Friday, October 2, 2009

The National Gallery


We then were moving on to the National Gallery. I didn't know that this even existed, that we had a National collection of painting etc... This was the huge cool fountain outside the doors.

Walking up the stairs to get in, very roman architecture. Mom is at the bottom of the picture if you look closely.

The done of the National Gallery was made to look like the Pantheon in Rome that we saw last year about the same time.
The beautiful statue of Nike, in a beautiful fountain in the middle of the National Gallery.




This was one of my favorite pictures that we saw. Daniel in the Lions Den. This is how I have always pictured this story in my head. I am sure that Daniel's faith was tried and the lions might not have eaten him but I am sure they still had their animal instinct and wanted to eat him.



If you have never seen a Seurat painting, I encourage you to see one. Seurat was the painter that painted by dots of color that come together to make a picture. When you look at the painting up close it looks like a bunch of dots and you move farther back it becomes a picture. Absolutely amazing.





Monet's early work.






The National Gallery is very lucky to have a Water Lilies picture of Monet's. Most of them are in private collections especially the ones featuring the Japanese Bridge. This was the first Monet that I have seen that had the Japanese Bridge. It was gorgeous.






My most favorite painter VanGough. This was his self portrait, I saw his later self portrait last year at the Barnes Foundation the one where his ear is bandaged from him cutting it off. His work absolutely amazes me, the depth of paint and the brush strokes are fabulous.







This was one of the more interesting things at the National Gallery, Artist were scattered among the painting, copying a painting, and doing a great job at it. I was fascinating to watch them.








This was one of the open solarium's that were at the end of both wings of the gallery, a resting spot to distract the eye from the art and let it rest before continuing on.







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