Further excursions in Baltimore
Sep. 15th, 2005 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
triskellianToday we went to the American Dime Museum, which is a museum of 'dime museums', circus freakshows and the like. It was rather splendid, if also rather gory in places (shrunken heads, creative taxidermy etc), and featured two resident cats, one of which was sitting in the window, behaving just like a part of the window display, and the other of which was greeting customers. It was almost as if it was a planned double act :-) Actually, thinking back and trying to pick a highlight, most of it was rather gory, although I expect I'm going to suddenly remember my favourite bit as soon as I've posted this.
Then it was on to the Walters Art Museum, which was much less mean to us than the Chicago Art Institute was (by which I mean mostly that we arrived in plenty of time to explore everything before it closed). I'm not sure whether the Walters is supposed to be primarily a museum or a gallery, but I enjoyed the mix of art and objects, even though I didn't like all of the examples of either. I have no trouble at all picking out my favourite part of that: it was two tiny rooms constituting an exhibit on book-binding, with examples of beautifully bound books, and labels pointing out the interesting features of each (although a book belonging to Robert Dudley was somewhat spoilt because the label claimed it was bound about a century before it was written ;-)
Several of the galleries were closed (for refurbishment, I assume, although the signs didn't say), which meant no Renaissance art, but there was plenty of stuff which was open, if slightly too much 18th century French (which I don't really like) and medieval religious art (which I OD'd on in Venice last year).
Then it was on to the Walters Art Museum, which was much less mean to us than the Chicago Art Institute was (by which I mean mostly that we arrived in plenty of time to explore everything before it closed). I'm not sure whether the Walters is supposed to be primarily a museum or a gallery, but I enjoyed the mix of art and objects, even though I didn't like all of the examples of either. I have no trouble at all picking out my favourite part of that: it was two tiny rooms constituting an exhibit on book-binding, with examples of beautifully bound books, and labels pointing out the interesting features of each (although a book belonging to Robert Dudley was somewhat spoilt because the label claimed it was bound about a century before it was written ;-)
Several of the galleries were closed (for refurbishment, I assume, although the signs didn't say), which meant no Renaissance art, but there was plenty of stuff which was open, if slightly too much 18th century French (which I don't really like) and medieval religious art (which I OD'd on in Venice last year).
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Date: 2005-09-16 03:41 am (UTC)glad baltimore's being good to you! >:D
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Date: 2005-09-16 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 12:52 pm (UTC)- Boat trip around the harbour (but don't capsize and drown!)
- Go up that big tall monument thing. It's a much better view than from the DC version.
offtopic
Date: 2005-09-17 09:03 pm (UTC)Howl's Moving Castle opens in the UK on september 23d.
they've done a damn good job of sitting on that one ;o)