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quislibetYesterday, my old roomies Ann and Gretchen were visiting, and J. and I took them to the Peabody Essex Museum to see the Chinese house.
If it weren't for the Chinese house, the fact that J. and I, as Salem residents, can get in free, and the related fact that Ann is a member of a professional museum association and, by means of her membership card, could get herself and Gretchen in free, well, we wouldn't have gone; we really don't like encouraging the PEM. It used to be a unique and interesting historical/anthropological museum, but now has become yet another Pretty Things On Pedestals joint -- "world-class," to be sure, and a stand-out in a city otherwise full of cheesy wax museums and haunted houses, but disappointing nonetheless. They have a poster-ad campaign that shows people looking at art while ghostly images of other people in related-to-the-art native costumes rush by; J. says it captures the new PEM perfectly: the cultural context for the objects is quickly fading away.
Anyway: we couldn't get into the Chinese house for 90 minutes, and spent time looking at an exhibit of Shiny and Interesting Things from a Famous British Manor House (Chatsworth). To be sure, there were things that were both shiny and interesting -- if you get little thrills from seeing Inigo Jones' marginalia in a copy of Vitruvius, or a gem engraved in the time of Augustus set in gaudy Victorian jewelry, or samples of Dickens' cramped handwriting, or a letter from Thackeray describing an alternate ending to Vanity Fair, well, then this exhibit is worth a look, and I won't say I didn't get such thrills. But all I learned about the Cavendish family itself(*1) was that they liked to collect Shiny and Interesting things, and an entire room full of gaudy silver service just doesn't push my buttons. Oh, I did learn that there's a clever pun on the family name in their Latin motto: Cavendo Tutus, "safe by taking care/being 'ware," and that the current (12th) Duke of Devonshire's given name is "Peregrine." So that's cool.
The Chinese house was quite nifty, but would be much better if one entered from the exhibit about the family that lived there, rather than exiting into it from the house, and if the time one was allowed to spend in the house wasn't so short (we were expressly told that there would not be enough time to listen to everything on the audio tour; Ann said she listened to less than half of the basic tour, and none of the "press 7 for more information about..." stuff).
At one point, J. pointed out that a pile of stools and a ladder in the corner of one room made her want to knock them into a large rickety pile and leap to the top while kicking someone in the head -- but, unfortunately, one is not supposed to touch the artifacts. I guess this is the "gee whiz" reaction that the PEM wants; had the instructional exhibit-with-films come first(*2), or had there been time to listen to everything in the audio tour, we might have wasted our awe-struck gawk-at-the-pretties time trying instead to put the information together with our surroundings and learn something.
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(*1) There are, of course, other sources for such information, including, I am told, a BBC reality show.
(*2) To be fair, it's perfectly possible to go look at the related exhibit first, but the layout of the museum -- which has been extensively changed since they added the Chinese house -- doesn't make it obvious.
If it weren't for the Chinese house, the fact that J. and I, as Salem residents, can get in free, and the related fact that Ann is a member of a professional museum association and, by means of her membership card, could get herself and Gretchen in free, well, we wouldn't have gone; we really don't like encouraging the PEM. It used to be a unique and interesting historical/anthropological museum, but now has become yet another Pretty Things On Pedestals joint -- "world-class," to be sure, and a stand-out in a city otherwise full of cheesy wax museums and haunted houses, but disappointing nonetheless. They have a poster-ad campaign that shows people looking at art while ghostly images of other people in related-to-the-art native costumes rush by; J. says it captures the new PEM perfectly: the cultural context for the objects is quickly fading away.
Anyway: we couldn't get into the Chinese house for 90 minutes, and spent time looking at an exhibit of Shiny and Interesting Things from a Famous British Manor House (Chatsworth). To be sure, there were things that were both shiny and interesting -- if you get little thrills from seeing Inigo Jones' marginalia in a copy of Vitruvius, or a gem engraved in the time of Augustus set in gaudy Victorian jewelry, or samples of Dickens' cramped handwriting, or a letter from Thackeray describing an alternate ending to Vanity Fair, well, then this exhibit is worth a look, and I won't say I didn't get such thrills. But all I learned about the Cavendish family itself(*1) was that they liked to collect Shiny and Interesting things, and an entire room full of gaudy silver service just doesn't push my buttons. Oh, I did learn that there's a clever pun on the family name in their Latin motto: Cavendo Tutus, "safe by taking care/being 'ware," and that the current (12th) Duke of Devonshire's given name is "Peregrine." So that's cool.
The Chinese house was quite nifty, but would be much better if one entered from the exhibit about the family that lived there, rather than exiting into it from the house, and if the time one was allowed to spend in the house wasn't so short (we were expressly told that there would not be enough time to listen to everything on the audio tour; Ann said she listened to less than half of the basic tour, and none of the "press 7 for more information about..." stuff).
At one point, J. pointed out that a pile of stools and a ladder in the corner of one room made her want to knock them into a large rickety pile and leap to the top while kicking someone in the head -- but, unfortunately, one is not supposed to touch the artifacts. I guess this is the "gee whiz" reaction that the PEM wants; had the instructional exhibit-with-films come first(*2), or had there been time to listen to everything in the audio tour, we might have wasted our awe-struck gawk-at-the-pretties time trying instead to put the information together with our surroundings and learn something.
------
(*1) There are, of course, other sources for such information, including, I am told, a BBC reality show.
(*2) To be fair, it's perfectly possible to go look at the related exhibit first, but the layout of the museum -- which has been extensively changed since they added the Chinese house -- doesn't make it obvious.
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The PEM
Date: 2004-08-16 11:44 am (UTC)And what did they happen to have? A Totokia, the Fijian war club that the Tusken Raider's Gaffi Stick was based on in A New Hope. Brian was so excited to see one up close (he didn't even know they had one in the PEM). It was in one of the larger rooms upstairs that had a lot of Indian and Maritime art - large open room with a lot of windows and busts from ships.
Do you know if they still have the transcripts from the Salem Witchcraft trials there? I don't think they are in the main museum, but in the separate library building (next to where the armory used to be, around the corner from the Salem Visitor's center). I've always wanted to check them out since I read excerpts of them in college.
Re: The PEM
Date: 2004-08-18 10:01 am (UTC)flying, high kicks
Date: 2004-08-16 01:21 pm (UTC)I'll join her there, but in the silver trinket section (and amongst any equally painful Faberge eggs).
no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 11:53 am (UTC)