WAM, Bam, Now That's a Museum!

This weekend I checked out the Worcester Art Museum. I went because they have a fascinating exhibit of portraits from London’s National Portrait Gallery, but even without those, the museum is a jewel.

I didn’t expect an armor collection from the Spanish Inquisition. JK, it’s really circa 1550-1650, about a hundred years later. The armor is articulated like a lobster shell in steel and/or leather. It’s quite a feat of engineering. I can’t imagine doing anything, much less riding a horse or fighting a battle, in this stuff.

Look at these shoes. Imagine flopping around in these things.

The WAM has a carefully conserved portion of c. 1150 French Benedictine priory with vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows.

And the National Portrait Gallery exhibit was wonderful. Isn’t this exactly how you imagined Lord Byron would look like, sort of a cross between Mick Jagger and Rudolph Valentino? “Mad, bad and dangerous to know,” indeed.

And judging by the two photographs of Paul and Linda McCartney, even the sturdiest and most loving of marriages has some rough patches. They are not smiling in either photo, much less touching each other or looking affectionate. In one, it’s clear they’ve just had a massive row.

Even the gift shop was interesting. Here is a small collection of books about art theft during the Holocaust:

And Maus, which is a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of art about the Holocaust. You may have heard that it was recently banned from a Tennessee school district.

I bought this book:

I haven’t started it yet, though. I’m engrossed in Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, about Winston Churchill during WWII. I’m a sucker for books about Churchill. The beginning of his political career was such a disaster, but he learned from the experience and became a great leader, all the while never losing his irascibility and eccentricity. I don’t know if you can still do that today. In the 2020s, I’m not sure Churchill would get a second chance after a loss like Gallipoli, and I know for a fact that his secretaries would balk at taking dictation during his (many) baths.