While the museum’s main entrance on Great Russell Street is pretty impressive to look at, it can also attract some equally impressive queues. To cut down the wait time, try the rear entrance on Montague Place. Thankfully, most visitors seem to have no idea that it exists (or perhaps they just really love queuing).
Either way, this ‘back door’ is usually a safe bet for a much smoother entry – giving you more time to peruse the museum’s incredible collection!
While it might be a bit of a cliché, it’s also an inescapable fact: London has some pretty terrible weather. So, on those rare days that the sun decides to make an appearance, most normal people want to make the most of it, not spend the day indoors.
Which is great for us. While everyone else is outside getting some vitamin D, we can enjoy a less crowded, less hectic British Museum. Sure, this might seem just a little bit wrong – but to get a better look at the likes of the Rosetta Stone and the Sutton Hoo Helmet, it’s more than worth it!
(And whatever you do, just try not to go on a rainy day – because then things really can get messy).
The British Museum is a vast site – but few visitors venture beyond a few core exhibits. Their loss is our gain: from the Holy Thorn Reliquary to the Mold Gold Cape, the museum’s less popular galleries are still packed full of priceless historical treasures – and you won’t have to elbow anyone out of the way to see them!
In a collection as big as the British Museum, you’re never going to be able to see everything – but MuseMuse can help you make the absolute best of your visit. With our custom itineraries and bite-sized guides to the essential exhibits, you can cut out the aimless wandering and glide through the place like a pro.
Right then, you’re all set for a spiffing day out at the British Museum – we hope that our top tips will add that extra bit of sparkle to your visit! Just don’t telltoomany people about that back entrance, eh?
There’s no nice way to put it: in medieval art, babies were pretty damn ugly.
But why?
It’s not because artists hadn’t worked out how to paint them properly – in fact, this was a deliberate stylistic choice… In medieval artwork, one baby popped up a whole lot more than the others: Jesus Christ.
There was a popular notion that Jesus was born “perfectly formed” and remained “unchanged” over time; this led to artists depicting him as a sort of weird little old man – and influenced portrayals of other babies too!
This all changed with the dawn of the Renaissance, and a new emphasis on realism in art.
Plus, as artists began to embrace non-religious subjects, wealthy patrons could commission portraits of their own families – and they didn’t want their own children looking like little old men!
So, ugly babies were out and cute babies were in. Way less disturbing, but nowhere near as fun…
¡Ay, caramba! In art restoration, good intentions don't always lead to good results.
A local tobacco shopkeeper took it upon herself to add some flair to the trio of 15th-century wooden sculptures using industrial enamel paint.
“I’m not a professional painter” Maria Luisa Menendez
The sculptures had been professionally restored just 15 years before but the parish priest apparently had given his blessing to the amateur.
This 500-year-old sculpture of Saint George was turned into a cartoon character after the church hired a local teacher for the job.
Re-restoring it cost $37,000! The church paid for the re-restoration to “somewhat” its original appearance.
Spanish amateur restoration’s latest victim...
In 2020, an art collector paid $1,200 for a furniture restorer to clean up his copy of The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial.
He Made 2 Attempts. But the restorer only took it from worse to worser.
Initially suspected as vandalism, the alterations were instead the creation of an 81-year-old parishioner.
“They didn’t let me finish” - Cecilia Giménez
Remarkably, this restoration turned into a notorious attraction, ultimately revitalizing the struggling economy of the small Spanish town. The Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Borja had around 46,000 visits between August and December 2012.
Some voices in Spain are now calling for tighter rules for art restoration...
If so, you might have experienced something called ‘museum fatigue’. This phenomenon can affect even the most enthusiastic culture buff, and refers to a sense of feeling increasingly overwhelmed and exhausted as you mooch around a museum or gallery.
The term ‘museum fatigue’ was first coined by Benjamin Ives Gilman in 1916. He focused on how the placement of exhibits led to unnecessary physical strain, causing us to tire ourselves out. But since then, researchers have also come to recognise the mental toll of a museum visit. This stems from a number of factors, including:
Information overload – where the sheer amount of information in a museum gets a bit much. This includes lengthy gallery labels and descriptions, as well as the exhibits themselves!
Object competition – when different exhibits in the same space battle it out for our attention. This prevents us from focusing properly on a single piece and erodes our overall engagement with a museum.
And last but not least, satiation – where we take in a number of similar pieces in a row, causing us to become progressively less interested. (One ancient Greek statue? Fantastic. One hundred? OK, now you’ve lost me.)
Together, these elements can contribute to an acute case of cultural burnout – and more than 100 years on from Benjamin Gilman, museum fatigue doesn’t look like going away.
So, it’s clear that something has to change; that we need a whole new way of approaching museums, and the amazing things in them. Because if we’re getting tired of Da Vinci and Van Gogh – of the Rosetta Stone and the Venus de Milo – then something has gone seriously, seriously wrong!
%20logo.svg)
