Visual Communication - Bowes Museum Trip:

Bowes Museum:

On Wednesday 17th September, I went on a trip with Uni to the Bowes Museum to look at why it was built and to find something that caught our eye and gave us inspiration.

If you've never been to it before, when you first get there you may think at first that it was once a large country estate house (well that's what I thought it was anyway). It was built as a museum by John Bowes for his wife Josephine Benoite, sadly they both died before it was finished.

The dress that Josephine is wearing in this painting was re-created piece by piece and is an exact replica. It was made recreated by historical costumier Luca Costigliolo.

The Silver Swan:

The one thing that really caught my eye, which was one of the main features in the museum, was The Silver Swan.

I found out that its difficult to say who made and why it was made. Its an automation - a machine that imitates the movement of a living creature. No-one knows for sure why it was made and most of the objects were originally made to be sold in the far east. It has undergone several changes to its presentation. It now stands in a glass cabinet yet the canopy that it was originally placed on no longer exists, leaves were added to the feature instead. The swan got switched on to show the movement of it and one thing I and other people noticed is that it ate a fish and swans don't eat fish. My reference for the notes and information I wrote down were from an interactive video with a touch-screen that you could flick through to find out more information on the Silver Swan. It came to the museum in 1878 when John Bowes heard about the Swan in Paris. The Swan moved from location to location within the museum.

Whilst there I took some pictures of the architectural pieces within the museum. This picture of the main staircase leading up to the second and third floor, taken from looking down from the third floor, is a perfect example of perspective drawing.

The detailing on the stairs are really pretty aswell because they are so decorative.

Another piece of work that really interested me was the giant dolls house that was in the room to the right of the main staircase next to the David Hockey exhibition. This shows an absolutely perfect example of small scale structure buildings. I love dolls houses and think they're really interesting, hence why I took some pics up-close. For example, the third image of two floors with doors gives a really close-up image of the detail in the floor and wall of the bottom floor.