The Victoria and Albert Museum

I am very impressed by the logo for the Victoria and Albert Museum. I think it’s pretty and simple and clean. The institution it represents is immediately clear upon sight, without the viewer needing to pause and wonder what the logo stands for. I love the trick with the “&” creating the cross-bar of the “A.” I also like that the lines creating the three characters are not all the same size, but vary in thickness. This seems to me to convey delicacy. If each stroke were of the same size, the logo would appear more created, more forced. The way it is, it seems like a lovely, seamless scripted device that just so happens to hint at the wonderful treasures hidden inside.

When I walked into the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was completely awed. Perhaps I should have been less amazed at the objects, since they are plaster casts and not originals, but I almost felt more awed, thinking that these wonderful objects had been painstakingly reproduced and reassembled for my viewing pleasure and convenience. I walked into the room on the left first, the one full of Italian and Spanish casts. The giant arch on the left side of the door really demands immediate attention. It is simply beautiful. The gold pain really made it stand out, as did it’s immense size. I really loved this room, and the way the ceiling was so very far up, and the walls were light orange-colored and thus made the room seem much grander. All the plaster casts were lightish gray, so they too added to the brightness of the room. I was very happy to see some objects there that I will probably never see in real life. I had never realized that “The David” is SO big! It’s pretty amazing to walk through a room and be able to enjoy hundreds of years of art and history in a small space. I wasn’t quite as impressed with the other room, however. I felt it was much more cluttered (though the first was as well). The room itself was darker, and the objects within varied in color from white to black. The black objects seemed to suck the light from the room, making it seem less grand, and perhaps even a bit more sinister. The row of plaster effigies I first stumbled into probably helped further the sinister feel. I still immensely enjoyed looking and marveling at all the wonderful casts from all over time and space, especially Trajen's Column. 

Compared to the figures in the International System of Signs, I felt that the Isotype figures did have much more “personality.” The Isotype people, for instance, could be expressing not only function (as in, “Gent’s Loo Here”), but also subtle things like class or even race or emotion. I thought the frame showing unemployment rates in Britain was a particularly strong example of this. The pictures show white male figures standing in lines, wearing caps and looking downward, thus conveying a rather dejected appearance. The graph is then not only functional in that it accurately and clearly displays information, but it also gives a visual element to the graph as well, perhaps reminding viewers that the numbers they are considering are real human lives. I was very impressed that the simple Isotype figures could so easily portray just about anything. One of my favorite Isotype pictures was of the “Crusader” fighting the “Infidel.”  I thought it was interesting that the straight-forward, uncomplicated lines that formed the two cartoonish figures could so easily convey what they set out to. I’m not quite sure how the Isotype and International System of Signs figures compare when it comes to communicating to a large group of people. Perhaps the International System’s basic, plain “stick figures” are more universal, since they’re pretty well stripped of any identifying characteristics. On the other hand, there was something interesting about being able to make the figures look like the actual people they are supposed to represent, which the Isotype form does very well, especially in the picture of African citizens voting.

The patterns I chose to compare and contrast both incorporate “organic” figures with symmetric, “man-made” shapes. The Iranian carpet fragment from the Middle East Collection portrays animals and floral designs in a repeating pattern. The focal points of the fragment are two lions, displayed upside-down. These lions not only function as representations of lions, but also as a design element. The shapes of the lion’s bodies echo the curving lines of the floral elements of the pattern, as do the shapes of the bodies of the other figures shown on the carpet, including the wolves at the top, the scary human-faced birds at each upper corner, the dragon- or griffin-like creatures under the lions, and the deer figures near the bottom. The piece from the Ironwork Collection, the “Aumbry Grille,” also uses curving lines to etch an outline, but incorporates vine-like tendrils to execute the pattern. Like in the carpet fragment, there is a strange element of not-quite-human forms, in the men’s heads at the top of either side of the grille, which seem to sprout out of vertical vines. I wish the description of the grille explained why the men’s heads were included. To me, they’re extremely disturbing, but this piece would have held the Communion vessels during Mass, so I wonder who the heads represent and why they’re growing out of vines? One of my favorite aspects of this piece is the keyhole on the left side of the front panel. I didn’t notice the keyhole at first, but it caught my eye as I walked by. The keyhole reminds me of the many layers of creatures and plants in the carpet fragment: you never know what you’ll find when you look hard.

I can't claim to be terribly familiar with the Madison Metro system, but it seems like a decent system for a sparsely-populated city. The only architecture I have noticed are the bus stops. As bus stops go, they seem pretty functional. The logo seems to me to be less than lovely. The bright orange, red and blue colors remind me of bad 80s commercials or a truncated rainbow. I've never liked how the background is tilted. It makes me feel motion sick. I think the word "Metro" under the big M is rather redundant. Either the M should be synonymous for "Metro" or it's not doing it's job properly. The London Underground system, on the other hand, is classic. Obviously it has the advantage of being a London institution, but the circle and crossbar design is instantaneously recognizable. It's a clean, simple logo that communicates its purpose perfectly. The O is also a nice little echo of the tube tunnel. Some of the tube stations are architectural marvels in themselves, while others display only the bare minimum to remain functional. I LOVE the maps for the tube system. Not being familiar with public transportation, I tend to be easily confused by the Madison bus system (or even the London bus system), but the tube is so straight-forward, even I can't get it messed up.

Though it's impossible to pick one piece to be my "favorite," I'll choose a tabernacle grille of wrought iron, made in Austria or Germany around 1850. I love the gothic revival style of the piece, which is apparently modeled after a 15th century "Tyrolean type." The grille is pretty, but not as pretty as, say, the enamled turban ornaments in the Middle Eastern collection, or the elaborate Japanese armor on display in the Asian collection; I chose this piece as my favorite because it's just a little different than I had expected. As I was taking pictures of the left side of the grille to potentially use for my compare and contrast a pattern answer, I was really amazed at the delicate pattern. Then, I moved to the right side to take more pictures, and I was surprised to notice that the right side was totally different from the left side. Both scrolling patterns were similar in style, but still completely different! This intrigued me. Why would this be so? Every other grill I'd seen in the Ironworks collection had been symmetrical. I just really enjoyed the whimsy that the differences provided. I also fell in love with the dragon-looking head at the center of the piece. At first, the head just blends into the complex patterns and gothic arches, but when I finally noticed it, I realized that it's a very strange, quirky little addition.

Left side

Close-up on left pattern

Close-up on right pattern

"Dragon" head