Archives for April 9, 2022

A damp rainy morning and by some miracle, no line to speak of. Walked in and down the aisle, my head on a swivel to the left and right. It’s like picking your way through the attic of your powerful and wealthy grandmother, if your grandmother lived for over a thousand years and was venerated as a saint. It’s crammed with treasures, piled alongside, behind, beneath, and on top of each other. Marble effigies and mosaic floors, embroidered cushions and medieval paintings, stained glass and wood carving, and gilding and banners. Piety meets pageantry.

The distinguished and the holy are here, but also those with the cash and connections. Memorials commemorate those who are buried elsewhere.

The first time I looked down, I was standing on Darwin. Charles Darwin! Origin of the species, Voyage of the Beagle Darwin. The vary same Darwin who confessed he lost his faith in a benevolent God after witnessing parasitic wasp larvae devour a caterpillar from the inside out. I was equally delighted and shocked, and that moment set the tone for the day. Nor is he the only man of science honored here. Haley of the eponymous comet. Stephen Hawkins, with a depiction of a black hole. Sir Isaac Newton, with a bevy of putti frolicking at his feet.

All the while the velvet gravel of Jeremy Irons’s voice on the audio guide was murmuring cogent facts about the Abbey in my ears. That’s a lovely experience in and of itself.

Nobility, unless Shakespeare wrote about them, aren’t what thrills me. Writers and poets are another story. The bard has a fancy monument, as he should, but what was most deeply moving to me was finding the names of authors I loved in Poet’s Corner.

It’s a veritable Valhalla of writers. Miss Austen is here, and the Brontë sisters. Chaucer, Dickens, and the poet Gerald Manly Hopkins. Lewis Carrol, and C. S. Lewis, who opened the door into Narnia, humorist P.G. Wodehouse of Jeeves fame. Many more, but these are writers who shaped my worldview.

I hastened back to the entrance for the Verger tour (setting the alarm on my phone proved extremely useful). Got lost, was directed to go under the arches, and went the wrong way again. But seriously, under the arches? Look up. There’s nothing but arches. Fortunately, the staff had their eye on me. I was set on the right path and made it in time.

The verger was straight out of Hollywood casting, white-haired, twinkly-eyed, black-cassocked. He efficiently herded his flock from point to point and put the great and good into context with gentle humor.

Some highlights: mosaic was pilfered from King Edward the Confessor’s shine by pilgrims eager for a sanctified souvenir. They plucked the sides of his shrine bare.

It’s even more evident here, where mosaics are missing as high as guilty hands could reach, and intact above.

An unexpected thrill was being seated in the choir stalls, while the Verger explained the significance of who sits where, and the purpose of the elaborate screen that conceals the congregation from the celebrants.

After the tour ended I stayed several hours more, reading inscriptions and looking at faces.

I can tell you what all the inscriptions said in two words.

Remember me.

John Soan (he added the e later) began as a bricklayer like his father before him, but his prodigious talent and his exceptional skills redefined his life.

Soane’s passion for neoclassical architecture formed the scaffolding of his life, but the reason I’m visiting the Soane Museum was his insatiable lust for collecting. Do we say hoarder? Maybe not, but every crevice, every wall, every opening, every corner, and every niche, whether vertical or horizontal, has got some artifact or collectible in it, placed by Soane himself to please himself.

I adored this goddess.

That said, my favorite aspect of the house-turned-museum is not the sculptures, artifacts, models, or paintings. It’s the way he understood the importance of light and the ingenious methods he designed to capture it.

It’s a skill well demonstrated by his breakfast room. That’s where he held meetings with potential clients, the better to impress them with morning light bounced around by four light-intensifying convex mirrors, smaller convex mirrors lining the insides of the arches, and hidden skylights pouring colored light into the room, which is also lit by a window overlooking the Monument Court.  

That said, my favorite fact about Soane is he married a woman with her own opinions, which he appreciated, and she had a little dog, Fanny, that she loved.

By all accounts, Soanes adored her and considered her his most valued confidante. After her death, he kept her rooms untouched for nearly two decades.

What don’t I like? The whole miserable, sordid story of his two sons. I don’t know what kind of father he was but they are on the record as bitter, angry, spiteful, and greedy. You can look up the whole wretched account if you like. I’m turning back to the light.

Fun facts:  The design of K6 phone box, the red public phone box we can still see on the streets of London was based on his design for his wife’s tomb.

He won the gold medal at the Royal Academy for a triumphant bridge he didn’t build.

Mad King George funded his Grand Tour.  

The cheerful yellow paint was originally made of two parts lead based pigments. Hold your breath.

The Picture Room is a puzzle of vertical spaces created to hang nire picture, much like those in the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston. Also walls become windows

The little dog settled so comfortably in Eliza’s lap was a Toy Manchester Terrier.

The abundant hair portrayed on Soane’s marble bust was a toupee.

After an extensive visit, that included an excellent staff-led tour of the museum, we took a breather In the lovely well-maintained park across the street. Em and I watched a group of frisky dogs chase balls across the grass. It was one of the best half hours of the trip.

I thought I’d be up for more art and went back to the Courtauld, but I tapped out after an hour peacefully sketching a Parmigianino drawing.