These first few days have been wild. We went punting (basically, you're in a flat-bottomed boat with a large pole that you stick in the mud and use to push yourself forward - it requires a lot of arm muscles that I simply do not have) as a group, which was a blast! We also went to the Ashmolean Museum, which had tons of art and cool artifacts and old things. There was an entire room of textiles, so naturally, I spent most of my time there.
There was a whole section on ridiculously old textile fragments, including a piece of mummy cloth, a "Handscroll bearing the imperial edict of 1752 appointing the governor of Chengdu, in Chinese and Manchu", an old Adam and Eve book cover, some medieval islamic embroideries, Indian block-printed textiles, and antique darnings. The textiles were all interesting and beautiful in their own ways, but I was quite shocked by how old some of these fabrics were, and how remarkably well-preserved they were. The mummy cloth was estimated to be from 700 BC!! I can hardly wrap my mind around the fact that it, and I, are existing at the same time right now.
There were a lot of artifacts from China, including tiny little garments that children would have worn. Those were particularly striking because despite their small size, they were just as elaborate and decadent as the full size versions. Evidently, some of the garments were meant for imperial children, so it makes sense that they would have to be fancy.
The coolest textile I saw was a garment worn by Pocahontas's father. With the Disney movie
and everything, sometimes I forget that she was a real person, with a real father, who did those daring things, so seeing this evidence of her life was not only grounding, but incredibly exciting. It was a very intricate item as well. The figures were made out of pukka shells sewn directly onto the leather. That would have taken hours, especially considering how difficult leather is to work with, and the limited tools people would have had to work with back then, at least compared to all the advanced technology we have at our disposal now.
There were some unusual textile items as well, that were in other parts of the museum. There were tapestries, like the one I took a picture of (which depicts a music party, dated from the 17th century), Chinese dress robes from different dynasties, a fabric box, and a really cool suit of armor made of woven materials. The mannequin looked like a skeleton at the particular vantage point I was occupying, when I first saw it, so I was kind of disappointed to discover he was, in fact, plastic. But his outfit was still cool.
One of the rooms in the museum that I wandered into had paintings by incredibly famous artists, just nonchalantly hung on the wall. They were not touted about at all, and most people just walked right past them. The picture on left is a Monet (even though it does not
look like most of his famous paintings), and the six or so people ahead of me walked right past it without hardly glancing at it. I would have too, if the friend I was with had not been quite so observant - she was the first to spy Monet's name. I do not particularly like this painting, but I like that it was unobtrusively hung in a corner, going unnoticed by the vast majority of people in that museum, considering how famous Monet it.
My study abroad group has started to split off into smaller groups and go on individual adventures. Just yesterday afternoon, a few friends and I went to a popup market, which
had both produce and items that do not have an expiration date. I was surprised to see an entire booth of fabric! I didn't buy any yet, but I'm sure I'll be back since this market happens every Wednesday.
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