Sunday, February 8, 2009
London

7. 15 ! I actually had to stare at my watch for a whole half minute because I simply couldn’t believe that I woke up at 7. 15! I was thrilled! It has been a long long time since I have awoken before 6 am. and the fact that I slept for a whole night was a matter of great joy to me. I went online immediately to try and find out the timings of the masses at the Brompton Oratory where I thought Stephanie would enjoy a visit. It turned out that there was a Latin mass at 9 am and when Stephanie awoke (after what she said was a very good night’s sleep), we decided to shower, eat breakfast really quickly and head out for the 9 am Mass.

And that was exactly what we did. We did reach the church a little after Mass had begun (but we did have to change 2 buses). The streets were deserted when we got to the church. The exterior is an 18th century edifice in the finest Neo-Classical tradition complete with an imposing columned entrance, a magnificent dome and a great many decorative touches. These were intensified in the interior which is a smaller version of St. Paul’s Cathedral–only this one is a Catholic Church. It is a superb example of the Baroque style with layer upon layer of decoration–Corinthian columns, gilded molding, paintings, lavish sculpture, old wooden carvings, marble pillars, a grand cupola–you name it, the church contains it. It was difficult to focus on the Mass as my eye was drawn to a new detail everywhere I looked.

Besides, the Mass was in Latin–so unless you listened very carefully it was hard to tell exactly where we were in the service. It was a good time for quiet prayer and intense contemplation. Both Stephanie and I went to Communion and after Mass, spent a little while admiring the grandeur of the church. It was close to 10 am, when we left the church to walk next door into the Victoria and Albert Museum where we decided to spend the morning.

Interestingly, today, Stephanie was the first person inside the museum! After we had deposited our coats, we split up. Stephanie decided to take an Introductory Tour (though it wasn’t for another half hour which gave me a chance to show her a couple of the Museum’s Highlights) while I went off to the gallery that contains the studies in oil by John Constable that were bequeathed to the museum by his daughter Isabel. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to get to know a little bit more about Suffolk and the landscape that Constable adored and attempted to transfer to canvas repeatedly. His base in the town of Dedham where has father owned a mill called Flatford on the banks of the River Stour, provided him with endless rural vistas to paint in various lights and at different times of the day. I will be taking my students on a field trip to Suffolk into Constable Country so that they can see for themselves the natural environment that gave rise to some of the most beloved English paintings of the 19th century. Then, I shall be bringing them to these galleries so that they can see for themselves how Constable’s works evolved from pencil sketches that he put into a pocket notebook (there is charming a reproduction of one in the gallery) to small ‘studies’ to larger rough first attempts to the final work in the finished state. I was held spell bound.

In the next couple of galleries, I saw other works by Constable’s contemporaries as well as works by the Pre-Raphaelites. Then it was time to go downstairs to meet Stephanie who said that she enjoyed her Highlights Tour even though it lasted only 45 minutes. Since it was time to rest my feet, we headed to the Cafe and over a pot of English Breakfast Tea and a fruit scone that we shared, we talked about what we had just seen. Then, Stephanie and I looked at the Plaster Cast Court and a few other items that I did not want her to miss.

At 12. 30 pm, she left to keep her brunch appointment with a friend while I stayed on at the Museum and decided to see the Morris, Gamble and Poynter Rooms which are also some of the Museum’s Highlights. I was surprised to discover that the ornate dining room in which we had sipped our tea was the Gamble Room–a magnificent confection of ceramic artistry on walls, grand pillars, a superb marble mantle and huge lighted orbs that formed modern chandeliers.

Just adjoining these two rooms are the Morris Room (named, of course, after William Morris, of the English Arts and Crafts Movement) and the Poynter Room. The former was decorated with the motifs for which the Movement became well known–a fine tracery of fems, leaves and small fruit on the walls in plaster, stained glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones (a close friend of Morris and his classmate at Oxford’s Exeter College), a very stylized gilded ceiling and chandeliers of distinct design. The latter room was made up essentially of ceramic tiles that formed vignettes on the wall. It was just splendid and I do wish that Stephanie had seen them too. In fact, these rooms were so unique, that I returned to the Cloak Room to retrieve my camera from my bag and took some pictures of these interiors.

It was a beautiful day–very cold but dry and wonderfully sunny. Golden light filled the quadrangle of the museum and I was able to get some good pictures. After resting for a bit, I started my discovery of the Sculpture Gallery that houses works from the Middle Ages to Contemporary times. I saw funerary works, busts for grand estates, garden statuary (mostly English but with some Italian works by Canova, Bernini and Giambologna thrown in, for good measure) and came, ultimately, to the Contemporary section where a vast number of works by Auguste Rodin were the main attraction.

By this point, however, my legs were very fatigued and I wanted to study the Rodins very carefully. So I decided to leave the museum and return on another day. I took the bus to Harrod’s and spent some time at the Jo Malone counter sampling some of their skin care products. Back on the bus, I stopped briefly at Sainsburys for some groceries, then got back home and spent a while reading up on Contrast Bathing on the internet in order to find out how to do it properly. I did receive a great deal of information and then it was time for me sit down and get some dinner.

I looked forward to settling down in front of the telly to watch the BAFTA 2009 Awards on BBC 1–the British Academy Film and Television Awards which are the equivalent of the American Oscars. Though I have not seen any of the movies except Slum Dog Millionaire (which I did not like very much but which is expected to garner a whole slew of prizes), I am looking forward to the evening very much.