Day 137: Danish Museums

I spent most of my day between two fairly extensive museums. In the morning I went to the Thorvaldsen Museum. Bertel Thorvaldsen was a sculptor who was born in Denmark in 1770, but spent most of his career in Rome. I wasn't familiar with the name before, but I have seen a handful of his sculptures in my travels: the Dying Lion sculpture in Lucerne, and the tomb of Pope Pius VII in St. Peter's Basilica, and possibly others. He was one of the most famous sculptors of his time - as the video on him at the museum points out, he is the only non-Italian artist with work in St. Peter's, plus he was a protestant, so for the Vatican to commission him is a pretty good suggestion of his reputation. What's really fascinating about this museum is that it was constructed in his life time. He kept all the initial plaster sculptures that were used as guides for the final marble versions, but also his smaller rough clay studies and sketches, so you can really see each step of the design process. In addition to all his art, the museum also contains Thorvaldsen's grave in the courtyard and has many of his own personal collections of art, including plaster castes he had collected of other famous sculptures and parts to aid his own studies.

After lunch I went to the nearby National Museum, which is pretty huge. It has pretty extensive collections from all of Danish history, but also from other places - especially of indigenous peoples. I found all the Norse stuff especially interesting, since it's something I don't know as much about and everything I do know is from an outside perspective.

There was a trick to this museum though - which confused the hell out of me at the time, but which I now find extremely amusing. In addition to the normal collections, the museum was also displaying a mix of contemporary art embedded in with the normal stuff. Sometimes these were obviously pieces of art, but others were displayed just like the actual historical stuff.

Yes, that's the skeleton of a mermaid. It was in the room with all the preserved "bog bodies" found preserved in the peat bogs of the country. I did a bit of a double take when I saw it, and my initial response was to assume the information plaque thing would describe it as some bog hoax, but it presents it in a pretty serious fashion, and the plaque is identical to all the others in the museum. I suppose it's a comment on critically questioning things presented to you, but I suspect it wouldn't go over quite so well in North America.

I also spontaneously stopped by a fitness fair going on in town and picked up a new pair of shoes. They are pretty specialized, but a type I've considered before and that got a very big plug from an ex-military climber from New Zealand, so I figure that's a pretty good recommendation. It turns out that walking thousands of kilometers wears shoes out pretty quickly, and once I get to Asia I'll pick up some cheaper running shoes for city walking and leave these ones more for hiking.