The second part of the pattern is that, having spent all week in an academic frenzy, I then explode out of Oxford on the weekend, in a sort of "Get me out of here!!!" mode. I'll go ANYWHERE (Salisbury, Bath, London, Stratford) - I just don't want to be in Oxford over the weekend.
In keeping with this, I went to London yesterday as part of a group excursion (every single Sweet Briar girl went on it). We met up at the Portobello Road market, which is incredible. Six blocks of stalls and shops, with fantastic stuff. Antiques, clothes, books, prints, fresh fruit, china (there was a teacup with lilies of the valley that I loved. I might have to go back and get it, I keep thinking about it). I picked up a few presents for people (no, I'm not telling, you'll have to wait). Kate and I split a box of strawberries for lunch. DELICIOUS. Every single one was sweet and perfect.
From Portobello Road...well, that's when the walking started. I was determined to get to the Tate, and I'd planned out the route on the Underground before I left Oxford. Except that once we got on the Underground, they let us know that the line we needed (the Victoria line) was completely down for service repairs. THANKS FOR THE TIMING. So we rerouted through another line, but we got off two stops before we really needed to. The bright side of this was that we saw this as soon as we got off the Underground:
All due respect to V and everything, but the Houses of Parliament are HUGE. As in, ENORMOUS. As in, GO ON FOREVER. I do not know how much dynamite would be required to blow them up, but I'm thinking that a trainload is the bare minimum starting level.
A minute or so of walking down the road from the stop, we also saw this:
That's Westminster Abbey. YEAH. Best Underground stop ever? Quite possibly.
Except that it cost ten pounds to get in, and by that time it was 2:30, and the Tate stops letting people in at 5. So we put off Westminster and walked to the Tate.
...Or so we thought.
We got turned around pretty early. No one knew directions. We wound up walking through half of London looking for this place, stopping in and asking people, finally, how to get to Victoria Station, which was near it. We made it to Victoria at about 3:20, and asked the information desk, only to have him tell us that we needed to get on the train to London Bridge and it was too far to walk. ???
We sat down (we were in desperate need of sitting) and got coffee and pastries, and realized that in fact, what he had meant was the Tate MODERN. Despite the fact that the whole time, I'd been asking about the Tate BRITAIN. Gotta love earwax. Also, I'd noticed a street that I'd recognized from my online route-checking, and I wanted to try it. The amazing Kate was game (after we'd had our sit-down), so we took off down that street. And THANK THE EFFING LORD, it was the right way. We made it to the Tate at 4, and had an hour and forty minutes.
And then it was all worth it.
Can I just list the paintings I have now seen in person? Just to get it through my head?
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. Emma Hamilton. Draper's Lament for Icarus. Burne-Jones's King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. The phoenix portrait of Elizabeth I. Millais' Ophelia. Rossetti's Proserpina. And The Beloved.
That one, I could have stared at for years. I took three steps into the Pre-Raphaelite room and I saw it on the wall. I thought for a second about waiting for it. And then I walked right over to it and stared and stared. I think that was the first painting I ever fell in love with - I don't even know how old I was when I first saw it, but it's always stuck with me. Don't laugh at me; it was almost a religious experience to see it, finally, in person.
And it's beautiful. They've hung it at eye level, so you cannot look away from the Bride. When you see it online, no problem - she's beautiful, but so are the other women around her, and your eye skips from her to them. But standing in front of her - she's challenging you. You don't get that, quite, in a photo of her. But she's so calm, so sure of herself, that you can't but feel yourself a lesser creature, privileged to look at her, but not entirely worthy. There is no one who can make you look away from her.
Except that there's also Lizzie Siddal as Ophelia in the same room. And I had to look at her too. Transfixed again, just standing and looking at her - at the rest of the painting too, of course, it's beautiful, the water and the trees and those flowers - but I could have stared at her forever. And it's strange - I love her as Ophelia, but she's so much more fascinating to me as Lizzie. Maybe because the story paints her as so doomed anyway, the two get conflated in my mind. Especially in that painting, she's so beautiful and so secretive - so very much contained within herself. As Ophelia should be, I suppose. No definite answer to any of the questions.
I almost missed Ellen Terry. I went back through the gallery to find Kate, a little bit before they closed the Tate, and as I turned around, I saw it. I think I stopped breathing. It's enormous - it towers. But it's not lit, so I hadn't even noticed it before. Breathtaking - to stand at her feet and look up and see that expression on her face. I wish I'd had the time to stare at her, as well.
(By the way, she's on one side of a doorway. On the other side is a portrait of Sarah Siddons, the great Shakespearean actress of her day, famous especially for Lady Macbeth. I love the symmetry!)
From the Tate, we walked double-time to the Globe, thinking they might have tickets for whatever show they were doing that night. We made it at about 7:15, but they were sold out, and it was As You Like It, which we're seeing in Stratford this Tuesday (!!!), so we just got dinner. We had gelato on the banks of the Thames, looking across the river at the dome of St. Paul's:
And then we waited an hour for the bus back to Oxford (delays, delays - ARGH). And I have NEVER been so glad to get off my feet in my entire life! Not even hiking in Montana was that bad a foot-killer! I'm still debating whether or not to go on Dr. Fincham's tour of Oxford colleges. It's today at 2. I'll see how my feet feel.
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