MY MUSEOLOGY

That the architecture is reminiscent of the Natural History Museum in London is interesting, and that the vast open central gallery contains a feast of zoological specimens (including a stuffed albatross that could almost rival me in height) is wondrous, but my favourite part of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum exists beyond this - a large, dimly lit basement gallery. 'Magic, Masks, Music . . .' reads the virtual tour webpage , the ellipsis particularly useful since this gallery contains more besides, full of intriguing ethnological and anthropological artefacts ranging from sympathetic medicine to rope-making and necrology.  It isn't just the scope and diversity of the thousands of objects, but their manner of arrangement, too: hardwood and single-pane glass viewing cabinets that can be inspected from all sides--save underneath--in which the objects are arrayed according to classifications handwritten on display cards.  The room is an experience of the history of...

Writing without a brief is liberating, but I wonder if it's not also indulgent.  By 'Auto-Impression' I meant a sketch of my reactions to the Ladder of Escape , seeing it a second time round.  But the value of that is questionable: if I want readers to derive something other than my opinions from this blog, it has to be my opinions framed within intentions .  To this end, I shall write about the growing sense of liberation one can discern in the Miró exhibition's paintings. The precision of the architectural depiction in Mont-roig, the Church and the Village and The Farm became startlingly apparent to me today.  Having woken up to this, I think I started to find Miró's attention to detail and meticulousness more prominent, especially with regard to the Constellations series, but the pastel drawings and 'neons' on copper are also treated with an artistic exactitude of some force.  If one considers The Ladder of Escape (1940), the way the figures' eye...