Monday, January 7, 2013

Instruments & Mahakala Sculpture @ MFA

It was the end of the year winter break and I took a quick morning visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
It was cold and raining really hard and thought the museum would be quite empty but it was packed with people, lots of people from out of town. I jumped into the first room near the main entrance filled with old/ rare instruments from all over the world.
 
Here's the Lyre Guitar from France, Treble Guitar from Portugal and a digital harp from England. Since I love playing the ukulele, I loved seeing the Treble guitar which is what eventually turned into the ukulele when it was introduced to Hawaii.
121227_lyreguitar



This colorful harp was an exact replica of an Irish harp made in 1734. The original was displayed next to this model but was really beat up and just dark brown.
121227_irishharp



Here's a trumpet from Tibet and Zither from India.
121227_zither
All of the displayed instruments were quite fascinating and I wish I could have listened to a sample of what it would sound like.


After having a quick bite to eat, I wrapped up the day with 2 more sketches of Mahakala sculpture from Tibet.

Front view:
121227_mahakala_front



Back view:
I loved the back view of this even more.
The thing he's stretching is a flat 'elephant' and he also has 2 feet hanging from his butt which I thought was quite comical.
121227_mahakala_back