Flashback: More Uluru

There are rock paintings—some of them 30,000 years old—around the base of the monolith.

Some interiors

I admit that I do get bored very quickly wandering through historic houses looking at furniture, paintings, knickknacks, furniture, paintings, knickknacks. And much of what you see in Newstead today wasn't there during Byron's time; Thomas Wildman, who had been at Harrow with Byron and bought Newstead from him in 1818, did extensive restorations.

I did enjoy the exhibit on Ada Lovelace—mathematician, computing pioneer, and Byron's daughter—in the library. Ada never knew her father; her parents separated when she was only a month old. Although her mother loathed her father (probably with good reason) Ada doesn't seem to have had negative feelings about him. She named her son Byron, and was buried next to her father in the Byron family vault. And though her mother was a less than ideal parent—in letters, she referred to her daughter as “it”—she did encourage her interest in mathematics as a way of avoiding the insanity she believed Ada might have inherited from her father.

Napoleon and Josephine

The art collection in the museum is really impressive—there are paintings by Velazquez, Titan, Goya, Rubens—and more interesting than all the gilt and mirrors and Adam ceilings in the house itself. But this also includes dozens of paintings and statues of Napoleon (including a colossal statue in the front entryway.) Apparently anyone who owned a painting of the former emperor foisted it off on the duke as a show of admiration.

I do really like these portraits of Napoleon and Josephine, though.

Saturday reflections

A portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, reflected in a display case of his uniforms at Apsley House, his home in London.

We toured the house on our field trip on Thursday. My course this year is on the Brontës, who were all great admirers of Wellington. (Charlotte Brontë named the hero of the imaginary kingdom she created with her brother “Arthur Wellesley” after the duke.)

The Brontës weren't alone—the house is packed with trophies, silver, fine china and most of the Spanish royal collection of paintings looted by Joseph Bonaparte, all of it presented to the victor of Waterloo by the grateful royal houses of Europe.

Cristo Redentor

Even on a sunny day, with blue skies and puffy clouds, I wouldn't have been that impressed by the statue. It's colossal, of course; those outstretched arms are 28 meters across—almost 100 feet. But you lose the scale seeing it up close. If I'd had to guess how tall it was I would have said maybe fifty feet, but it's twice that. You really get a much better sense of the drama of it from a distance, or in the many photographs taken from the air.

There's a tiny chapel inside the pedestal, which was packed with people trying to get out of the rain, and I sat there for a while. I much preferred the painting there to the statue outside.

More Kirkland vignettes

That giant blue disk in the photo on the bottom right is a radio from the 1930's. I remember when audiophiles were competitive over who had the biggest stereo speakers -- now it's probably whose system is the tiniest -- but whoever owned that radio would win any competition.