We do museums

It’s been a week of museums here in Lisboa. On Tuesday, it was the Design Museum, Wednesday, the Gulbenkian (see earlier post). And we visited three more Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They were all brilliant. Lisbon does good museum.

On Friday, we took our first trip out to Belem, the northwest suburb on the river where the presidential palace is located, as well as several other important cultural institutions. Our main objective this day was the National Coach Museum, a fabulous collection of wheeled carriages, ceremonial and every-day, from the 17th through 19th century. It’s not something that would have attracted us normally, but it came highly recommended.

Not how we got to Belem - 18th century ceremonial carriage

To get to Belem, you take the No. 15 tram. For us, it made sense to go to the terminus at Praca de Figueira, about a 15-minute walk down the hill from Graca. When we got to the stop, it was jammed with people. There were other city tram lines that stopped there, and a tourist trolley as well. We were hopeful some of them were getting on other cars. We waited about 20 minutes. Other trams did come, but hardly anyone got on. Rats! It was clear most of these people were going to Belem. And why not? It was a lovely day – sun and cloud, 16°C – and there is a lot to see and do in Belem.

Finally, one of the quaint old yellow trolleys, a No. 15, came clanking up to the stop. Everybody crowded to get on. We thought, we’ll walk before we stand on a cramped, over-crowded trolley car for 25 minutes. But just as we were turning to walk away, one of the brand-new articulated trams came hissing around the corner, also a No. 15, also headed to Belem. We got on it and sat in comfort the whole way. Ha!

Belem, which is just past where the April 25 suspension bridge crosses the Rio Tejo, has obviously seen heavy government investment. There are lovely parks and gardens along the river, a fabulous-looking monument to exploration and navigation at the water’s edge, and the spiffy new Belem Cultural Centre, which includes a major modern art gallery, the Berardo. The 16th century Belem Tower, which the city uses as an icon in its tourist literature, is also here, and the Monastery of Jeronimos (no, not the Apache chief), which is another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Gothic front door of church at St. Jeronimos Monastery

The Coach Museum (3€ each with our seniors discount) used to be housed in an old palace, but was moved quite recently into a modern purpose-built facility. This is sad in a way, but the new building certainly shows off the exhibits well: lots of space, lots of light. Some of the ceremonial carriages used by royals and aristocracy are mind-bogglingly rich and ornate, especially the 18th century examples. They were clearly meant as a nose-thumbing to plebs and middle class burghers. Ha, ha, we have untold wealth, you don’t! And to scare the bejesus out of them.

Who cares what period, or who used them? The Portuguese should have chopped their heads off before it came to this.

I’m not sure how it came about that Lisbon has such a museum, but we have seen other evidence suggesting the Portuguese royals – who were turfed early in the 20th century – were heavily into excess and opulence. These are the same folks after all who built the over-the-top Pena Palace in Sintra, which I wrote about in an earlier post. (Except, hmmm, I haven’t actually posted that one yet, have I? Well, take my word – it’s over the top.) A lot of the carriages on display here were used by Portuguese royals and nobles.

More idiotic excess - off with their heads!

After the Coach Museum, we walked through the parks to the 16th century Monastery and went into the church part. It’s astonishing. I don’t remember ever seeing stone pillars in a nave so ornately carved. Or so high. Just the scale of the place overwhelms. Vasco da Gama’s tomb is here too. (I remember learning about his exploits in Social Studies in primary school. He was just one among several great explorers of the period. Here he is revered, still. The new bridge across the Tejo, for example, was named after him.)

Lion at base of Vasco da Gama's tomb

Inside church of St. Jeronimos Monastery

There is much more on the monastery property, including the National Archaeology Museum. But you have to pay for the rest of it, and we didn’t have enough time to make it worthwhile. We went back to the tram stop, climbed on a modern car and a few minutes later, were whisked home. Or almost home – there was the 20-minute huff-and-puff up the hill.

