A Walk through India's History

If you've never been to the Prince of Wales museum at Kalaghoda (now known as Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastusanghralaya), this is a good time to go. The magnificient building houses some amazing treasures, including artefacts from the Harappa civilisation, amazing stone and metal sculptures, a natural history section (full of stuffed birds, fish, animals and creepy-crawlies) and a good selection of art from the Ratan Tata Collection including a Veronese and several Constables.

Another reason to head to the museum is to see a special exhibition on the history of Indian music. Lots of information, rare equipment like phonographs, gramaphones, antique recordings including the voices of Nehru, Subash Chandra Bose and Gandhi and a karaoke booth if you want to test your bathroom singing.

Need to Know
Entry to the museum:
(for adult Indians) Rs. 15/- per person
(for foreigners) : Rs.300/- per person and includes audio guide

Audio guide for Indians : Rs. 150/- (well worth the price, according to Mr.R).

However, do allow yourself plenty of time to do justice to the exhibits. We spent about 3 1/2 hours.

How to get there: Trains to Churchgate or CST (VT). Then either walk, take a bus or taxi upto the museum - 5-10 minutes away

More information on the official website: http://www.bombaymuseum.org/

M F Hussain, watch out!

Walking in the Chilterns

Acrylics on canvas, Dec 2007


Oil on canvas, 2007

Acrylics on paper, March 2008

Watercolor , 2007

Tutankhamum and the Pharaohs in London

If you can't make a trip to Egypt this year, head over to the O2 in East London instead.

The rare 'Tutankhamum and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' exhibition makes a return to London after 30 years. With more than 130 objects from the tombs of Tutankhamun and his ancestors, this is a marvellous and fascinating exhibition.

Be warned, though. The famous death mask and the mummy of King Tut are not part of the exhibition. Not allowed to leave Egypt, these reside in Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt (KV 62).

The Exhibition is open until 30th August. We booked online using a National Rail 20% discount which cut down costs a bit. Take the tube to North Greenwich. The 02 is just outside the station. You could easily spend the whole day at the 02 - there's a concert hall, cinema, lots of restaurants and an ice-rink. A very good venue for outside the City. Enjoy.

What you'll see at the Exhibition

A morning at the British Museum

The Terracotta Army Exhibition is on at the British Museum until April. Be warned, advance tickets have been sold out months ago. The only way to get in now is to queue up for the daily 500+ tickets on sale each morning.

Game for an adventure and prepared for disappointment, Mr.R and I left home at 7:30 am, reached the museum at 8:40 to find a looooong queue snaking around the Great Court. The ticket counter was already open and the queue was inching ahead. That was a good sign. Within seconds of our joining the queue, it seemed like a hundred people were already behind us. We reached the counter about 20 minutes later and got tickets for the 12:20 slot - not bad, considering the queue ahead.

Having got the precious tickets, we had a quick breakfast at the café and then proceeded to the wonderful (and free) part of the Museum. A brief walk through the Egyptian hall to say hello to the Rosetta Stone, we headed to the first floor.

Wonderful treasures from the Middle East and Egypt greeted us. Lovely jewellery, pottery and intricate carved pieces gave silent testimony to an era when art and craft flourished.

Mr. R was keen on seeing the 'mummy' section - and what a display that was! Dozens of coffins, elegantly painted (inside, too!) stood along ancient mummies wrapped in delicate, will-crumble-if-you-touch linen bandages. Curiously, I was okay seeing the human mummies; it is the animal mummies that turned my stomach.

From there, we wandered into the Ancient Europe section which was again, full of remarkable things including some stunning jewellery.

Admiring that section alone brought us close to the 12 pm mark. Finding our way out of that maze of chambers would leave us with just enough time to get back to the Great Court and into the exhibition.

Discovering the Terracotta Army and other treasures

Mr. R and I finally made it to the British Museum to see the Terracotta Army.

The exhibition is a peek into one of the twentieth centuries greatest archeological discoveries and the legacy of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi.

The Terracotta Army was buried with the Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huangdi) in 210-209 BC. Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huangdi in the afterlife.

The Army was discovered in March 1974 by local farmers drilling a water well to the east of Mount Lishan. In addition to the warriors, an entire man-made necropolis for the emperor has been excavated. The Emperor's tomb, however, has been left undisturbed so far.

You can get a glimpse of the actual exhibition in the video (below):



From 210 BC to 1974 AD - the underground city has been secret a long time. We are privileged, I think, to be able to witness a part of something so old.

A beginner's guide to painting with oils

Painting with oils is not as easy as the TV shows and how-to books make it out to be. On my first attempt over the weekend, I was surprised to discover that the paint doesn't move as smoothly over canvas as I imagined it to be.

