Intelligent tourism

This last week Jim and I have been tourists.  We went to York for a few days after New Year.  I went to the Castle Museum, which I quite enjoyed although it did not inform my practice much.  During our evening wanderings I saw a rather atractive cup and saucer set, in a shop window.  Very modern, contemporary styling - plain white, very straight sides, but with a hand drawn apple on the bottom, or around the side of the cup.  Looks like it was done with decals.  I could easily do this with my pomegranate designs. 

We also went to Whitby, and looked at the Lit & Phil museum, where they had chess sets made from Whitby jet and fossils, and lovely hand sketches by a local artist, dated and timed(!) from the 1930s, when a lot of derelict buildings were being demolished. 

Back in London, I went to the Geffrye Museum Epiphany event (lovely) and also to the Leighton House Museum.  This was a very heavily decorated Victorian gentleman's home (Sir Frederick Leighton), and the Arab Hall was of particular interest.  This hall was decorated with all sorts of tiling panels, from various parts of the Islamic world.  But on closer inspection, many tiles had been damaged in transit, and some had been replaced as replicas (by a contemporary of William Morris).  However, from a distance, the panels looked absolutely marvellous, but on close inspection, although the pattern repeated, the tiles were not exactly matched.  It appears that a block of 5 x 6 tiles had been laid out, then the design painted freehand across the set.  This means the tiles had to be used in exactly the same layout, otherwise the pattern did not repeat correctly.  Quite inspiring for someone like me, who is not totally accurate, because the impact from across the hall was astonishing, and very visually satisfying, more so that a completely accurate rendering. 

Also I discovered that in Islam the hexagonal tile has spiritual significance, because the six sides represent the 6 days when God made the world, before the 7th day when he rested.  Also, I discovered that Victorians thought red was the best colour to complement wall decoration like pictures, so this is why red was used for the Leighton House dining room.  Flocked wall paper is made from dyed crushed wool that is stuck to the paper, and reproduction wallpaper had been applied to the musuem dining room. 

All in all a very interesting day, 6 December 2013 - Epiphany.