Karen had read about a little-known museum, the Casa Museu Medeiros e Almeida, which houses the fabulous collections of an early 20th century Portuguese tycoon,  António de Medeiros e Almeida. He made his first money with a successful business importing Morris automobiles from Britain. The museum is housed in the home the family lived in until the early 1970s, just off Avenida da Liberdade. The place is apparently not mentioned in many guidebooks, so hardly anybody knows about it. Reviews at sites such as Trip Advisor rave about it, however. And on Saturday mornings, it’s free. Yeehaw!

  

View of Rossio train station - interesting architecture

We set out fairly early in the day (for us – i.e 11 a.m.) and hiked the 40 minutes or so over to the museum – down to Rossio Square and then up Liberdade. The museum is a delight. It’s nothing like the Gulbenkian, even though both are based on collections of very rich, acquisitive men. Medeiros e Almeida was an odd-ball, eclectic collector. He liked clocks and watches, he liked ladies’ fans, and he liked azulejo (Portuguese glazed tilework). Among other things. There are few art masterworks here, although there is a nice Tiepolo portrait, a Breughel (the Younger) and some George Romney portraits.

Bruegel painting by Bruegel the Younger - not that I'm a Bruegel snob...

I neglected to note the artist or subject, but it's a damn fine portrait - early 19th century by the look of it

The rooms are supposedly left exactly as when the family lived in the house. There is a dining room with the table set for a 1964 dinner party at which Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monnaco were the guests of honour. And there are some “private” rooms that lack the opulence of the public areas and look almost like normal rooms. But if the family really lived in the house the way it is today – well, it would have been like living in a museum, a somewhat clutterd museum.

I think we liked the fan collection best. It’s beautifully presented, in individually lighted drawers. We spent over 30 minutes, pulling out each drawer and marveling at the intricate design and artistry. I find I’m increasingly attracted to objects that have a practical use but are carefully and artfully designed and highly decorated. Playing cards are another example. In the case of the fans, I had no idea they could be so beautiful and superbly designed and manufactured as these.

The clocks and watches, I could take or leave – with the exception of some very ornate table clock-and-candelabra sets sprinkled through the house. The final room, with the man’s collection of top-quality pictorial azulejo panels, a fountain with pond, and marble statuary, is a knock-out. All in all, a couple of hours well and enjoyably spent.

Meissen china clock and cadelabra set (for you, Gail Wreford - click to enlarge and see the detail)

By the time we were finished in the museum, it was getting to be too late to walk home and eat lunch, so we decided to eat out. We walked up into Bairro Alto and found a little place with tables in a narrow cobbled street, a few feet from where cars passed, albeit slowly. The waiter talked Karen into a typically Portuguese stewed dish with various meats, including black sausage, rice and beans – which she said was good, but she wasn’t really crazy about. I had grilled chicken with fries, and we shared a salad and a split of vinho verde. Total cost 35€ with tip – not the best value we’ve had, but not terrible.

We stopped for a couple of grocery items and made it home just in time before the rain came. It poured most of the night. We whiled away the late afternoon/evening with photography, reading, TV. The usual. What will happen next weekend when Shelley comes to town and expects to go out at night? Aaaach!

On Sunday, we set out early again to walk to the National Azulejo Museum, about 30 minutes from here, southeast of Alfama, near the river. Azulejo is a big thing in Portuguese arts and culture. It’s origins are in Moorish culture, and the first techniques used for making it were imported from Spain. But the Portuguese latched on to it and made it their own. Many buildings in Lisbon are fronted from the ground up in brightly-coloured glazed tiles. It’s the signature look of the place. Churches in the 16th through 18th centuries often commissioned azulejo pieces to front their altars. The country is lousy with ceramic tiles, still. It’s not unusual to see pictorial tile panels on the sides of buildings, even modern ones.