That was the tricky bit. I haven't tried adding a layer yet, but that comes next. The best part about painting in oils is that you can color over an existing color - which is exciting because mistakes can be turned into a feature! Try doing that with water colors...

Watch out, MFH. You've got competition :)

Renoir at the National Gallery

Last week, Mr R and I went into London to meet Mr.T who was visiting from the US.

Mr.T is an accomplished violinist and conductor. Mr.R met him many years ago, when Mr.T came to India. The friendship has continued.

We met Mr.T at Marylebone and then went on to the National Gallery to see Renoir's wonderful landscapes. The paintings are breathtaking in their simplicity - rough brushstrokes, ordinary characters, sometimes mere dabs of paint. Stand at a distance and the very dabs magically transform into people. I loved his landscapes - a million hues of green merged together defining rich countryside. Within an arms reach of the painting, the hues become distinct, each little brush stroke evident and clear. Fascinating.

You can see some of the paintings here.

The exhibition is on from 21 Feb - 20 May at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square.

Chola bronzes and a Peace Rally

Mr R and I finally got around to seeing the Chola exhibition at the RAA on Saturday. It was exquisite. The thousand year old bronzes were intricately carved and seemed almost alive. The sense of movement and grace is palpable in most of them. One could gaze at some of them forever!

A detailed review is on Shoefiend's blog. It was well worth a visit. If you missed it, pity.

Because we went on the last 2 days, we even got this magnificient book for £2.95 (original price £18.00)

Coming out of the exhibition, we were confronted with a zillion protestors walking towards Picadilly Circus towards Trafalgar Square. Non-Londoners that we are, we were not aware of the Stop-the-War-coalition rally scheduled for Saturday. What a sight that was. An estimated 100,000 people marched holding anti-war/Bush/Blair posters. The banners declared how far they had come from - Leeds, Birmingham, Hackney. The marchers were an eclectic bunch - remnants from the sixties, the Hare-Krishna crowd, students, punks (with a police escort), women in niqabs and Asian men with 'Freedom for Kashmir' banners.

Mr R had a field day with his SLR. Here are some snapshots:

Infinity in the palm of your hand

A new exhibition by Willard Wigan showcases the smallest art in the world.

Unbelievably tiny versions of Charles Dickens, Elvis and the Last Supper among others, find their way into the eye of a needle, the tip of a pin, or incredibly, onto an eyelash.

See some stunning examples here : http://www.willard-wigan.com/art.html, or go visit the exhibition, if you can.

It's not often that you can view art through a microscope.

Women Writers on Show at National Portrait Gallery

Women fiction writers from the 1920s to the 1960s are celebrated in a new display at the National Portrait Gallery, London until June 17th.

The display includes portraits of 24 children's writers; crime and romance writers including Dorothy L. Sayers and Dame Barbara Cartland; novelists once described as 'middle-brow' like Rosamund Lehmann and Elizabeth Bowen, whose books combine middle-class domesticity with sophistication; and writers like Radclyffe Hall, who tackled issues of female sexuality and faced scandal.

The photographers featured in this collection include Paul Tanqueray, Cecil Beaton, Man Ray and Bill Brandt, and range from studio portraits to images of the writer at work.

For more information visit: http://www.npg.org.uk/live/prelwomenwriters.asp

Atleast in China...Spring must be coming...

Eewww.

The minimum forecast for today is -4. It was bitterly cold as I walked down one hill and then up another on my way back from work. If I stood still for a few minutes, or so I thought, I would turn into one of those characters in Narnia, frozen till doomsday with icicles dripping from every surface. Brrr.

The weekend was another story altogether. We were in London on Saturday to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts - China : The Three Emperors. What a display of 16th-18th century artefacts on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Gorgeous costumes, porcelain, calligraphy and portraits. Simply stunning and in such good condition. We took about 3.5 hours to complete the exhibition and I picked up a lovely animal jade bracelet from the RA shop to commemorate the visit. (No, that's a lie: picked it up because I liked it!)

It was a lovely day to be out. The sun was shining brightly and although it was cold, it was a cosy kind of cold,not the want-to-curl-up-and-die kind of cold. Mr R took some nice pictures of the quiet London morning. Funnily enough, the traffic wasn't heavy although it was almost noon. No cameras were allowed inside the exhibition , so we couldn't bring you that. Never mind. You'll have to trust me on the fact that its worth seeing. If you're in London, make a beeline to the RA at Picadilly.

Bamboo shadows criss-cross the window
the moon must have risen.
The scent of flowers waft indoors
Spring must be coming.

(Poetic couplet, in running script by The Yongzheng Emperor 1678-1735)

Painting the Sky.
An unusual portrait of the statue outside the RA entrance.

















Bazaar scenes: Images of the market at St.James' Church, Picadilly (Mr R's orchestra have their concerts there)



From Russia,with love.