Peabody Museum, etc.
Jul. 7th, 2003 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidFriday I went with friends to the Peabody Museum and Harvard's Natural History Museum, which were open and free for the day (independence from museum fees, I suppose :-). Strangely, only the latter museum was air-conditioned, despite them being in connecting buildings, and the former having reasonably fragile pieces, such as textiles. It was especially noticeable in the sticky heat we were having.
We weren't exhaustive (merely, perhaps, exhausted, by the end. Or at least, foot-sore and somewhat weary.) in exploring the museums. I hadn't been there before, despite over a decade of living in the area. My bad.
In the Peabody Museum, we saw lots of pieces from Central and South America, including huge stone columns/slabs, intricately worked embroideries, pieces made from feathers, and lots of black and white pottery from a vanished civilization. The gallery had a wood floor that creaks even more than my floors do; it felt like some little local place that had happened to get a great collection together. I still don't understand why Harvard isn't air-conditioning this museum, though.
Next we passed through a wide doorway and were suddenly in the Natural History museum. First we saw rocks, lots of rocks (none of which said "moo".). There were displays of meteorites, and slices thereof, which showed the incredible variety of materials, and some beautiful patterns. Next was a large display about tourmalines, which are gorgeous. I hadn't realized that Maine had the world's largest find of tourmalines, nor that they'd been used in testing The Bomb in WWII (using tourmalines smuggled out of Nazi-controlled Europe). There were beautiful pink and green stones, polished in all sorts of ways. What was completely unexpected was seeing how some cross-sections of tourmaline were all nested triangles. Geometry appears in the strangest places... The next room had all sorts of rocks found in Massachusetts, which included some that were quite pretty (I tend to think of the rocks around here as "just rocks", not at all interesting....). The last rock room we looked at was a large one, with cases upon cases of gorgeous rocks displayed. Not just the usual gems and glittery rocks, but ones that looked like foam, or fuzzy snow cacti, or graceful swooping white horns, or metallic sand dollars, or ferns etched in stone, or... they seemed endlessly varied, and with so many different colors, seeming the most perfect blue, or green, or purple, the intensity blazing out. Wow. Many exclamations of "look at this one!"
After rocking, there was rolling, as one person's legs were not up to more museum fatigue. Fortunately, there was a wheelchair waiting to be used in the corner of the next exhibit, which was the Glass Flowers. They are impressive, and a bit creepy at the same time. One person thought they were plastic at first, since they reflect light in that particular way. Also, all the greens seemed to be the same shade, which is so far from the truth... Still, it was impressive to see glass made into such botanically-correct forms, not only the plants themselves, but also roots, pistils, stamens, cross-sections of stems, etc, all with the precise magnification of the piece. It makes me wonder just how the idea crossed the glassblower's mind, and makes me impressed with what one (talented) person can do when dedicated to an idea.
We went to a couple more rooms, checking out a variety of bird's nests, and dinosaur eggs. My knees were bothering me a bit more by then, so I wasn't focusing as much as I would've liked. There are whole exhibits we never saw... I may have to go back some other day to see the rest.
We weren't exhaustive (merely, perhaps, exhausted, by the end. Or at least, foot-sore and somewhat weary.) in exploring the museums. I hadn't been there before, despite over a decade of living in the area. My bad.
In the Peabody Museum, we saw lots of pieces from Central and South America, including huge stone columns/slabs, intricately worked embroideries, pieces made from feathers, and lots of black and white pottery from a vanished civilization. The gallery had a wood floor that creaks even more than my floors do; it felt like some little local place that had happened to get a great collection together. I still don't understand why Harvard isn't air-conditioning this museum, though.
Next we passed through a wide doorway and were suddenly in the Natural History museum. First we saw rocks, lots of rocks (none of which said "moo".). There were displays of meteorites, and slices thereof, which showed the incredible variety of materials, and some beautiful patterns. Next was a large display about tourmalines, which are gorgeous. I hadn't realized that Maine had the world's largest find of tourmalines, nor that they'd been used in testing The Bomb in WWII (using tourmalines smuggled out of Nazi-controlled Europe). There were beautiful pink and green stones, polished in all sorts of ways. What was completely unexpected was seeing how some cross-sections of tourmaline were all nested triangles. Geometry appears in the strangest places... The next room had all sorts of rocks found in Massachusetts, which included some that were quite pretty (I tend to think of the rocks around here as "just rocks", not at all interesting....). The last rock room we looked at was a large one, with cases upon cases of gorgeous rocks displayed. Not just the usual gems and glittery rocks, but ones that looked like foam, or fuzzy snow cacti, or graceful swooping white horns, or metallic sand dollars, or ferns etched in stone, or... they seemed endlessly varied, and with so many different colors, seeming the most perfect blue, or green, or purple, the intensity blazing out. Wow. Many exclamations of "look at this one!"
After rocking, there was rolling, as one person's legs were not up to more museum fatigue. Fortunately, there was a wheelchair waiting to be used in the corner of the next exhibit, which was the Glass Flowers. They are impressive, and a bit creepy at the same time. One person thought they were plastic at first, since they reflect light in that particular way. Also, all the greens seemed to be the same shade, which is so far from the truth... Still, it was impressive to see glass made into such botanically-correct forms, not only the plants themselves, but also roots, pistils, stamens, cross-sections of stems, etc, all with the precise magnification of the piece. It makes me wonder just how the idea crossed the glassblower's mind, and makes me impressed with what one (talented) person can do when dedicated to an idea.
We went to a couple more rooms, checking out a variety of bird's nests, and dinosaur eggs. My knees were bothering me a bit more by then, so I wasn't focusing as much as I would've liked. There are whole exhibits we never saw... I may have to go back some other day to see the rest.