Front of Saint Vincent of Fora monastery church, with redbud (for you, Mike Haas)

Our walk took us down from Graca through Alfama by a route we hadn’t gone before, past the mammoth Saint Vincent of Fora monastery and church, and Santa Engracia church, now the Paneão Nacional (the national Pantheon – where lots of notable Portuguese are entombed).

Santa Engracia church, now the National Pantheon

When we got to the river, right at the Santa Apolonia rail station, there was a big Nordic cruise ship parked at the pier in front of us – perhaps on its way from the Antarctic, where the signage on the side said it toured, up to its northern routes, now that the Antipodean winter is on its way. At this point we made a mistake in our route and chose a street that went on the water side of the tracks. We had to follow it for a couple of kilometers, through not very interesting or salubrious areas, some of it beside a motorway and overlooked by the container docks, before we could cut back in to where the museum is.

The museum is free the first Sunday of the month, but it’s just a coincidence we chose to see it today. (Just kidding, of course it’s the reason.) It’s housed in the church of Madre de Dios, which has some prime examples of churchy azulejo panels, along with incredible gilded wood carvings and paintings on every available square inch of wall and ceiling (see pic above).

16th century geometric tile panel based on Moorish motifs

17th century (I think): The Leopard Hunt

Modern piece from 2004

The first museum exhibits explain the various processes for making glazed tiles – kind of interesting. Most of the labels are multi-lingual, so it was easy enough to follow. We found after an hour and a half or so, though, as gorgeous as much of the tilework is, that we were getting a bit of overload. The stuff from early centuries especially tends to look all the same. The gallery of modern azulejo work on the second floor did offer a bit of relief, but we were out of the museum inside two hours.

Mezzanine of courtyard in Madre de Dios Church

We walked home by the most direct route, but it still took over 40 minutes. Within an hour of getting back, it started to rain again, and rained the whole night. Oh, well. We weren’t going anywhere. It was still raining when we got up this morning. Pouring.

A word about the photos. In times past, few museums or galleries allowed patrons to take pictures of exhibits, and never with flash or using a tripod. Now, many do – in Europe, it seems, most do – though still without flash or tripod. I’m grateful. My camera has anti-shake technology and a sensor that can capture clear, sharp images even at high ISO sensitivity settings. It means I can make quite creditable photographic reproductions of artworks and museum artifacts without a tripod.

If I’m careful and not too tired, I can take acceptably sharp pictures handheld at shutter speeds as slow as 1/5th of a second. To non-photographers, that may sound very fast, but it’s not. With the old technology, the rule of thumb was that the slowest shutter speed at which you could take pictures free of motion blur was a fraction of a second equal to one over the focal length (in milimeters) of the lens you were using – so 1/60th of a second for a standard prime lens, faster for longer lenses.

I’m grateful, but I do wonder why museum officials have relaxed their no-photography rules just now, when technology like mine is so readily available. They must forfeit significant income from lost sales of postcards, posters and books because people like me are making their own souvenirs. The only thing I can think is that they’ve given up trying to police bans on photography because so many cameras are so small that people can – and will – take pictures unnoticed by attendants. I’ve seen them do it in galleries where there are signs up all over saying no photography.

As much as I’m now an inveterate museum photographer myself, I am still appalled by people I see walking through a gallery, phone held out in front of them, snapping at random, hardly stopping to look at the things they’re photographing. Why do they do it? Do they pore over those pictures when they get home. It’s possible, I suppose. I do, and often learn things about what I’ve seen, or notice details I hadn’t noticed when viewing the original. But how much can you learn from the kind of blurry, grainy  shots those cameras produce?

18th century Portuguese azulejo panel

I think it’s just an I-was-there impulse. The other thing I see is people taking pictures of themselves or a companion in front of some famous painting in a gallery, or a famous building, or view. Okay, I do that occasionally too, but every shot? The thing itself – the usual reason I take pictures when I travel – is not so important, apparently. It’s just important to show that you were there. Selfie sticks, sold by African and Indian immigrants everywhere tourists go here, have become a plague upon the earth.