I hope to use this blog to keep a record for myself of what I see and do on this journey. If you happen to be reading this blog, don't assume that it is a complete record or even completely accurate. I just like to try to remember what happened, and everything here will be colored by my own impressions and recollections.
On the first day of BaWD class, we met and introduced each other. There are 23 in the class. I am not the youngest, really right in the middle age-wise. There are 22 women and 1 man, and I am the only lawyer. Most of the women have worked with children either as teachers or social workers; three are bi-lingual [Spanish]. Our mornings will be devoted to discussion and class work; our afternoons will be spent in the galleries, where we will be guided to discuss objects using the techniques we will use with children. Most of this blog will be devoted to what we see in the galleries, which is the part I most want to remember.
So in the afternoon today we started in the Ancient World. First stop, Ancient Near East, where we discussed this Winged Genius:
First, we were guided to tell what we see from the perspective of 5th graders: a man, wearing a skirt, with wings, holding a purse or bucket. We tried to put our bodies into this position. We learned that this carving is called a relief, that there would have been a whole line of these figures on the walls leading into a palace, and that the wall would have been painted in bright colors in antiquity.
Next we went into the Egyptian galleries. We stopped in front of this Seated Statue of Nehy. Here's what the museum knows about this figure:
Depicted much as she would have appeared in life, the Chantress Nehy sits on a chair and holds in her left hand the symbol of her profession, a sistrum or rattle used in the worship of the goddess Hathor. Judging from her fine clothing and elegant hairstyle, as well as the scale and quality of her statue, we may assume that Nehy was able to afford a fine burial to ensure her place in the afterlife. Most likely this statue, one of two known, graced a tomb at Saqqara, the ancient necropolis of Memphis.
We noted her clothing, the lines indicating the drapery, and that she is holding in her hand a kind of rattle. John then produced reproductions of these rattles, and described how this figure would likely have been a priestess who used the rattle to ask the goddess Hathor for something. We took turns rattling and stating our intentions.
Next up, the museum's only mummy. Most of the kids are really excited to see the mummy. We know she is a woman, and they have nicknamed her "Meri." Meri has been x-rayed, and we saw an x-ray picture of where here head is positioned (somewhere down in the neck of the case). Here we discussed ways to transition the kids away from the mummy, and how to keep the conversation from becoming a question-and-answer session.
On to Greece, and how to handle the statues of naked men with young children [the Greeks thought that people were created in the image of the gods, and that the human body was very beautiful. So they didn't see anything strange about a naked body. If we do, we can just walk by without stopping . . .] First we stopped at this treasury case to demonstrate a tactic of "guided discovery" - pick an object in this case that you would choose for your museum and say why.
After passing through the gallery of naked men, we got to Rome and this statue of a Roman emperor. Here John produced yards of linen fabric and several of our group attempted to dress someone toga style. I can see why the kids would like that project. We also discussed the practice of changing heads on statues when the administration changed - of course, by Roman times the emperors wanted statues that actually looked like themselves, but statues were expensive so they only changed heads. [Contrast this with Egyptian times when almost all faces looked the same, so they only had to recarve the hieroglyphs]. Finally an answer to the question of why there are so many headless statues in the museums of the world.
After a brief rest stop, we met in front of the "hospital saints" to go on to the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. So much to see in such a short time.
In these galleries, John was demonstrating a tour designed to highlight the materials used in medieval art. First, an ivory chest with figures of cupids demonstrating the arts of combat.
Next, after a brief discussion of what a reliquary is [appropriate for schoolchildren] we discussed this lovely gilded metal object.
Here's what the catalog has to say about it:
This large, church-shaped shrine once housed the relics of a 7th-century saint who served as a missionary and bishop to the western regions of present-day Belgium. St. Amandus (d. 679) also established a monastery at Elnon, near Tournai (western Belgium), where the monks later commissioned this reliquary to honor his remains. The shrine of St. Amandus, ornamented with silver columns and gilded apostles, was the focus of a strong local cult, visited by pilgrims who came for healing or in thanks for prayers answered. Given its large size and popularity, the shrine was probably placed upon a platform supported by columns behind the main altar for year-round veneration.
Then on to some of the medieval Islamic items that are on display, with laminated illustrations to demonstrate to the children the actual location being depicted here [Islamic art is something I need to learn a lot more about]:
The three lines of Arabic writing in the upper part of this large, ceramic wall tile are from the third chapter of the Qur'an, and exhort the Muslim faithful to make the pilgrimmage to Mecca. The rest of the tile is given over to a bird's-eye representation of the Great Mosque in Mecca, with the Ka'ba, Islam's holiest shrine, in the center surrounded by various other structures, all identified in Arabic, and a rectangular portico around the courtyard. Such tiles may have been created to remind Muslims of their obligation to make the pilgrimage and to introduce potential hajji, or pilgrims, to the places and practices they would encounter in Mecca. The plaques also may have been intended for commemoration and contemplation following a hajji's experience at the Ka'ba.
We finished the tour in this gallery, and headed out with our readings for next week. End of Day 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment