Change at Leonardo da Vinci and Get Off at Mel Brooks

Spring is coming!

We spotted those cheerful yellow flashes of the season on our way to the Serpentine Gallery to see the Anthony McCall show before it closes tomorrow. His "solid light" installations were incredible: "[i]n darkened, haze-filled rooms, the projections create an illusion of three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves and flat planes that gradually expand, contract or sweep through space" and as observers stood in and walked through the projected beams, our bodies interacted with the light, creating surprising effects. A show that makes you consider light in a different way is a rarity, and McCall did just that. After the Serpentine, Bob had to zip over to Putney to play a soccer game, so while he did that, I decided to revisit the V&A to see some of the galleries that were closed when I was there for its late opening last week. Although I thought I'd just pop in for an hour, I ended up spending more than two hours there, with some galleries still to be seen. I started in the Islamic Middle East galleries, where this was the first thing I saw:

Known as Tippoo's Tiger after its owner, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, the automaton is a symbol of Tipu's opposition to the British. A crank on the eighteenth-century automaton controls both the man's arm and the organ hidden inside the tiger's body, which emits sounds like growls and screams, meant to come from tiger and man, respectively. This seventeenth-century thumb ring, made from almandine garnet, diamonds, and gold, was just one of several on display,

and this pair of eighteenth-century turban ornaments was equally striking.

The Ardabil carpet was the centrepiece of the next room--dating to 1539-40, the carpet is considered one of the finest and largest Islamic carpets left intact, and is, in fact, the world's oldest dated carpet.

Commissioned by the then ruler of Iran for an ancestor's shrine, much of the beauty is said to come from the high density of hand-tied knots (304 per square inch). To preserve its colours, the carpet is only lit twice per hour, and since I arrived close to one of those times, I wandered around the large gallery while I waited to see the carpet in better light. This 1632 Iranian manuscript contains beautiful illustrations by Riza Abbasi, considered the greatest painter of his time.

This incredible Egyptian pitcher (1000-50) is carved from a single piece of rock crystal, and probably once featured gold or other decorative material on the smooth areas at the base and rim.

I hadn't noticed, but the carpet was already lit, and I walked back to the centre of the room to peer at the detailed patterns on display. If you want to be impressed by the sheer ingenuity of the carpet's designer, click here to find out about a visual "trick" that is built into the carpet's geometrics!

I walked through the China galleries next, where a series of tiny objects caught my attention, starting with this water dish (1800-50), used to clean off dried ink from a writing brush,

and this wrist-rest, used to prevent smudging while the person continued to write. This particular wrist-rest (1768) contains a poem on its surface:

I liked the detail on this bronze owl vessel (1300-1050 BC)

and the fact that archaeologists are unsure whether vessels like these

were used as wine pitchers or urinals (this one is from 500-600). These tiny, decorative snuff bottles, dating from 1573-1910, were beautiful:

I went from peering into tiny cabinets to craning my neck in order to see the enormous pieces that filled the next room. The Cast Courts contain what are essentially copies, but what copies they are! The cast of Trajan's Column (found in Rome), is broken up into two pieces to fit into the room. Erected in 113, the column depicts the history of Trajan's battles, winding up the column for 200 metres and featuring 2500 figures.

Mapping the Imagination is an interesting temporary exhibit, whose maps include Simon Patterson's take on the iconic tube map, The Great Bear,

as well as probably my favourite map from childhood, E.H. Shepard's illustration from the Winnie-the-Pooh endpapers. The real-life version of the "100 Aker Wood" is still on my list of places to see while we're living in the UK.

I was happy enough to have come across that map, but I was very happy when I wandered into a nearby corridor and found a series of original Shepard drawings from the Winnie-the-Pooh books. I remember this illustration very well, and as a child I thought that the huge, gnarled tree that dwarfs tiny humming Pooh was out of this world, something that couldn't exist.

It was especially funny to come across that drawing today, since I had taken this photo just a few hours earlier in Kensington Gardens, while we were walking to the Serpentine Gallery:

Eeyore was always my favourite. I mean how could you not love a donkey who got excited about his birthday presents of a popped balloon and an empty honey jar? (But don't even talk to me about the Disney versions of the stories. Grrrr.)

Across the corridor from the Shepard illustrations were images related to Beatrix Potter's stories, including this letter from Potter to the young son of her former governess, in which The Tale of Peter Rabbit is born out of Potter's desire to cheer up a sick boy.

Although much of what was on display in another temporary exhibit, Collaborators: UK Design for Performance, didn't cause me to stop for long, I was enthralled by this display of the set design for Front Window, a puppet-based show by collective Planning a Trifle, "inspired by Hitchcock and growing up on terraced streets."

Leaning into the miniature set, I felt enclosed by "a tableau of a domestic galaxy, complete with twinkling stars"

and even a dog or two!

Although I had a V&A map in hand, I didn't always end up where I thought I would, but thankfully the museum is a lovely place to get lost in--in every sense of the word.

I was sad that I could only see certain views of these three texts, because what I saw was beautiful! The first, La Fin du Monde (The End of the World), published in 1919, tells of the apocalyptic end of Paris, with poetry and Cubist/ Futurist artwork meshing together wonderfully.

Wyndham Lewis's cover illustration for Blast, which he also edited, appeared in 1915:

291 was an avant-garde art journal that ran from 1915 to 1916:

Bashaw: The Faithful Friend of Man was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851,

an important event which was the focus of the next few galleries I encountered. As I looked through the rooms, I came across a rather striking display of flattened instruments near one of the exits:

My favourite piece in the Great Exhibition galleries was this intricate Expanding View of the Great Exhibition (1851), which contains seven layers of scenes depicting the view members of the public saw when they entered the main Crystal Palace entrance. Seen from above, it is a series of detailed watercolours,

but when viewed through the peephole, it becomes an entire world of wonder.

I admired the Arts and Crafts washstand and hanging in this display (produced in 1894 and 1896, respectively),

as well as Charles Rennie Mackintosh's high-backed chair (designed in 1897) and fireplace (1904), which reminded me of our summer visit to Glasgow.

By this time, I was a bit museum-ed out and decided to wander into the sunshine in search of lunch. My last stop in the V&A shows that the museum's design isn't limited to its galleries, as even the washrooms have a definite sense of style.

With a picnic lunch in hand, I wandered through Green Park,

passing a lane with a fairytale name

before reaching St James's Park, where many people (and birds) were out enjoying the fine weather.

I was heading to the tube when I walked by Canada House, and although I've passed it many times, I don't think I've ever taken a proper photo of it, so here you go!