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4/19/98
SS Lau
Admittedly I like to see movies more than museums, although a causa visitor of some
of the major museums in some of the major cities around the world. By chance I had the
opportunity to see the new J. Paul Getty museum in Los
Angles the other day. L.A.is arguably a major city on earth, and the new Getty museum has
not been recognized as a major museums by any standard at this point. It does enjoy a lot
of publicity, and the LA Time had a feature article on it not too long ago when it was due
to open. I would like to mention four things I learned at this museum, on the other hand I
cannot comment on the art or anything along that line.
The Getty museum is located in Westwood, not too far from UCLA. It is situated on the
hill, and commands a rather breath taking view on a clear day. Most of the museums I have
seen are old and stylish, this one is modern and rich. The wealth can be seen by the live
3-piece jazz band entertaining the visitors while they are waiting to get on the tram to
go up the hill from the parking lot.
The museum is relatively small, and can be seen in more or less its entirety during an
one-day visit. It is housed in several buildings, reportedly costing something like 1.5
billion ( 1.5E9) dollars to build and "equip". The garden is kind of neat.
On with what I learned there:
(1) The art of Daguerreotype---This is something I have not seen before; it is the first
photographic process while the photos were taken on a silver-coated copper plate. Invented
by a Frenchman by the name of Dageurre (hence Daguerreotype) in the 1830s and imported to
the US in 1839, it became a very popular way to take and make portrays. At one time some 3
millions of these things were made in one year. I looked at these photograghs on highly
polished silver plates for a long time, they have a magical quality to it that the modern
photograghs do not seem to have. One can also add color to them by using gold chloride
solutions and other chemicals.The light sensitive material on the plates was AgI, and not
AgNO3, the stuff we played with in our chemistry class in Pui-Ching. To develop the plate,
one used Hg vapor, I bet it was not too healthy for these lab guys and may have killed one
of two of them. They are really
something to behold, and I would love to have a plate or two for careful observation up
close.
(2)They showed one Raman marble sculpture made around 100 AD side by side
with a stone Indian sculpture (the India in Asia) also made around 100 AD. The two
sculptures bear many similarities in the hand gestures and other haracteristics. The
point is that due to the Silk Road ( remember the article written by Larwerence Wong on
his Silk Road trip ?) that there have been many cross-influencings between different
cultures, seemingly many thousands of miles apart in distance.I was impressed with the
educational value of this exhibition.
(3) They showed a step-by-step process of how a bronze bust( or figure) was made,
completely equipped with detailed demonstrations of the real thing. It takes you through
the entire process, and for the first time I know how it was made. One staff member
noticed that I was studying the process with great intensity and came over to explain with
even greater details. I must say the bronze (copper/tin alloys, brass is copper/zinc
alloys which came later in "smelting" technology) sculptors know a lot of
materials science and technology to make the casting work.
(4) they also have a big screening room showing a computer-simulated tour of a big
structure built in the Roman time. That was quite interesting.
Of course, there was the "Iris" by Van Gough, hanging on the wall some place,
acquired by the museum for something like 20 million dollars. I cannot comment on that.
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