School vacation days are coming soon. An excellent day trip for families is the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, which has a delightful array of bronze sculptures of animals. In addition, an exhibit of 52-million-year-old fossils found in Wyoming will open on Saturday, Nov. 21.
A bronze giraffe on stilts — he’s ambitious and wants to be even taller — greets visitors outside The Bruce, an early indication of the whimsy of Bjorn Okholm Skaarup. The Danish-born sculptor has crafted a menagerie of creatures in a show called “Carnival of the Animals,” taking its name from the musical suite by Camille Saint-Saens, which plays softly in the gallery where the animals are on display. Whereas Saint-Saens translated animal attributes into music, Skaarup translates them into bronze.
A smug lion wearing armor and a crown sits foolishly atop a rocking horse. A hilariously self-satisfied tiger rides an elephant, resting his feet on the pith helmet of the hunter he has presumably just devoured. An ostrich, frustrated at being a flightless bird, grows airplane wings. A kangaroo rides a pogo stick to bounce even farther. A timid rhino, dressed as a harlequin, keeps watch over his sweetheart, a hippo in a tutu. An emperor penguin is dressed like a Roman emperor. A dinosaur paleontologist excavates human artifacts.
The pieces featuring multiple animals are spectacular. “The Five Senses” are depicted by five mice. “The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice” is based on Homer’s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” and is acted out against an ancient Roman backdrop. “The Four Elements” are represented by a mole (earth), a fish (water), an eagle (air) and a dragon (fire). The museum security guards, if asked, can flip a switch to make that piece move.
“Secrets of Fossil Lake” is a show of remarkably detailed pieces found in a Wyoming fossil site that, until 50 million years ago, was a massive lake. Fish, birds, plants, a stingray, a turtle, a three-toed horse and a 14-foot-long crocodile lived 8 million years after dinosaurs became extinct. Unlike dinosaurs, however, these creatures resemble animals that live today. “This shows the beginning of modern fauna,” said science curator Daniel Ksepka.
“CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS” will be at the Bruce Museum, One Museum Drive in Greenwich, until Jan. 3. “Secrets of Fossil Lake” will run from Saturday, Nov. 21, to April 17. brucemuseum.org.
