The Trundholm Chariot of the Sun - c. 1500 BC -dating back to the time of the Trojan War and discovered in a Danish peat bog in 1902
(picture reproduced courtesy of the Royal Academy)
If you have the chance, go to the Royal Academy in London to see the Bronze exhibition, which recently opened, and which I went to while in London last week. It brings together a vast range of objects made from bronze, spanning a period of almost four thousand years. Some critics have objected to its lack of homogeneity, but if you treat it as an assemblage of some of the most beautiful works of art in the world I personally feel that's enough to be going on with.
Curiously, I had never reflected on the ingenuity that had led people to discover bronze in the first place - after all, it isn't obvious that you should combine copper with tin or zinc. Someone was very clever to discover that. And then to learn that, fifteen hundred years before what is now referred to as "the Common Era" (BC to you and me) trade routes were so developed that bronze was marketed far and wide throughout the world - well, I'm gobsmacked.
As for the works themselves - stunning is an understatement. Many are familiar - Rodin's "Age of Bronze", for example - but many have remained underground until recently - such as the dancing satyr, illustrated below, which forms a showstopping entrance piece. Also very beautiful were the African bronzes loaned by the Museum of Lagos.
If I have a criticism at all, it relates to the sheer scale of the show. I found that I was flagging half-way through. To see it properly requires at least two, and probably three, visits. So book now!
Antony Mair
Dancing Satyr - netted by fishermen in 1998 from the sea bed off Sicily
(again, picture reproduced courtesy of the Royal Academy)
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