Oxford Visit - Including; The Pitt Rivers Museum, The Oxford University of Natural History and The Ashmolean Museum

On Thursday 29th September, I visited Oxford with the rest of my art class to observe all of the different pieces of art in a variety of different museums. Whilst looking at the art/artefacts, we were given the task of thinking about the different types of textures, colours and/or patterns on the objects. From that, we had to think about how it or the trip as a whole could help us with the future development of the task, 'Who am I?'.

The first Museum that I visited was the Oxford University of Natural History. The majority of objects that were presented in this museum were stuffed animals, skeletons of extinct animals and the kind of rocks that have been unearthed from the ground. Here are a few examples of the types of art that were exhibited:

 This is a stuffed bird that has been preserved for years. When I saw it, at first I thought that it wasn't nice at all as it used to be a living thing, however I looked past that and focused on the textures of the feathers. Each feather was fairly rough and each had its own size and shape. Also, I noticed that the colours on this bird were all earthy tones (for example, different shades of brown). I noticed that the feet on the bird were very thin however, it was clear that by the stance of the bird, they were very strong.

 This is a life size black bear that was about 4 1/2 foot tall. After touching the fur of this bear, I got the idea that the fur was very soft despite the fact that in some places, the fur looks a little rough. The problem with the colour of this bear is that it is all black, so if I was going to draw it, I would not be able to demonstrate my ability to show tone.

Additionally, this skeleton remains was of a t-rex and was the biggest artefact on show at this museum. The bones appeared quite rough as I imagine they have been worn away by rock movement when it was in the ground. Due to the fact that the scale of this skeleton is so big, if I was going to draw it, I would choose a specific feature on it and focus on that. The tone was only good on this because of the light that was above it. There was a variety of greys on the skeleton which is why it would be useful to either use charcoal or graphite when drawing it.




After having around an hour in this museum, we then went across to the Pitt Rivers Museum and took a look at all of the ancestral artefacts. My favourite aspects in this area was the aboriginal artworks. Here are a few images of some of the artefacts that were displayed:

This is the clothing that some of the warriors wore centuries ago in the aboriginal culture. The texture of this clothing/armour is very rough and close together whilst the pattern on it is very specific. The colours are earthy colours once again, for example: browns, yellows and other pale colours. This is because in these times, they were the only kinds of colours that could be used when making clothing and armour. This is similar to the aboriginal art that was produced back then.

This picture contains the kind of art that women used to produce in this specific era. Although it is very basic, it captivated me and made me want to know more about why these colours, patterns and shapes were used. Very earthy colours were used because the only things that they could use for paints were different types of mud. I like how they only used dots to create their paintings, yet they could still result in captivating and interesting pieces of art.

This is an axe that the huntsmen used to use when trying to catch their own food. The textures on the metal were very smooth, however the textures on the wood handle were actually quite rough. If this was going to be drawn, I would maybe use pencil or even oil pastel. I could use oil pastel for the wood as I can use the edge of something to scratch in the rough textures.




Finally, we then went to the Ashmolean Museum which contained a lot more paintings in comparison to the other two museums. The following picture contains the painting that I like the best:

This painting is one of my favourites in the whole museum. I really like how the artist managed to capture the realism of the horses and people, without having to provide it with a lot of detail. I really like how it is similar to a cartoon piece of work, as despite the fact that it is very simplistic, I understand the painting as a whole.





Overall, the trip has allowed me to get a better idea of how to describe a piece of artwork and how to better appreciate a certain piece. After having viewed all of the ancient pieces and artefacts, I believe that when it comes to developing my work, I may go into the whole idea of how I think it is wrong to hunt and kill animals or I may go down the route of how barbaric taxidermy is and how it affects the ecosystem and the existence of specific species.