On the 15th November GCSE and A Level Art students were invited to spend a day in Oxford, visiting their wonderful art museums.

Journal extract by Fiona Fessey 12D

The first museum we visited was The Pitt Rivers Museum. It was extremely interesting - its major theme was how different cultures expressed beauty through art and appearance and it gave us a great opportunity to compare cultural diversity.

We had an introduction from one of the curators, who told us about Chinese women binding their feet. We regard this as abnormal in our own culture. However, at the same period women in Britain were using corsets to make their waists as small as possible. This expression of vanity caused as many health issues and bone damage as the binding of feet.

The second museum we visited was The Ashmolean which had a strong link to my own art project. This museum concentrates on fine art pieces, such as great oil paintings with Biblical reference and extraordinary tapestries and ceramics. We were allowed time to ponder the surroundings, sketch and making notes relevant to our own individual topics. During our visit we went to an exhibition on Francis Bacon - we were told in great detail how he secured his art style by very knowledgeable art critics and curators. We were also shown a documentary showing Bacon at work in his (really untidy) studio, giving us an invaluable window into the life of a real artist.