The Bauer Brothers: Masters of Scientific Illustration

To continue with a favourite theme of this blog I turn again to the topic of natural history and in particular The Bauer Brothers exhibition that has been on display in the Images of Nature Gallery at the Natural History Museum since November 2015.

Erica massoni L.f., 1796-1803
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Erica_massoni00.jpg

The exhibition features the botanical and zoological artworks of two exceptional natural history artists, Franz (1758-1840) and Ferdinand (1760-1826) Bauer; Austrian born brothers who were educated by some of the Continent’s most influential botanical artists of the time. You might be thinking, “oh here she goes again reviewing yet another exhibition” and yes that’s true. I can’t deny that that is what I’m going to do. But what I really like about this exhibition and why I wanted to blog about it is because I was so surprised by how taken I was with it, both in terms of content and concept.

Both brothers spent their entire lives studying and drawing nature and the results are some truly beautiful and, I’m reliably informed, scientifically accurate pieces of illustration. To quote the exhibition website, the brothers ‘excelled in learning the principles of botanical illustration according to the Linnaean system of classification. This technique typically depicts the entire plant in flower, but separately represents the bud and fruit, often dissected to show the internal structure’(1). They are really fascinating pieces of art to stand and look at, and even more so when you consider the degree of accuracy.

But behind the obvious skill both men had, I was also taken by the stories of them as individuals. They had similar artistic styles and yet their careers were very different from each other. Franz had been hired by Sir Joseph Banks as the first resident artist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. While Ferdinand had been hired by Banks as the natural history artist on the HMS Investigator (1801-1805) on its expedition to Australia. There he worked alongside Robert Brown and made many sketches, which he bought back and based future water colours on.

They are really beautiful pieces artwork – the colours surprisingly bold and the level of detail just amazing. I rather naively wouldn’t have expected scientific illustration of this period to have been of such a high standard. It really was a pleasant surprise and when in the museum I always like to wander past and take a look, especially as the drawings and watercolours rotate every four months.

Beyond being aesthetically pleasing, what I also think is great about this exhibition is how it highlights the depth of the Natural History Museum’s collections, especially those of the Library and Archives. By having this designated gallery, which shows exhibitions on a rotating basis, Library staff are given the opportunity to delve into the archive and special collections to bring to light something a bit different; something that isn’t a piece of taxidermy or a slice of science. It can really remind us as visitors that the value of the collections for research goes beyond science and can reveal the history of the people involved in making the museum and its collections. I’ve made clear elsewhere that I’m a huge fan of this approach and I was really pleased to discover that there is at least one place within the museum, designated to informing the public about an aspect of the history of its collections.

You can find more info about the exhibition, which runs until February 2017 here - http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/whats-on/programs/nhm/bauer_brothers_art_exhibition.html

(1)  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/bauer-brothers.html

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

Weekends away can be great way to dip into the history of different areas, whether that be somewhere on the south coast of England or Southern Europe. In this case a trip to Barcelona allowed for an interesting trip to the Museu d’Història de Catalunya and I have to admit to being really impressed with the quality of the museum.

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

The museum itself is located in a former warehouse building near the Old Port (Port Vell) and offers a really fantastic museum space. The development actually strongly resembles the location of the Museum of London Docklands – a part of a former warehouse having been converted into a museum, while the rest offers a home to bustling restaurants and bars, overlooking ships swaying on the water. Anyway, I digress somewhat.  

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

We chose to view the permanent exhibition galleries which cover the period of Prehistory to 1980. This is divided into several different subsections which aim to address key developments in Catalan history. These are: The Roots: From Prehistory to the 8^th Century, The Birth of a Nation: The 8^th to the 12^th Centuries, Our Sea: The 12^th to the 16^th Centuries, On the Edge of the Empire: the 16^th to 18^th centuries, A Steam-powered Nation: the 18^th and 19^th centuries, The Electric Years: From 1900 to 1939, Defeat and Recovery: From 1940 to 1980.

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

It was certainly a mammoth exhibition in what it tried to cover but like I say, I was very impressed with the quality of what has been achieved. Intellectually what I really liked was how the museum didn’t just focus on Catalonia but tried to present Catalan history and culture within broader geographical, political, economic and cultural settings. This was something I remarked on at the time for it is not something I can say I’ve particularly noticed in other exhibitions I’ve been too. It made quite a refreshing change and I left feeling that I not only had a greater sense of Catalan history but also how it fits alongside the other existing knowledge I have of history. I was able to draw things together and make comparisons in ways that I have not necessarily recognised being able to do before. 

