London: Dec 7: Cartoon Art Museum & British Museum

My Tuesday outing, December 7, 2010, brought me first to the Cartoon Museum.

One room in the museum traces the history of cartooning from Hogarth in the 1700s to modern day, mainly through political cartoons, many using caricature and satire. Another room follows British cartooning in particular. The third room contained a special exhibit on cartoons about drinking. I found I liked those cartoons that connected to historic or political events such as showing particular pushes by the temperance movement or reflecting changes in licensing laws.

The entire museum has a British orientation, meaning that I missed many references to people and events and also wasn't familiar with some particular comic strips and magazines. (Sure, I could read the labels that explain the cartoons, but needing to do this made them not hit home for me.) Given this bent toward cartoons with a message, I found the pure humor of a book I spotted in the gift shop more entertaining than anything in the museum.

The museum took me less than an hour to see everything at the level of detail I wanted.

Because I was in the area, I headed to the British Museum. There I browsed three temporary exhibits, two of which aren't worth mentioning (they turned out not to be interesting to me). The third was a tiny but eloquent display of money and stamps African countries issued after their independence, showing their nationalism and celebrating their heritage.

I also revisited the British Museum's rooms on money and on Greek & Roman life, two rooms that I regretted when I visited last summer that I didn't have time to examine in detail. Now I have. The Greek & Room life room covers topics ranging from games and theatrical festival to exercising and household design. Not for the objects but for the information, I think both those rooms are my favorites in the museum.

I took two pictures at the British Museum.