British Library - An Introduction

Location: British Library, London

The main building for the library appears as a large modern complex, with walls extending around it on the road sides encapsulating a multi-level courtyard. Upon entering, one gets to glimpse the tops of the St. Pancras Restoration Hotel poking out. To skip ahead, whilst inside the library, a scale model of the building also revealed several floors for archives, which the author estimates to exceed a volume of twice the above ground building.

Unlike previously mentioned sites, this one is not particularly grandiose, and seems to echo the stereotypical English reserve in architectural standards. Inside however proves to be a great improvement, opening up with marble staircases going up to the first floor around an information desk, and rising up behind the initial vista is a large column which proved upon closer inspection to hold rows upon rows of old books, segregated off with glass panes. Even so, there is no real impression of a library, but more like that of a University study building, with its clean and modern appearance.

The first exhibition is directly up on the first floor, and it is a small collection covering the subject of Charles Dickens, and the Victorian fascination with the supernatural. This particularly timely exhibition is to give the visitor a background behind Dickens' famous work A Christmas Carol, and of the variety of activities Dickens' himself indulged in, mesmerism to name one.

The next area on this small tour was a permanent gallery, the Sir John Ritbalt Gallery: Treasures of the British Library. This gallery contained a large variety of texts and illustrations, dating back as far as the 12th century, composed up of texts, sacred religious texts, early colour illustrations from around the world, maps and views, and even music sheets. Even some contemporary works on Shakespeare are part of the gallery, but the music sheets drew a lot of interest, showing printed sheet music from around the Normal Conquest to more well-known works of classical composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.
Early maps are also of especial notice, for the way that people before had viewed and drawn the world, with this changing in detail over the centuries. Particularly drawing to the attention are the mappaemundi, early flat-Earth based drawn of where many places were, and lastly, a detailed panoramic view of London, before and after the Great Fire of 1666, by Wenceslaus Hollar.

All the displays had descriptions beside them, to give the visitor a description and also explanation of each display item, and these serve as a great accompaniment to the illustrations. A room off the side of the gallery gives a view of the famous Magna Carta,  a landmark civil rights document detailing 63 statutes, signed and officiated by the Great Seal in 1215 during the years of King John and his submission to Pope Innocent III. Through tax and power abuses, the barons of the time got together to create a liberties document, and require the King to sign it, thus, according to the Wikipedia article:

...was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges.

To conclude, this was a small overview of the British Library, and future visits would have to be based on articles of interest within the reading rooms, which are not open during Sundays.

Images are courtesy of a variety of sources from Google images. Information was from the British Library website.

National Gallery - Great Britain 1750 - 1850

Location: National Gallery, London

The National Gallery is by its own an imposing building, situated at the North end of Trafalgar square, and instead of blending in the background, stands out proudly as a great example of Neo-Classical architecture.
Inside is no less impressive, but also very confusing. It would take more than one visit to get a good idea of the layout, consisting of lots of rooms of a wide variety of sizes from large halls to small side-rooms. This overview is not a general one, but rather focused on a single room in this instance.

Continuing with the Romanticism theme from the last gallery (Tate Britain exhibition), this room contained paintings by a number of Romantic artists, including the previous two famous artists: J.M.W. Turner, and John Constable.

The room itself is nicely decorated, with blue patterned walls extending upwards to gold-coloured coving, above which are small arched alcoves bordered in maroon and gold, and finally to a large rectangular ceiling filled with lots of square panes of etched glass. The image below was taken from the virtual tour of the National Gallery:

To begin with, in no particular order than by artist, John Constable's paintings covered more or less a third of the display, with the most preferred pieces being Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows, The Cenotaph to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and lastly, Hay Wain. The former two are both dark pieces but beautiful views:

Continuing onward, Thomas Gainsborough had an extensive collection here too, with Cornard wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk and Mrs Siddons, a very famous actress of the time.

Moving on, other interesting pieces worth looking over are Henry Raeburn's The Archers, Pompeo Giolamo Batoni's Humphrey Morice, and William Hogarth's The Graham children, which in the description noted that the youngest had died before the painting was completed. Though amongst these stands out two amazingly detailed pieces, one being a life-size painting of WhistleJacket, a race horse, by George Stubbs.

The next was An Experiment on a bird in an Air Pump, by Joseph Wright of Derby. This piece is particularly noticed by visitors to the room as it shows exceptional detail in the paintwork, and the realism in the faces of the girls standing by the table. Even the use of candlelight for the central piece creates an appealing contrast between the illuminated experiment set-pieces, and the dark surrounds.

Lastly then, J.M.W. Turner also makes an appearance as well, with almost as many fine pieces as Constable, though they are all of a maritime nature. There are a few worth noting here, from the dramatic scenes of Dutch boats in a gale and Calais Pier, to the much calmer and brighter pieces, Ulysses deriding Polyphemus and The Fighting Temaire.

Conclusion, this is a small part of the immense National Gallery, and as with all posts of this blog, serve as a small introduction to what is available.
Images have been yanked from the National Gallery website.