An expedition
Mar. 7th, 2022 09:08 pmWhen ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strange_complex mentioned that she was visiting Oxford, we pondered our plans as R had half thought about visiting the Ashmolean's Pissarro exhibition, and it seemed a good idea, if one were to mix with numbers of people indoors, doing so with another friend would at least tilt the risk/reward profile of the event. (We have, by and large, stayed at home for the last two years, with a tank of petrol lasting for many months).
So, we fought with the GWR apps on our phones, we debated the likelihood of the pay and display machine working, we wondered how long it took to walk from the station to the museum. In the end, the train journeys both ways were quite quiet (though on the return journey we judged well to head to the back section of an unexpectedly long train).
In the end, I was perhaps a little indifferent to the exhibition itself. Quite a lot of the works on display were prints and etchings, multiple versions of the same which may be of technical interest but not so much for me. The paintings were more interesting; a portrait of Cezanne, the inevitable self-portrait, a few works by friends for comparative purposes, and a number by one of his children, Lucien Pissarro. Many of the items were donated to the Ashmolean by the Pissarro family in the 1950s. For me, the highlights were the townscapes, the View from my window, Éragny-sur-Epte (considered "unsellable" at the time by Pissarro's agent), and Lucien's Éragny Church.
We took in some other parts of the museum, including a small exhibition of Japanese works mostly from the first half of the twentieth century, which had a curious range in style from quintessentially Japanese to very European.
strange_complex mentioned that she was visiting Oxford, we pondered our plans as R had half thought about visiting the Ashmolean's Pissarro exhibition, and it seemed a good idea, if one were to mix with numbers of people indoors, doing so with another friend would at least tilt the risk/reward profile of the event. (We have, by and large, stayed at home for the last two years, with a tank of petrol lasting for many months).So, we fought with the GWR apps on our phones, we debated the likelihood of the pay and display machine working, we wondered how long it took to walk from the station to the museum. In the end, the train journeys both ways were quite quiet (though on the return journey we judged well to head to the back section of an unexpectedly long train).
In the end, I was perhaps a little indifferent to the exhibition itself. Quite a lot of the works on display were prints and etchings, multiple versions of the same which may be of technical interest but not so much for me. The paintings were more interesting; a portrait of Cezanne, the inevitable self-portrait, a few works by friends for comparative purposes, and a number by one of his children, Lucien Pissarro. Many of the items were donated to the Ashmolean by the Pissarro family in the 1950s. For me, the highlights were the townscapes, the View from my window, Éragny-sur-Epte (considered "unsellable" at the time by Pissarro's agent), and Lucien's Éragny Church.
Camille Pissarro, View from my window, Éragny-sur-Epte
Lucien Pissarro, Éragny Church
We took in some other parts of the museum, including a small exhibition of Japanese works mostly from the first half of the twentieth century, which had a curious range in style from quintessentially Japanese to very European.