I recently had a day in London wandering around the Royal Academy and the British Museum. A great way to spend a day!
Alongside the Renzo Piano & Oceania exhibitions, I wandered around the newly opened Burlington House section, but first I had to get past Mother...
According to the sign, Parker took a classic American red barn and re-built it into the Psycho house. The house was based on a 1925 Edward Hopper painting House by the Railroad. Hopper is the guy who did the iconic late-night diner image re-drawn by umpteen poster artists.
Inside the Academy I wanted to see the Burlington Gardens building. It's been there all along, as the educational wing of the RA, but now there's a route between the buildings, albeit one of staircases and strange passages.
The route is intended as an ongoing exhibit of new works by students, but at the moment is covering the history of art teaching, dominated by this:
From the plaque: "This écorché figure was made to settle an artisitic dispute. Banks (a sculptor) and painters Benjamin West and Richard Cosway believed that most artists' depictions of did not accurately demonstrate the effects of a crucifixion. To prove their point, they obtained a corpse fresh from the gallows and nailed it to a cross while it was still warm. Once rigor mortis set in, a surgeon removed the skin and Banks made this plaster cast from the flayed body."
You had to make your own entertainment in those days.
The provenance of the other two figures is uncertain and they are thought to date from the late 18th century.
Moving swiftly on, the Burlington Gardens building is quite beautiful, being newly cleaned up and painted.
The Renzo Piano exhibition is in this building, as were several small exhibits I didn't photograph. Finally, a bunch of huge monochrome stripe canvasses. Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the artist and have no idea who it is.
The Royal Academy is free to enter and see the smaller exhibitions(if you want to see the bodies, for instance) but the major exhibitions are paid entry. It is always worth a visit if you're in town. Fortnum and Masons are across the road as well, for a high-class pick-me-up. Be warned that my wife recently paid £11 there for cheese on toast (AKA "Welsh Rarebit").
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