“The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose” (Sir Joshua Reynolds)

This photograph is of these words displayed in sections above the Cromwell Road entrance.

I had another adventure in the V&A today. The purpose of the visit this time was to meet friends and to look at ceramics. It was a wonderful day with both missions achieved, although without the time to complete all the ceramics.

Today, just as on each of my other occasional visits to the V&A, I got profoundly lost. However, the getting lost came with the usual bonuses: one, stumbling across treasures I never meant to find, and two, achieving a record number of steps trying to get from A to B. I had no intention of going past Z, or even looking at F, but as soon as I lost sight of A, I found myself lost as a ‘traveller in an antique land’, bumping into Ozymandias and at least another dozen despairing souls at every turn.

In the end, getting lost felt like a necessary part of the whole experience, so unavoidable that it left me wondering whether disorientated guests were now considered an exhibit in their own right – their “excellence” dependent of course, on them achieving the “complete accomplishment” of their purpose.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023