naturhistorisches museum wien

I could have easily spent every hour of every day of my trip to Vienna sketching in the Naturhistorisches Museum. Oh what a marvellous place! If you need photographic proof of its wondrousness, click here.

...and here come the sketches!

here comes the food

Living in a relatively pork-free country makes one do funny things when travelling abroad. You find yourself sniffing out bacon like a bloodhound and salivating salaciously over sausages. In Vienna, where sausages lurk in stands around every fourth corner, I was pulled like a helpless puppet toward the scent of smoky pork and grease. I somehow ended up ordering myself a tasty beer and a snack in excellent German to a woman with a grill of wursts (apparently my languages resurrect themselves under the hypnotic groans of my belly), and sat down at a picnic table in front of a church to dine. At the end of my table sat an old sailor of a man with a fantastic nose, and a younger fellow with wild, cavernous eyes and tattooed fingers. We briefly glared at each other, then went about the business of devouring our wursts. That hot kiss of mustard... the grainy bread... the beer... It seemed a sin to be so fiercely enjoying myself in front of a church.

But let's travel to Bratislava, where I was confronted by a delicious delight— pickled herring with gherkins and onions, served in a jar. I haven't the foggiest what this wondrousness is called, but oh my goodness... sit me in front of a pickled herring, and I'll be the happiest girl on the planet. My Danish roots come joyously springing out through my tastebuds, and I'm instantly grinning from ear to ear, drumming my feet.

After such an immense pleasure, I decided to indulge in a more traditional fare which frankly was, a bit too much for me. I introduce you to Bryndzové Halušky, dainty little potato dumplings swimming in a sheep cheese. I love potato dumplings and I love sheep cheese, so in theory, I should have been as happy as a clam— but this was overkill. Had the serving been a fourth of the size of what was set down in front of me, I think my stomach would not have protested. I'm just not built to handle that much lactose.



Apparently my stomach forgave me somewhere over the Austrian border, because later that same night, I wandered into the Viennese tavern Zu den 2 Lieserln, on Burgasse. Greeted by a dense cloud of cigarette smoke and an ornery, moustachioed older gentleman, I peeked at the dated wood panelling and omnipresence of green, and sensed I was in for something tasty. Sometimes you just know. What I couldn't predict however, was the mastadonic proportions of the tavern's famed wienerschnitzel— which forced an "Oh mein Gott!" from my lips, and a slight chuckle from the man.

The pounded and breaded pork was roughly the size of my head, if it had been flattened. And because I was still under the pork-craze, I got my schnitzel stuffed with ham— oh, and peppers. The crispness of the breading was a wonderful contrast to the tender meat, and the sour, pickled peppers seemed to cut the well, for lack of a better word, porkiness. I took my time, even pausing to sketch my dinner plate, and did my very best to make it through as much of the schnitzel as possible. When I got to that elusive point just before being full, I put the fork and knife aside, and glanced up at the white moustache in the corner. He knew. He was ready with a container for me to carry the rest of my dinner home.

"I really thought I was going to do it!" I grinned.
A short laugh, and a shake of a head was his reponse.

auf wiedersehen, wien!

oh the many marvellous things

What a delight to find this sketch of a future exhibit taped up in a vitrine!
Reminds me of someone...

hello, venus

The auditorium was dark, and the white-headed professor was droning on and on about something my sleep deprived brain struggled to retain. I hung my head back to stare at the ceiling, trying to recall the bizarre dream I started to have last night, when my thought, like the dream, was interrupted. The slide had clicked to reveal a wonderfully rounded form— the very definition of round. A woman, head bowed, with enormous, pendulous breasts resting on a pillow of belly and hip. I was mesmerised.

The Venus of Willendorf.

I was obsessed. I drew her thighs and rolls in the corners of my art history and philosophy papers. I memorised her curves. This 25,000 year old Paleolithic statuette enchanted me. I daydreamed of the moment she was discovered in the earth, of her voluptuous little body being carved by ancient hands and gazed upon by ancient eyes... and I dreamt of tracing the shapes of her shadows with my own eyes.

Fifteen years later, I found myself standing before her, breath stilled in my body.
I pulled out my sketchbook and pen, and drew by the light which bounced off her breasts.



I am so lucky, indeed.

oh my thunderous heart!

Why on earth I did not spend every single day wandering through the ornate halls of Vienna's Naturhistorisches Museum is beyond me. It stands alongside The de Young in San Francisco, the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, and the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen, as one of my favourite museums. Oh wait— there is the Van Gogh Museum and...

But let's get back to Vienna. My goodness... this gem has everything a girl could want in a museum! Light! Elegant, gilded moulding! Fossils! Meteorites! Dinosaurs!



And then, there was the bird room...



Just look at all those corvids!



Can you believe such beings exist? I spent over two and a half hours sketching and gawking wide-eyed at everything within my sight. I was in love with the birds— to see elegant, feathered creatures I've only dreamed of (though stuffed), was such a thrill— to be able now, to better understand their size, colour and shapes...

But there was one thing— one little thing, which made my heart roar with excitement...
She deserves a post of her own.

der zustand liebe

what can you do with an hour?

Why, you can take a train to Slovakia and begin to explore its marvellous capital, Bratislava!

flesh into stone

Muscles, flesh, and ribs, conquering heroes and goddesses...
One imagines their chests expand with inhalations at night.

anatomicalesque

Down in the belly of the Leopold Museum in Vienna, I discovered an artist I had never heard of— Hermann Nitsch. Nitsch is an Austrian artist best known for his controversial and often gorey multimedia and performance pieces, which explore ritual, religion and violence. Playing on screens in the gallery space, these bloody pieces were quite compelling (and a little nauseating), but what really caught my attention were his enormous, layered, anatomical drawings, which reminded me of the Lubos Plny exhibit I came across last year in Istanbul, with the layers of organs, lines and red. As you know, I go weak in the knees for a beautiful line, and my heart flutters for anatomical drawings and sculpture (once upon a time, I nearly entered the world of science and medicine), so Hermann Nitsch really spoke to me.



Just look at those layers of lines!

an untold story

I seem to have misplaced the envelope upon which I scrawled the artists' names... I remember it was in brown ink (the last image is Sleepless, by Paul Nestlang). Unimpressed by much of the work in The Excitement Continues exhibit at the Leopold Museum, these beautiful three really stood out and grabbed me— and don't you think they tell a story when placed together like this?