blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2008-06-14 10:27 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2008-06-14 10:27 pm
Success, medieval sellotape, and deafness
Hooray, hooray, my last fest fic is submitted! Now I can finally get back to writing other things. And beta-ing. I just found a story on my hard drive that arrived a few days ago and I not only have no idea why it's there, I have no idea who it's from. Fairly impressive even for my brain of sievedom.
The exhibition that I went to Melbourne for was excellent in terms of the items chosen to show, and the arrangement of them into groupings. But there was something to be desired about the interpretations -- this is the museum term for the little blurbs of paper that are stuck beside things, the blurbs on the wall, the blather in the catalogue and so on.
Maybe I just need a T-shirt that says 'History Nerd, please do not discuss period films with me'.
As to the ears, bad news, they are absolutely stuffed with fluid, though I have managed to avoid perforating either eardrum. The tubes, which I insist on remembering as Etruscan, though I think it's eustachian, are both solidly manky. Unless I have a miracle recovery overnight, this means I am not flying to New Zealand on Monday. I can then either see if I am up to going on Tuesday or Wednesday, or else reschedule for when sno is back from Europe and the US. WE ARE CURSED, SNO!
J thinks this is hilarious, BTW. I am hoping that he will soon find my inability to hear anything and demands that he repeat himself as annoying as I find his on a normal day. Cookie is sitting beside me and Monster is sitting on my foot in a bid to reassure me that they still love me.
The exhibition that I went to Melbourne for was excellent in terms of the items chosen to show, and the arrangement of them into groupings. But there was something to be desired about the interpretations -- this is the museum term for the little blurbs of paper that are stuck beside things, the blurbs on the wall, the blather in the catalogue and so on.
Many years ago baby Brammers dabbled in museum geek, so I am very interested in the way that things are presented in exhibitions. It actually makes sense to call it an interpretation: most people find historical objects to be a different language, one that needs explanation, a guiding hand, an interpreter. It is always fun to listen to people trying to puzzle peculiar objects and artworks out, often they have very clever explanations for 'why it's like that', sometimes they are completely right.
So, one of the things that I found frustrating about this exhibition was that a lot of very interesting elements of the manuscripts were not discussed. There was an awful lot of interpretation on the biblical figures being depicted and the religious uses of the text, but very little on the physical aspects of the illuminations and calligraphy, nor the actual books.
In some cases, this was just a shame, because all those school students were missing out on cool things like the obvious differences in illuminators who worked on the one papal missal; I find this interesting, and think many others would, because it gives you an idea of how the scribal workshops functioned with the juniors being given some colour-by-numbers work to train them up. But it's not essential.
In other cases, though, there were Big Questions raised by the items in the exhibition that were not addressed. The most obvious was a large page with frontbinding from a choir psalter. It was about A3 in size, and the rest of the psalter was not there. It was a recto (left hand) page, and to the right of the page, in what would have been the centre of the book, was a series of narrow strips of vellum, several with neatly calligraphed text on them. It was medieval sellotape.
Medieval sellotape was used for the same purpose modern tape is. The strips were glued into place, in this case to reattach pages that had obviously torn out of their stitching. The cool thing was that the text written on the strips was later than the calligraphy of the psalter, and if I were smarter, I would be able to tell you what century it had been repaired in. The strips were traditionally cut out of either old documents that weren't needed any longer, or works that had uncorrectable flaws from the scribal workshops.
Now, I think this is hugely cool, and was unable to resist finding one of the schoolteachers who were there with ravening students and telling her about it, because I am a nerd of the highest order when it comes to these things. But I couldn't understand why the interpretations didn't mention it at all.
Nor did they talk about the marginalia anywhere, admittedly they only had little hunting scenes rather than the bum-baring and copulating couples that you find in a lot of marginalia, but still. These things are interesting, aren't they? It's not just me?
So, one of the things that I found frustrating about this exhibition was that a lot of very interesting elements of the manuscripts were not discussed. There was an awful lot of interpretation on the biblical figures being depicted and the religious uses of the text, but very little on the physical aspects of the illuminations and calligraphy, nor the actual books.
In some cases, this was just a shame, because all those school students were missing out on cool things like the obvious differences in illuminators who worked on the one papal missal; I find this interesting, and think many others would, because it gives you an idea of how the scribal workshops functioned with the juniors being given some colour-by-numbers work to train them up. But it's not essential.
