Remember that word...mensuration?

I certainly can't! There is a similar word...different spelling...very different meaning...and nothing to do with men. Right, now that we are quite clear on that. It just shows you that reading Zoltan Kovacs column 'Opinion' in the Weekend Western Australian can leave you a little more educated even if the word used means nothing to you. But according to the President of the Society of Pedants (WA) this word means : the mathematics of measuring areas, lengths and volumes. And this brings me to the point of knowing the value of travelling...in this case...travelling to Vienna, Austria, and marching up and down the long corridors of the museums available to all. And it is not an occasion of catching up with the latest exhibitions of artists, their work on display, inviting your comment and understanding
but just sometimes a little bit extra is offered.

And it is not a case of the blind leading the blind. In fact, as I stumbled on what I thought to be one of the first computer designs ever, not to be used in 'mensuration' but in the mechanised computation of various basic arithmetical operations and primarily used for land surveying calculations, I asked myself, why couldn't it have been used for mensuration?

Anton Braun,1686, active at the Viennese Court created this pinwheel machine and dedicated it to the Emperor CharlesVI. As the photo shows the device was gilded and partially made of tinned brass. It was known as a calculator. But that wasn't all that caught my eye and started me thinking.


There appeared the interactive frog
made by Robert Wilson 2008 which depending

on how the viewer moves and in which direction the move, the frog will react with the opening and closing of eyes, lip movements as well as the usual frog sounds.







 Then again who on this earth would have the patience to make a sculpture out of thousands of dice...don't ask me what it represents but a dice has numbers on each side and is only a certain small size. something for the gambler in us!





And have you ever seen a picture if Van Gogh with his ear bandaged?

Or Marc Chaggall's  painting of St. Nicholas leaving the cathedral with his bag full of gifts?










It must have been done before his fantasy period.

And would you recognise this wonderful young woman as having been painted by Picasso? Again the cubist era was still in the future.
So travelling and museum searching does have its small surprises for the tourists.