The National Gallery

    On Sunday January 9th we went to The National Gallery located in Trafalgar Square.  The area itself was filled with people and street performers outside the Gallery.  Trafalgar Sqaure was decorated with the four plinths and statue Nelson's Column and two beautiful fountains.  The Gallery has a large staircase leading up to the huge pillars outside the main entrance.  The insides houses a huge collection of European paintings from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries.  The place is literally overwhelming due to the large number of connecting rooms, and we tried to see as much as possible while keeping on a straight course down the center of the museum in order to not get lost.
     There were a large number of Italian Renaissance paintings including the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, dating back to the late 1500s.  I am drawn to Caravaggio's due largely to his use of chiaroscuro, or the contrast of light and dark where the figures appear to be emerging out of the blackness.  I was excited to see in person his Supper at Emmaus (1601), which also deals with some of the earliest studies of foreshortening as the hand of the figure on the right extends out towards the viewer.  His oil paintings are visually appealing because of the clear emotion in the piece.  It is also interesting to consider his exploration of painting techniques such as light and dark and foreshortening.
     An English Romantic painter whom I really enjoyed was John Constable.  His large-scale landscape paintings explore the idea of illumination and natural lighting which relate to the weather of the outdoors.  I really enjoyed the painterly quality to his work and the clear visual brushstrokes created a textural surface that was very appealing.  I always love painters who can successfully do this because I struggle to accomplish this in my own paintings; I tend to paint very thinly and always envy those who achieve a textural quality to the surface of the canvas.  I also love the sense of light in Constable's work, specifically portrayed in Stratford Mill (The Youngwaltonians) and The Hay Wain, both from the 1820s. The colors and calming composition made me think of a dream-like state where I wanted to step into the painting and let that feeling engulf me.  I was immediately drawn to his work from across the whole room because of this realistic yet dreamily perfect setting that his paintings depict.
     Postimpressionism was headed by Georges Seurat, a French painter who works largely with pointillism.  I had never seen a Seurat painting in person and was very excited to do so at the National Gallery.  His piece Bathing at Asnieres (1883) among others were stunning, specifically in their color palette.  Like Constable's work, I loved how the colors were instantly calming, however the style of Seurat's work is obviously completely different.  Postimpressionism includes a lot of the vivid colors and apparent brush strokes where each little patch of color in Seurat's pointillism pieces make up an important part of the whole.  The colors he uses are just so successful at captivating the viewer and depicting objects from nature or observation in a less realistic way that has an appealing effect.
     Another piece that amazed me was The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger.  I have studied this piece in Art History and the debatable meaning between the different array of objects on the table, however this piece held a special effect that could only be seen in person.  The stretched out skull on the foreground of the piece can only be correctly viewed from the far right side; one has to be standing almost completely next to the painting to see the true proportion.  This is the first example of an anamorphosis painting I have seen in person and I thought it was awesome.  I enjoy viewing pieces like this one that serve to "mystify" or "amuse" the audience.