What I do best.....or perhaps just what I do most

July 9th and August 7th, 2008

Ships in a Gale from 1660, Artist: Willem Van De Velde, The Younger

Well with the wedding over and my days in Washington running out I was back visiting a few museums. Next on my list was the National Gallery of Art. Actually I visited the West building before I visited Alberta and the East building after my visit to Alberta.

To say the 2 buildings are very different would be an understatement. The West Building which I visited first is the larger of the 2. It is home to mostly late century art. All very nice to look at but not as interesting as to what you will find in the East building.

Let’s start in the west building though. Although this was not the first museum I discovered it the names attached to many of the paintings are not very creative. I am sure that most of these paintings originally were not given names. You will see many paintings named “woman” or “women in a fancy hat” or “woman sitting in a chair with child”. And just for reference I do not need to post pictures for you to know what they look like because the names are very accurate descriptions of the painting. Here is one of my favourites, “Portrait of a Man in a Wide-Brimmed Hat” from the 17th Century. The artist is believed to be Jan Cossiers.

Here are a few others which give you an idea of what you will find in the West Building.

Madonna of Humility, made of marble in 1400, Artist: Jacopo Della Quercia

Death and the Miser by Hieronymus Bosch, it is dated 1485/1490. I am not sure what the slash in the date means but I am thinking start and completion dates.

This is Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait. He painted it while in a mental institute around 1889. He died shortly after.

The East building on the other hand is full of mostly modern art which I am finding much more interesting and creative. There are all different types of very interesting types of art including paintings and sculptures and some other things that are hard to explain. Here are a few that I liked, yes there are a few paintings but I liked them.

This is Le Negresse by Henri Matisse. There was an entire room with wall sized pictures made of cut-outs. Reminded me of craft time in kindergarten but on a much larger scale.

This is The Tragedy, 1903 by Pablo Picasso. Yes it is a Picasso just not what you might think about when you see a Picasso.

This is Nude Women, 1910, also by Picasso. A little bit more what you would expect to see from Picasso. You can almost see the nude woman can't you. Check out this link so you can see his full name (I was not going to write it out.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

This is One Year the Milkweed (yeah that's correct) by Arshile Gorky

This is Angel of History. It is made of lead, glass and poppies. When you get close to it you can actually see the poppies. Artist: Anselm Kiefer.

The East building is also currently home to the Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul. This exhibit was amazing to see…not just because of the items but because of the story behind them. These items were thought lost during the war that followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. However, most of the items were secretly hidden in crates in the Central bank vaults of the Presidential Palace in Kabul. In 2004, the vaults were opened and the crates found revealing a nation’s history once thought lost. You can also watch the National Geographic documentary on the discovery of the items and the process to restore and put them on display. Very emotional for everyone involved and just amazing to see.

I could not take pictures in the Afghan exhibit but if you ever see it in a museum near you, I highly recommend it.

I also made stop at the Canadian Embassy. For those of you who don’t know the Embassy is home to a small art gallery whose exhibits change every few months. The current exhibit is 50 years of American Photojournalism: 1939-1989. It showcases images from Ryerson’s Black Star Historical Black and White Photography collection. There were 3 major categories: the civil rights movement, which is pretty self explanatory, personalities, which was pictures of stars in politics, music, TV and movies, and war and conflict, which was pictures from the Korean War, the Second World War and the Vietnam War. Also very neat to see and I learned that my ability to read French is still pretty well intact. Of course being at the Canadian Embassy any written information is in both English and French and I decided to practice by only reading the French headings. Worked out very well.

Julie