had decided to go, because cunningly I had not said where I had in mind just in case I decided on somewhere else before I got there.

I had decided to pay a visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. It is a small museum filled with anatomical specimens and surgical instruments that have been used over the last few hundred years. Many of the preserved specimens are from the animal kingdom, but there are also a significant number of human ones so that it is possible to see for oneself what some of the afflictions that we humans suffer can do to the body. Some of the earliest specimens are incredible not least because of the difficulty that there must have been in obtaining them and preserving them.

There is the skeleton of a giant as well as one of an incredibly small fully grown woman; there are all sorts of tumours in just about any part of the body that you can name; there is a wonderful collection of various sorts of stones that develop in the human body (some of them of such size that it makes your eyes water just to look at them); and there is a collection of surgical instruments that make you wonder how anyone managed to survive surgery at all.

It may be a small museum, but for someone who studied the history of medicine (including surgery) as part of their degree, I was absolutely fascinated.

After looking at all that I wanted to in the museum I left the Royal College of Surgeons and walked back towards the Strand. I then decided to make my way towards Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery where I decided that I would pass some time sitting looking at two of my favourite paintings. I sat looking at two paintings by Turner and could not help but marvel at the skill of this artist and at what he could bring to life on a canvas. I have written about these paintings before and I can spend hours looking at them because of the sheer pleasure that they bring me.

I then decided that it would be best to leave. One of the problems is that London is a tourist destination all year round, and at the moment London is filled with visiting schoolchildren from all over Europe. While I appreciate that many of them may not see such a collection of art in their home towns, it can spoil one's quiet contemplation of a favourite picture when surrounded by 30 or more youngsters being lectured about the paintings on view in a language that you don't understand.

So now I am home again. I feel so much better than I did yesterday, and I have spent some time being educated and in viewing paintings that stir my heart; and I did it for no cost other than the bus fare. I enjoyed my day out and I am now going to plan where I shall visit on my next outing of this sort.

In The Vicinity Of Trafalgar Square

I went up to London today to meet a friend for lunch. I set out early as I intended to visit the British Museum before meeting my friend, but as is so often the case with intentions, I had a sudden change of mind and decided to visit the National Portrait Gallery instead.

I love history, and I love to see the faces of people who played a part in the making of this country. There are kings and queens, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, barons, baronets and knights. Some wielded great power and were good; for some it would require an extremely charitable view to allow them to be described as good, yet they still played their part. Richard III, the last Plantagenet king hangs alongside his deposer, Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty. There are three portraits of Henry's granddaughter, Elizabeth, the virgin queen and last of the Tudors, and a magnificent portrait of Charles I, which almost certainly shows him larger than life, for he was a short man.

There are politicians of every political hue, scientists who were so great that their fame was acclaimed even in their own time outside of this country. Doctors, surgeons, judges, magistrates, explorers, soldiers, artists, architects, actors, writers, musicians and sportsmen. All are represented on the walls of the gallery in paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, film, and in one case, by their DNA.

After viewing the great and the good, I walked to Trafalgar Square. I needed some fresh air and a moment or two to rest my feet. The sky was laden with low cloud, low enough for the aircraft on the flight path to Heathrow to disappear at times before reappearing somewhere further up the Mall. Trafalgar Square was busy, but not crowded. Visitors to London were keen to photograph the fountains, Nelson atop his column, and the iconic red double-decker buses. And to the north of the square, in front of the National Gallery, workmen were busy building the staging ready for Thursday's celebrations for Team GB's Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

I had a little more time to spare before meeting my friend, and it was quite chill outside, so I walked to the National Gallery and sought out the Sackler Room. In this room are paintings by some of Britain's greatest painters of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Joseph Wright of Derby's magnificently atmospheric painting of an experiment involving a bird in a vacuum jar hangs alongside one of Thomas Gainsborough's superb portraits.

But my particular favourites are by two other great British artists. John Constable, the master of painting the British landscape is well represented in the room including his Hay Wain, but my favourite is his view of Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows with its towering storm clouds and rainbow over the cathedral. The other artist is Joseph Mallord William Turner, whose Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway 1844, and the Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838, are amongst the most magnificent paintings of their time and are a real contrast in style to his earlier works and those of his contemporaries. To say that I can contemplate these paintings for hours is no understatement, and yet I understand little about the technicalities of the paintings, I just know that they strike a chord with me and are a joy to behold.

Having spent half an hour with my favourite paintings I went back out to a grey day in London and a rendezvous for lunch. I met my friend, we ate, we drank a glass of wine, and we talked of many things. Eventually it was time for us to go our separate ways. I enjoyed my day around Trafalgar Square.