The not bells of St. Giles & The Ashmolian

Bruce left early in Oxford visiting pubs, I went in later in the day to visit Blackwell's Bookstore again. I compiled a list of books I really want to read but really didn't want to lug all over England for the next month. As the sun started to set (at 4:30!) I walked around the center of Oxford looking for a place to get a quick bite before meeting Bruce at St. Giles Church. I don't recall when, but at some point during this visit I had seen a news story about the bell ringers of St. Giles' Church. They only ring the bells on Thursday evenings, Sunday mornings & Sunday evenings. This being a Sunday, it was time to go. I gave up on the food (why does everything have cheese or cream?) and walked toward the church. We had been told by Jonathan that Oxford is "dark city," meaning they don't light the streets at night in order to help wildlife. I'm totally for this, as we humans have impacted wildlife something terrible, encroaching on their territory and then treating them as pests. Lights at night can wreak havoc with nesting, sleeping, etc., so I'll happily walk the eerily dark streets. I found a bar/restaurant next door to the church & had a bar bite there. Bruce arrived just before the bells were to start & we walked outside to listen. Nothing. We waited and waited. Still nothing. After 15 minutes or so we gave up & went home. I was so annoyed I didn't even take a picture of the church.

The next day Bruce was feeling a bit under the weather so decided to stay in. I took the train into Oxford to visit the Ashmolian Museum.

The Ashmolean came into existence in 1682, when the wealthy antiquary Elias Ashmole gifted his collection to the University. It opened as Britain’s first public museum, and the world’s first university museum, in 1683. This helps explain why, like so many museums I've visited in the last couple of months, the collections are very eclectic. The ground floor contains the vast collection of ancient art from Egypt to Greece to China. It also contains items that I surmised were favorites of Elias Ashmole including this portrait of King Charles II, from whom Ashmole received patronage.

There were paintings, ceramics, a cape from the King of the Roanoke people of Virginia, buddhas, shells, armor, shoes - you name it, Ashmole collected it.

Descending to the basement (aka the Lower Ground Floor) there are galleries devoted to textiles, money, reading and writing, and conservation. The special exhibition of Kabuki Kimonos was particularly wonderful.

There was a huge collection of ceramics and porcelain, particularly Worcester porcelain.

There was also quite a large collection of items recovered from archeological digs, including the deserted medieval village of Seacourt, near Oxford.

Wikipedia has a good article about it, in case you're interested.

The first floor contains art from the Middle East, India and Cyprus. This piece is from India, circa 600 AD.

The second floor contains galleries of Western Art as well as art from Japan and China.

My favorite piece was this somewhat bizarre painting by Piero di Cosima called "The Forest Fire."

If you look closely you can see that two of the animals have satyr's heads.

Another odd piece I liked was this by Giovanni Luteri, "A Young Man Holding a Dog and a Cat". How evil does that cat look?!

There was a gigantic portrait of George Drummond by Thomas Gainsborough. I was less impressed by the painting, than by the enormity of it.

There were galleries of English silver and some rather strange jewelry. These rings made me think of Keith Richards.

There is a room of still life paintings

Dutch and Flemish art

and a magnificent collection of string instruments.

The third floor contains art from the 19th through the 21st century. The most amazing gallery was the modern art gallery where, of course, photography was forbidden. I didn't know, till I saw this exhibition, how much I love the work of Stanley Spencer and Pierre Bonnard. I wish I could have shared some of it with you.

I really only scratched the surface of this wonderful museum and hope to get back again some time.

By the time I got the bus to the Bicester North station the sun had set. Luckily, the paths are well lighted and I got to enjoy one last walk home before our departure in the morning.