Me, the wifeness and daughter no 2 spent a lovely Sunday afternoon in Cardiff National Museum.
We had a bite of lunch in the Oriel cafe where they really seem to be making an effort to make good food sourced locally – I can recommend the bhaji burger, the quiche and salad and the fish-finger sandwich.
The we resisted the draw of the dusty but almost irresistible animatronic woolly mammoth and instead spent a few hours wandering around the astonishing collection of art.
We did however first make a brief stop to check out the one truly priceless exhibit. The moon rock.
No that’s not it – that a fabulous meteor.
The moon rock is the much smaller unassuming chunk of grey stone alongside it, not much bigger than an apple core.
Widely ignored now, when it was first placed in the museum it had a huge police escort and people queued for hours to look at it. When you think three men strapped themselves to a liquid fuel bomb a third of the height of the Eiffel Tower and had themselves blasted into outer space in order to retrieve it then it must be the must remarkable piece on view.
The arty bit…
Did you know that Cardiff Museum has
a number of paintings by Turner? Or that it has an outstanding painting of Six Bells at Abertillery by LS Lowry?
It also has an extensive collection of pre-Raphaelite art including works by Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais.
It has sculpture by Degas and by Rodin including a huge version of The Kiss and a bust of Augustus John who’s works are also represented – as are done of those by his sister Gwen.
It has more outstanding works of sculpture by modern giants such as Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein.
There are some stunning large scale works by John Singer Sargent and Stanley Spencer.
The ever popular Impressionist Movement is strongly represented with works by, amongst others Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Renoir. In fact name a famous artist and you’ll probably find a piece by them in the museum – Rene Magritte? Check. Max Ernst? Present. El Greco? Botticelli? Frans Hals? Rubens? Canaletto? All present and correct.
Which is why it was all the more disappointing that I couldn’t find anything by George Seurat to make the title of my blog entry work…..
After that explosion of culture we staggered out onto the coffeeopolis that Queen Street has become for refreshment – there seem to be new cafes opening every other building. We sat and chatted amongst the noticeable numbers of Spanish, French and Italians that we had also seen in the museum and shopping centre – presumably as a result of cheap flights to and from Cardiff Airport. And very cosmopolitan it all felt too.
All in all a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon.
But no George
Eat see hear Cardiff 