The Field Marshal

Journey of Faith There's a similarly title post in Zap the Bug, since Mydaemon and I do most things together. Anyway, after much delay, we finally made our way to the Journey of Faith exhibition of Vatican art and artifacts at the Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM) @ Empress Place. Being a Catholic, I was keen to look at some of the art from the Vatican and learn more about my faith. It was my first visit to the Asian Civilisation Museum. Having been to the Singapore Art Museum, which happens to be my old school compound, and the Singapore National Museum, I had no great expectations of the ACM. And having visited both the Britsh Museum and the National Gallery in London it is hard not to compare our local ones with the world's standard. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a well maintained building which actually exudes an aura of heritage, which is somewhat lacking in the other 2 museums. Located at the 2nd-storey, the galleries contained local collections that were displayed based on cultural themes, e.g. Chinese, Malay, Indian etc. I have to agree with Mydaemon that the ambience created by the smart positioning of warm/spot-lights was good. But I still think that it was a tad too dark. This wasn't helped by the smallish font the museum used for information panels. Had to lean close to the panels many a times just to read what the art or artifact was about. The gallery containing the Journey of Faith exhibition, as with the rest, was dark, yet cosy. Playing in the background was a haunting, but beautiful, loops of some hymn sung by a choir. The ambience was about just right. Perhaps being a Catholic helps in my appreciation of the artifacts on display. Could emphatise with most of the themes displayed in the artwork. Learnt that St Peter would usually be depicted as holding the keys and a book, while St Paul would be holding a sword and the letters (Epistles) he wrote. There's a lot of interesting artifacts on display. Perhaps the most intriguing one was that of a gold-coloured crab holding a cross. From what I remember, the crab is a symbol of Christ's death and rebirth, since it sheds it old shell for a new one every so often when it gets older. It's a pity that I could take a snapshot of the crab since photography is not allowed for the exhibition. Might drop by the place again to get a copy of the exhibition catalogue. What's stopped me from getting it last Saturday was the price tag - $32. Took some photos of the museum itself and the publicity banners for the exhibit. Will post it here when I am done downloading them into the PC. Based on my past experience, this could take from between 1 month to never. It all depends on my mood. I highly recommend this exhibition to those who wish to look at really good pieces of art and artifacts, things which are seldom exhibited in our museums. See it before it goes back to the Vatican. Exhibitions ends on 9th October.