If I ever get to own a
museum, it'll be a Miniature Museum. Because then if I have to move
location, I'll only need a shoebox to put all my displays in!
In France, every autumn,
the government allocates one Sunday to the public as a FREE visit
day into any museum in the country. And I was fortunate to be able
to visit 3 museums on that day:
- Musee de la Miniature
(Miniature Museum) - where almost everything was displayed under
a microscope.
- Egg Museum - which featured anything and everything that had to
do with an egg.
- Chateau de Grignan (Grignan Castle) - 12th-17th century - which
was enlightening, and featured a ballroom big enough to build 6
small houses in.
But my favourite was the
Miniature Museum.
One display after another
featured amazing skills and artistry, as the displayed item hid its
identity until you viewed it through its personal microscope. Some
pieces were extremely small replicas of common artworks such as oil
paintings, portraits and sculptures. But it was the clever and witty
ones that intrigued me most of all.
Flea With Golden Slippers
- a flee (quite dead) had been shod with 2 pure gold shoes. There
was no mention as to whether the flea was already dead before being
shod, or whether it died as a consequence of the shodding.
Camel Through The Eye
of a Needle - This display settled the argument for me, once and
for all. Because there in front of my eyes, were not one, but 12
camels (made of metal) standing inside the eye of a fairly standard
sized needle.
Elephants on a Grain of
Rice - Seven finely detailed elephants were engraved into the wall
of a solitary grain of rice … with room for at least 2 more!
Bulls on Gnat Antenna
- Two metal bulls were standing on a single gnat antenna.
Crucifix on a Human Hair
- A metal crucifix was fixed to a strand of human hair, with no
part of the crucifix exceeding the width of the hair.
Noah's Ark - This was
my favourite display, even though a microscope wasn't necessary.
Beautifully arranged in a glass-cased representation of Noah's Ark,
were hundreds of animals … made from origami! (the ancient Japanese
art of paper folding). Finely detailed pieces measuring mostly 5-10mm
(¼-½ inch) in size, were easily identified as: kangaroos, elephants,
giraffes, camels, cheetahs, pandas, bears, hippos, rhinos, sheep,
pigs, cows, chickens, geese, cranes, ostriches, armadillos, snakes,
birds in flight, birds roosting in trees, and many other animals
that now elude my memory. And they were all made relatively proportional,
so while the giraffes were the biggest at 15mm (3/4 inch), the chickens
were the smallest at 5mm (¼ inch) in size.
I can only imagine that
an origami book exists with all these animals featured in it. So if
anyone comes across it, I'd definitely be interested. As I don't have
a TV at home, I'm sure it would give me many hours of pleasure (or
frustration) as I try to create something out of paper vaguely resembling
the drawings in the book. Obviously I'll be doing this in the recommended
sizes (usually several inches long), because I don't think I've got
the skills, or the patience, necessary to make the miniatures………