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

You can also really tell that it is a new development by the approach that’s been taken, and the development of the museum over the last 10 years has been documented through video which is shown to visitors at the end of the exhibition. It displays a very modern approach to gallery design. There is a mix of glass faced cabinets containing artefacts with information panels, but also more interactive elements – models and recreations. A number of these in fact, still stand out. In particular a net which has been filled with armour and placed on a pulley system, which visitors can then attempt to lift in an effort to demonstrate how heavy it would have been to wear armour. There was also a knight’s horse that could be sat on, milling stones for grinding wheat and my personal favourite, a reconstruction of an irrigation system. Children are encouraged to take the place of oxen and turn a wheel, which then lifted water from a well into channels which in turn irrigated farm crops. It was such an inspired way to both educate and occupy children, while allowing adults the time to read the information, which in other museums can sometimes be a bit of a battle. 

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

The museum’s mission statement is published on their website and is as follows:

The Museu d’Història de Catalunya (MHC) opened in 1996 to make Catalan history and culture better known at home and abroad. Publicly owned and inspired by the public interest, it is designed to be a museum of society insofar as it encourages interaction between history and the other social sciences and takes an interest in our own times. A cultural centre that is open and accessible to everyone with a programme that offers visitors opportunities for learning and training, for debate and analysis, for relaxation and enjoyment. (1)

It aims to be a space for ‘encounter and exchange’ and I definitely think that’s the case. The models show the practicalities of life at different periods in time, prompting questions that you pose not only to yourself but also to the other people you might be visiting with. And while it offers a huge historical range that some might find that overwhelming, I found it to be really intellectually stimulating. It offered something different, both in scope and design, and I’d definitely recommend it to those that visit Barcelona.

Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Barcelona.

(1) http://www.en.mhcat.cat/content/view/full/44

Final Reflections on London’s Urban Jungle @ The Horniman Museum and Gardens

I just wanted to round off quickly on London’s Urban Jungle which finished back in February by saying what a fantastic experience it was and how grateful I am to those who went and offered such positive feedback.

London's Urban Jungle © Elle Larsson

When I decided that I wanted to pursue an exhibition for my final MA project it soon dawned on me what a difficult process this would be. But there was a ray of hope and I am so grateful to the team at the Horniman Museum and Gardens for seeing potential in the idea and for scheduling it into their temporary exhibition programme for 2015/16.

London's Urban Jungle © Elle Larsson

I learnt a great deal throughout the process but most of all, achieved what I always hope to in doing research, and that’s inviting public engagement.  I am after all a public historian!

As a final farewell on this subject I offer you a link to a final piece I produced for the Horniman Museum website which can be found here, alongside some great pictures, hopefully showing how the exhibition tied in which the Horniman’s natural history collections - http://www.horniman.ac.uk/collections/stories/jamrachs-animal-legacy

It was a fantastic way to conclude my MA work, but this is not the end for my research on Jamrach so watch this space! 

A Change of Focus - The history of the slave trade as told in two different museums

Over the last month or so I’ve been fortunate enough to delve into an area of history that I haven’t looked at for quite a while. Once you find your area, the thing that makes you tick, that subject becomes all-consuming, taking all your energy and attention and for me that was the Victorian period and animal studies. But a friend of mine is doing a lot of research into the Slave Trade and I’ve recently joined her on a couple of museum visits, to view exhibitions focused on the topic.

Now the history of slavery and the abolition movement is something I have studied in the past. My first introduction to it being in Year 9, when I first engaged with the transatlantic slave trade and the ‘triangular trade’ and first heard of Olaudah Equiano. But it was some years before I returned to the subject again, when I opted in the second year of undergrad to take the History of the British Empire 1763-1900 module and would later write my essay on the importance of slave narratives to the abolition movement.

Museum of London Docklands
Authors own photo.

However, it’s been a refreshing change to return to the subject and divert my focus from the work I’ve been doing. To be able to engage with a different area of history and to view exhibitions as purely a visitor and not necessarily as a critic has been a rather nice position to be in. But I wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t have a few thoughts to share on what I’ve seen. There are two examples I’d like to discuss. The first being Museum of London Docklands Gallery, London, Sugar and Slavery , and the second, the M-Shed’s exhibition on Bristol’s involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Bristol People Gallery.

The first observation I have is how influential it can be visiting these sorts of places with someone who is so interested in and passionate about the subject that an exhibition or museum focuses on because when they engage, you naturally do as well. I’m really of the opinion that museums and galleries should be places of exchange and dialogue, not silent halls that epitomise that traditional, oppressive museum atmosphere. And when you visit with someone who is actively engaging with what they are looking at or reading, that’s exactly what you get and that is in so many ways more beneficial to your overall learning experience.

Often that other person will be able to tell you something that’s missing, or a different view point that they’ve read and you begin to see more of the bigger picture, than can be conveyed in that particular space or with the funds available. And I didn’t just notice this on these particular visits, but also when viewing a Monet exhibition with my friend who’s a Monet enthusiast and at the Freud Museum in Vienna, where my friend worked on a project to produce a walking tour. I can still tell you now things I learnt from those three individuals having visited places with them and engaged with their particular specific interests. I don’t proclaim to know anywhere near as much as they do, but I now know more because I was inspired by their enthusiasm to learn about those topics.

