Museums

Today we went to the Danish National Gallery.   Not a great collection, but interesting nonetheless.   Name a famous Danish painter....   Well, the truth is Denmark has not produced a famous artist, and it is interesting to contemplate why.   Well, it is a small country, but so is the Netherlands.   They have rooms full of Danish paintings, nothing great, and far too many pictures of nationalistic countryside scenes.   On the other hand, a nice collection of European old masters; none of which we have in Vancouver.  There were some fascinating trompe l'oeil still lives from the 17th century.

We also went to the National Museum, primarily to look at Viking artifacts.  What we encountered in the exhibit, which ranged from 10,000 BC to the Viking Age was quite interesting.  The museum had commissioned contemporary artists to create new works that interacted with the exhibits.   One artist decided to create explanatory captions which mimicked the real captions, while exaggerating or distorting the actual facts, in some case outrageously so.  The captions looked almost exactly like the real ones, and there was no indication anywhere to indicate that the captions were an art work and not what they appeared to be.  Vera and Ada were quite annoyed, because they assumed the captions were true, from having seen the more believable ones, and proceeding from the normal assumption that you should believe what they say.  Once I saw one about amber being created from solar bursts, I started to become suspicious.  When we all realized what was going on, we had to go back and look at the captions again.  A very interesting experience!  Never believe what you read in a museum.

An example, don't know if it is readable.