History is life
My student card expires today. Ever since I got back in Bergen I've been making the most of the various discount goodies that won't be available to me from tomorrow on.
I saved the best for last though. One final free stroll through the Museum of Cultural History.
It's not like I'm saying goodbye or anything, but the fact that I've been able to use that museum for free for three years have meant a lot to me. Days when I've been down in the dumps and still forced myself to go to that museum ("Hey, it's free") and have had the opportunity to appreciate all those beautiful, breathtaking artifacts, and forgotten all about my own worries. You remember I did a short pic spam of some of my favourite items in that museum, I still love them dearly.
I sat down and stared at the St. Botolph frontal for a long time. Lord knows how many hours I've spent studying it but I'm always shocked at the vivid colours, that bright red blood, the fine details. You can see every brush stroke some artist did over six hundred years ago. That, to me, is pure magic.
I looked at the museum's large collection of stave church portals. The craft that went into them, that beauty, and seeing the runes some person carved into the side just coming out of the Viking Age... It actually choked me up. Like it has done before. That's what history means to me.
I was terribly disappointed when I discovered that one of my favourite frontals, one depicting Heraclius bringing the True Cross from Constantinople to Jerusalem, was temporarily gone from the exhibition. Well darn. Thankfully I don't think this has been my last visit to that museum though, so I'll hopefully get to see it again.
(The one thing that still annoyes the hell out of me is how severely underlit all the exhibitions are. I don't get it. These are beautiful works of art, placing them in dark rooms with a single tiny spotlight shining down on them makes the details hard to work out. I WANT TO SEE THESE THINGS, I don't need some high-contrast mood lighting to appreciate them. Jesus.)
I saved the best for last though. One final free stroll through the Museum of Cultural History.
It's not like I'm saying goodbye or anything, but the fact that I've been able to use that museum for free for three years have meant a lot to me. Days when I've been down in the dumps and still forced myself to go to that museum ("Hey, it's free") and have had the opportunity to appreciate all those beautiful, breathtaking artifacts, and forgotten all about my own worries. You remember I did a short pic spam of some of my favourite items in that museum, I still love them dearly.
I sat down and stared at the St. Botolph frontal for a long time. Lord knows how many hours I've spent studying it but I'm always shocked at the vivid colours, that bright red blood, the fine details. You can see every brush stroke some artist did over six hundred years ago. That, to me, is pure magic.
I looked at the museum's large collection of stave church portals. The craft that went into them, that beauty, and seeing the runes some person carved into the side just coming out of the Viking Age... It actually choked me up. Like it has done before. That's what history means to me.
I was terribly disappointed when I discovered that one of my favourite frontals, one depicting Heraclius bringing the True Cross from Constantinople to Jerusalem, was temporarily gone from the exhibition. Well darn. Thankfully I don't think this has been my last visit to that museum though, so I'll hopefully get to see it again.
(The one thing that still annoyes the hell out of me is how severely underlit all the exhibitions are. I don't get it. These are beautiful works of art, placing them in dark rooms with a single tiny spotlight shining down on them makes the details hard to work out. I WANT TO SEE THESE THINGS, I don't need some high-contrast mood lighting to appreciate them. Jesus.)