Plaque in the dock area
Authors own photo.

So what of the exhibitions we went to view. Well let’s start with London, Sugar and Slavery exhibition. If you’ve read my blog recently you’ll have seen how unimpressed I was with the Museum of London Docklands overall and many of those criticisms also, sadly, extend to this exhibit. At a theoretical level it’s fantastic and I base that assessment on what I understand of its aims – to readdress the narrative focus away from the efforts of the parliamentarians and to prioritise the experience of those enslaved; particularly dissenters and black abolitionists. But to be honest, you could have fooled me, the section on resistance being all too easy to overlook in favour the table where the bill was drafted. If it hadn’t been for my friend telling the aim of the exhibition and having done a little reading online, I’d have missed that completely if I’m honest. I felt it was badly executed, either that or its dated very badly since its unveiling in 2007.

Unfortunately it has adopted the “book on the wall” approach. There is loads of information, but I’d question its layout and also some glaring oversights. For example, in some cases there weren’t captions to pictures so you had no idea where they came from, who created them or who they featured. While in others instances where there were captions of who pictures depicted, there was limited information beyond a name so their relevance could easily be missed by an ‘unknowing’ visitor – thankfully I had an expert to assist!  I noticed this in particular about Mary Prince, a picture featured early on in the exhibition but her ‘role’ if you like, wasn’t explained until much later.

Captions at M-Shed
Authors own Photo

That said, there were some really interesting nuggets of information, but they were all too often buried in huge wads of text – personally I would have picked them out and centred them in some areas of blank space, of which there were quite a few. Drawing on my later example as comparison, Bristol did this particularly well, having quotes running round the top of the exhibition space and across the front of the display cases.

I would commend the use good use of oral testimony by the Museum of London, in the contemporary section of the exhibition and this added a level of engagement that otherwise was quite underwhelming. But again, I also felt there was a missed opportunity to show the modern link to human trafficking in the 21^st century, especially in terms of connecting with a younger audience. So often youngsters question why the past is relevant and I think this exhibition could have provided a strong example of why it is and why it’s important to possess knowledge of history. As I said of the whole museum, it just felt very flat and lacking in anything that might provoke more than superficial engagement.

Bristol and the transatlantic slave trade diagram
Authors Own Photo

But I think that’s enough of my whinging about that particular museum. To Bristol. It’s notable in that it’s both a smaller museum and exhibition but as soon as I walked in I was immediately more impressed. The huge diagram of the triangular trade that greets you as you walk into the gallery was both eye-catching and informative. It wasn’t just simple black lines between London, West Africa and the Caribbean, but it featured pictures, statistics, item lists and captions which demonstrated the nature of what was being traded, who funded it and enormity of it. It was off to a good start. It actually told more of what you perhaps didn’t necessarily want to know, the unpalatable truth about the subject. It dealt with that head on and I responded really well to that.

M Shed Exhibition
Authors own photo

In essence it is all shown in a small room, but it used all the tools I wanted to have seen in London.  It made good use of technology (most of which was actually working) and which allowed you to engage with the material beyond what was on display. The interactive screens also offered sound bites, which although limited, catered to a more multi-sensory experience. The only drawback was that you couldn’t take a seat and peruse through the material more comfortably.

Contemporary Link
Authors own photo

The cabinets of objects on display were also not static. They were fuller for starters, but also had clear object lists and as I previously said, quotes were placed on the glass which immediately drew your attention. There was also a map of the area showing buildings that were constructed from the profits made from the trade and the modern thread was also clearly present. In the centre of the room there was a large table with contemporary newspaper articles focusing on the legacy of the slave trade and also to one side, an interactive screen which invites visitors to vote about whether Bristol should commemorate the Slave Trade in some way. The effort to make it relevant and contemporary was much obvious here and also more successful. You were being invited for your opinion and it successfully engaged me.

The only slight odd thing about it was that slightly apart from the main exhibit you had continued display on the slave trade but it was tied into a thematic display on activism in Bristol, so the information on resistance and role of women in abolition movement was a little more difficult to find. It was effective having it encompassed in that thematic display but did feel a little separate from the main exhibition. 

I have to admit it was also helpful to have a guide who knew so much more than the exhibition divulged because it was quite limited. But I didn’t tire of this exhibit like I had done in London, despite its smaller size. I was quite happy reading the information and navigating my own way around, because there was so much to engage with in so many different ways.

We couldn’t really have picked two more contrasting places. I was disappointed by one, while the other exceeded all expectations. It just goes to show that actually the scale of a museum doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality of visitor experience, for in this case I would say the M-Shed outshone the Museum of London and that is something I didn’t expected I’d be saying.