In other cases, though, there were Big Questions raised by the items in the exhibition that were not addressed. The most obvious was a large page with frontbinding from a choir psalter. It was about A3 in size, and the rest of the psalter was not there. It was a recto (left hand) page, and to the right of the page, in what would have been the centre of the book, was a series of narrow strips of vellum, several with neatly calligraphed text on them. It was medieval sellotape.
Medieval sellotape was used for the same purpose modern tape is. The strips were glued into place, in this case to reattach pages that had obviously torn out of their stitching. The cool thing was that the text written on the strips was later than the calligraphy of the psalter, and if I were smarter, I would be able to tell you what century it had been repaired in. The strips were traditionally cut out of either old documents that weren't needed any longer, or works that had uncorrectable flaws from the scribal workshops.
Now, I think this is hugely cool, and was unable to resist finding one of the schoolteachers who were there with ravening students and telling her about it, because I am a nerd of the highest order when it comes to these things. But I couldn't understand why the interpretations didn't mention it at all.
Nor did they talk about the marginalia anywhere, admittedly they only had little hunting scenes rather than the bum-baring and copulating couples that you find in a lot of marginalia, but still. These things are interesting, aren't they? It's not just me?
Maybe I just need a T-shirt that says 'History Nerd, please do not discuss period films with me'.
As to the ears, bad news, they are absolutely stuffed with fluid, though I have managed to avoid perforating either eardrum. The tubes, which I insist on remembering as Etruscan, though I think it's eustachian, are both solidly manky. Unless I have a miracle recovery overnight, this means I am not flying to New Zealand on Monday. I can then either see if I am up to going on Tuesday or Wednesday, or else reschedule for when sno is back from Europe and the US. WE ARE CURSED, SNO!
J thinks this is hilarious, BTW. I am hoping that he will soon find my inability to hear anything and demands that he repeat himself as annoying as I find his on a normal day. Cookie is sitting beside me and Monster is sitting on my foot in a bid to reassure me that they still love me.
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Why, yes, take that any way you like. ;-p
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I obviously need a collection of elaborate marginalia - there shall be more bum-baring and copulating couples in my world. Marginalia... wasn't she Eustacia's really unattractive step sister?
Loki decided tonight was our love-in night - which would have been fine except I was in the recliner trying to watch old spooks eps with Cherry, and his idea of loving involved alternately settling down in my lap and washing his arse, and then crawling up my front to stand on my boobs and try and kiss me, then climb over my head onto the back of the couch to reach down and play with my hair, before starting the whole cycle again. Kai is not a spooks fan and was found curled up in C's dirty trackiedacks on the end of the bed. Such class.
;)
ps. hope you feel better soon and your trip is not d00med. *hugs*
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The medieval sellotape is really cool. The historical implication must be "Monks make mistakes too."
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http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2008/05/mmm-marginalia-lancelots-missed.html
I don't know if you've seen this blog. I drop by occasionally.
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Mmm. I love going to museums and looking at ancient artifacts...more so than just looking at paintings and statues. It's always fun to imagine why people made all those stuff; some designs were ingeneous, some definitely made me scratch head (those are the best). I would make up some strange stories on the go and annoy the hell out of whoever I'm going along with :D.
The ear thing sounds terrible. Hope it gets better soon!
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Yes, they are, so no, it's not. On the other hand, I work with this stuff for a living, which probably means that I'm clinically insane and shouldn't be taken seriously ;)
I hope your ears get better soon!
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I've been to too many exhibitions that say something along the lines of 'Psalter, German, 1470-1490' and nothing else. It makes me gnash my teeth and pull my hair out with woe.
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I do love reading all the details when going to museums ... not just the names and dates. After all, that doesn't mean a whole lot to me. All those intricate details that link us to the past, on the other hand, are wonderful.
So, no ... it's not just you.
*hugs* - hope your ears are better soon. Definitely don't fly if they aren't. My aunt burst her eardrum when she flew here from South Africa like that. Nasty business.
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I would love to have been there to listen to you blathering. You know VERY BIG things, like medieval sello (heh just wrote spello... too. much. Potter.) tape and marginalia, which I'd never heard of but find EXTREMELY interesting now that I know if its existence.
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Huh? Really?
I hope your ears will clear up. (Hope dies last, yeah?) I had a similar experience after my last flight (years ago) but I was lucky because it was just one ear (the other one has been pricked when I was small, or it was that ear and the other was all right? no idea.) and it went away... in a couple of weeks' time. Anyhow, I hope you'll be able to fly.
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Hahahaha! *covets*
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hope the ears are feeling a wee bit better at least.
love the sellotape story. you are a wonderfully magnificent individual. was the teacher grateful? or was she looking around nervously for the nearest museum official?
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