One of the pleasures of returning to work at the museum last week (and there have to be pleasures in returning to work otherwise we’ll all go crazy) was to be surrounded again by its many treasures: pictures, sculptures, textiles shimmering with gold and silver thread, ceramics of miraculous delicacy. It is a daily treat to be immersed in a world of such beauty.
There’s an amazing exhibition at the Ashmolean at the moment, of the drawings of the Italian renaissance artist (and Ninja Turtle) Raphael. They are miraculous expressions of the creative imagination and the controlled hand – exquisite explorations of form, style and composition, sensitive to every nuance of texture, alive to every subtle turn of the body, capable of conveying the most profound emotion whether he was preparing to make a painting or simply mulling over the complex fall and twist of a piece of fabric. If you find yourself in reach of Oxford, go see them.
Museums are popular places because we are fascinated by art. But I reckon that the truly wonderful thing about them is the light they shine not on the products of human ingenuity but on the ingenious humans who made them. Raphael’s drawings are compelling because they give us some insight into Raphael’s person.
The writers of the bible knew this and when they tried to express the wonder of the world by weaving stories of its making, it wasn’t the buildings, the statues and the gleaming metalwork they celebrated as the culmination of divine creativity but the miracle of humanity, made in the image and likeness of God him and herself.
And there’s a reason why Christians (and Jews, and Muslims and members of almost every other faith) believe that the human person in all its astounding variety of shape, size, colour, gender, talent, is the most creative thing in all creation. It’s because we are. You are.
Which brings me back to the Ashmolean, and the realization that chief among the pleasures of returning to work is not the tiny, ancient, Chinese celadon porcelain bowl I covet, nor even the transcendent Raphael exhibition, but the people, my colleagues, the most creative things in the whole Museum; interpreting the collections, caring for them, researching them, teaching about them, sharing them, helping visitors enjoy them. They truly are a miracle.
The Ashmolean’s exhibition, Raphael: the drawings, conceived and curated by Professor Catherine Whistler, Keeper of Western Art, really was amazing. The teachers’ notes are still available and well worth a look.
The image is a detail from Raphael’s red chalk study for a combat of five men, made c.1508-10, Ashmolean Museum.