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Morse Museum
Aug. 4th, 2013 04:10 pmFriday J.S. and I headed over to Winter Park to see the Morse Museum.
It was the second time I'd been there, and I have to say, I liked it even more the second time. The Morse Museum features the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, which mostly means stained glass, along with some pieces from other artists more or less associated with the late 19th and early 20th century, and two doors from medieval India which are just kinda there but also kinda cool. It's smallish – the entire museum can easily be seen in a couple of hours, maybe a little more or a little less depending on whether or not you decide to watch the introductory videos and how long you spend watching the light flood through the stained glass.
Alas, some of this glass, for preservation purposes, is displayed with a steady electric light that shows the glowing colors of the glass, and not the interplay of changing light with the glass. And, I'll be honest, I don't like a lot of Tiffany stuff – specifically, I'm not a big fan of most of the Tiffany lamps. I love dragonflies when they are flying around outside and sparkling under the sun, but I'm considerably less fond of dragonflies hovering over me when I'm trying to read. It bugs me.
Er, sorry.
Despite the smallness of the museum, we did have to interrupt the tour for emergency sandwiches and chocolate. I think you can all understand. Especially since the supposed motto of the museum is that beauty is an essential part of life, something we must all create and enjoy, and well, I may not have created the chocolate fudge cookie with white chocolate icing and I may not have allowed anyone to contemplate its beauty for very long, but I did enjoy it. That's the important part. Then we headed back for more light and glass, and the part of the museum designed to let light shift and dance through glass, an excellent way to follow up the magic of chocolate.
One other thing we both noticed: the museum is understandably set up for adults. I say understandably because we were the youngest people there by far, though I suspect the museum gets school groups at other times of the year. (Especially since it's across the street from a private school.) It has very few of the velvet ropes that generally separate visitors from art, although a few areas are set up to beep at you if you point at objects and while pointing happen to put your hand over an invisible line. Anyway. This means that the lighting and displays for the smaller pieces are set up on the assumption that they will be viewed only from above.
Which means if, like me, you're in a wheelchair, you get a very different view of many objects – in some cases seeing light bulbs otherwise not meant to be seen, in some cases not getting to see inside some of the glass and ceramic bowls, which in a few cases meant not seeing a different shimmer of colors. In other cases, this meant seeing small details – including different shimmering colors – not visible from above. J had me stand a few times, carefully enough, and I had her kneel sometimes, equally carefully. Sometimes the angle really does change things, especially when looking at magic and light.
It was the second time I'd been there, and I have to say, I liked it even more the second time. The Morse Museum features the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, which mostly means stained glass, along with some pieces from other artists more or less associated with the late 19th and early 20th century, and two doors from medieval India which are just kinda there but also kinda cool. It's smallish – the entire museum can easily be seen in a couple of hours, maybe a little more or a little less depending on whether or not you decide to watch the introductory videos and how long you spend watching the light flood through the stained glass.
Alas, some of this glass, for preservation purposes, is displayed with a steady electric light that shows the glowing colors of the glass, and not the interplay of changing light with the glass. And, I'll be honest, I don't like a lot of Tiffany stuff – specifically, I'm not a big fan of most of the Tiffany lamps. I love dragonflies when they are flying around outside and sparkling under the sun, but I'm considerably less fond of dragonflies hovering over me when I'm trying to read. It bugs me.
Er, sorry.
Despite the smallness of the museum, we did have to interrupt the tour for emergency sandwiches and chocolate. I think you can all understand. Especially since the supposed motto of the museum is that beauty is an essential part of life, something we must all create and enjoy, and well, I may not have created the chocolate fudge cookie with white chocolate icing and I may not have allowed anyone to contemplate its beauty for very long, but I did enjoy it. That's the important part. Then we headed back for more light and glass, and the part of the museum designed to let light shift and dance through glass, an excellent way to follow up the magic of chocolate.
One other thing we both noticed: the museum is understandably set up for adults. I say understandably because we were the youngest people there by far, though I suspect the museum gets school groups at other times of the year. (Especially since it's across the street from a private school.) It has very few of the velvet ropes that generally separate visitors from art, although a few areas are set up to beep at you if you point at objects and while pointing happen to put your hand over an invisible line. Anyway. This means that the lighting and displays for the smaller pieces are set up on the assumption that they will be viewed only from above.
Which means if, like me, you're in a wheelchair, you get a very different view of many objects – in some cases seeing light bulbs otherwise not meant to be seen, in some cases not getting to see inside some of the glass and ceramic bowls, which in a few cases meant not seeing a different shimmer of colors. In other cases, this meant seeing small details – including different shimmering colors – not visible from above. J had me stand a few times, carefully enough, and I had her kneel sometimes, equally carefully. Sometimes the angle really does change things, especially when looking at magic and light.