Kelvingrove Art Gallery

(I've never seen the sky that blue over that museum. One lucky guy who's taken that picture.)


The inside. (c) City Council.

"Closed for Refurbishment - Will Re-open Summer 2006", the banner on the building said the whole year. It has been saying so for three years, apparently, and while walking through Kelvingrove Park there was never a moment when I didn't want to visit this particular museum. On the first day we ever came to Glasgow, I decided that I wanted to visit this museum, the building is so beautiful, everybody would want to visit it. And so we did. Today. The interior holds every promise the impression of the exterior makes, it is beautiful. There is a beautiful organ in the huge Entrance hall, there is a cafe, there is a reading room. If I was living here, it would be my favourite place in Glasgow. Also, there truly is something for everybody, which sadly makes it very jumbled and hard to find specific things because there are paitings everywhere and you spend hours looking for the one you heard was there and wanted to see. Well, maybe not hours, but long enough. 

Today, it was packed, sadly, but that is to be expected on a Saturday and there were people bustling around everywhere, blocking every corridor and making it very hard to actually look at things because of the people, especially because of the children who would get in the way even if you managed to nudge the grown-ups out of the way. The museum is very much designed to be a museum for all the family and whoever compiled and arranged the exhibits is a genius, although not really one for order. I would have liked more order and more focus on a, say, timeline. Well, but then, fair enough, I did not really pay attention if there was one - but having Dali's "Christ Of St. John Of The Cross" next to a suit of armour and a bronze statue from... Oh, I can't remember when was sometimes a bit confusing. The spitfire over the elephant, the elk and the giraffe next to the giant spider crab was also not something you see every day. But then, I can't really remember missing one, because the exhibits are so overpowering and this mixed-bag is a really great approach. 

Sometimes, though, I got the feeling that it was a bit of a test, because they had mixed local artists with old masters and modern art a lot, for example. What are the visitors supposed to do, is it supposed to make people practice their critical faculties? I always fail and like "the wrong things". Maybe my taste has been spoiled by too much kitsch, but I actually liked the things which are supposed to be terrible and found many of the alleged great things a bit boring. But then, maybe that is just because I had seen them before somewhere.

All in all, it was wonderful and I wish the stupid thing wouldn't have been refurbished during the year we were here and would have opened much earlier than it did. It is a truly great place, especially for children. There is a beautiful section about the nature in Scotland and the natural world, featuring a lot of stuffed animals and information on plants and the lives of animals. There are bound to be people out there who have never seen a deer, and even a stuffed one is better than nothing. I can't imagine children who have never seen red deer or a wild boar, but there are bound to be a lot. 

The stuffed animals did disturb me, especially when it came to the baby elephant and the rhino. Or the tiger. I have to admit that I did not check where they got them from, but I do hope and am convinced that the sources were alright. There are bound to be legal ways of getting a dead tiger. Or a baby elephant, for that matter, but I guess it does not really matter to the dead elephants what happens with it after the poachers are done with it. Hm. 

They have a great collection of swords and suits of armour. I really wanted to spend more time there, but after being hit by the third pram wheel and being ushered asire by the fourth person who was trying to keep up with their terrible child and trying to keep them from touching things, I somehow did not want to stay anymore. Children seriously suck sometimes. Rocky's post about her teenager somehow made me want to have children again, but this visit to the museum was enough to quench that desire again pronto. They are horrible little monsters! All of them!! 

And now, I'll go and print the tickets for the bus (which leaves at 4:45 am. AAAHH!) and those of the plane (7:30am. What kind of time d'you call that?) and go home to try and see what else I can fit into the bags. I hope they will just overlook our two kg overload.