The National Gallery

This past week has been a bit crazy but at the same time without much to report. 

Tuesday was filled with class and a play at the Lyric, not to mention it was my birthday. I did not enjoy the play at all and my day was filled with reading Shakespeare's Henry IV part I. Wednesday consisted of two classes and Henry IV at the Globe that evening. Thursday was class again followed by the National Gallery and figuring out accommodations for my upcoming trip to Italy. Yesterday I slept the day away and then simply went to a nearby park with Claire and later went out with a big group of Hendrix students to a local pub, Shakespeare's Head. 

The absolute best part of the week, and in the top three of the tip so far was my trip to the National Gallery.  The museum as a whole is huge (a trend in London it seems, these gigantic museums) so I've only covered a small portion of it but already I'm in love. I have seen pieces by Goya, Caravaggio, Turner, Manet, Monet, and many others, not to mention the Rembrant and Degas pieces that I know are there somewhere, I just haven't found them yet.  

Caravaggio has been my favorite painter for a while now. After writing a paper on one of his works freshman year of college, I fell in love with his pieces and what he did for the art world; namely, depicting reality rather than the ideal. As I entered one of the galleries in the National Gallery I immediately spotted two pieces he painted across the room. I hurried over to them but then was suddenly disenchanted. His piece, "Supper at Emmaus" has been one of my favorites but seeing it in real life I noticed a glaring problem. One of the figures hands is out of proportion to the rest of his body. Now, I am a bit confused because Caravaggio should have noticed this and could have easily corrected it, being the master painter that he was, yet he didn't. I can't come up with any reason why the hand would be out of proportion but there it was. So, now I've been disappointed by my favorite artist but I do still love his works and can safely say that he is my favorite Baroque painter that I have come across so far. 

I didn't leave the museum disappointed at all. In the next gallery I found a collection of Turner's studies on atmosphere.  Turner was one of the first painters to explore the concept of painting atmosphere and concepts like motion and speed. His "Rain, Steam, and Speed" took my breath away. I had seen it in several of my textbooks before but never found it to be very remarkable other than in concept but seeing it in real life was a whole new experience. I stood looking at that piece along with the others from the series for twenty minutes before tearing myself away. I took a picture of it but I won't post it here because of it's poor quality, I just can't do the painting justice, but please look up images of it online.

Coming back from the gallery, I was on a high from seeing all of these works by artists that I had only read about up until now. I can't wait to go back and explore more of the museum with the particular hope of finding a collection of Rembrant's self portraits. Between being in my absolute favorite environment and managing to walk there and back alone, without getting lost, I felt more at home in London than I had so far. I am loving being here and am sure that I will hate to leave come December.