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| Canaletto: A Regatta on the Grand Canal |
While I have been to many local art exhibitions and seen
some fabulous paintings, it had been playing on my mind recently that I really
ought to visit one of the art galleries in London. This in mind, I booked a
couple of train tickets for my wife and I earlier last month. The extraordinary
thing about train travel is, though fairly expensive, if you can book your
journey off peak, a month or so ahead, you travel for peanuts in comparison.
Our tickets from Market Harborough to London cost £17 each – the same journey
bought on the same day as travel would have been near £90 each!
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| Regatta: (detail) |
Although it was
October, the weather proved outstanding, with a lovely warm sunny day where we
were all walking around in our summer clothes, but unlike summer, it wasn’t too
hot and we weren’t looking around for somewhere shady to be comfortable. The
great thing about London is that there is so much to see, and like Paris, much
of which on a grand scale. Our chosen venue was the National Gallery on Trafalgar
Square, a huge building with the most impressive portico elevated from the
north side of the Square. From this
portico, the view across the Square was brilliant, dominated by Nelson’s column
and those huge lions at the four corners of the statue, this set amongst the
fountains, all rounded off nicely with Big Ben clock tower in the distance.
I learned later that the National Gallery houses well over
2000 of some of the world’s greatest paintings! More amazing though is the fact
that entry to view these marvellous works is absolutely FREE! Having said that
though, there is a large donation box as you go in, and as soon as I stepped
inside the first hall and saw the magnificence of the work that greeted me, I
realised that the note I dropped into that box was the best value for money I’ve
had for a long time!
OK, I’ve seen some really old paintings at various
historical houses we’ve visited over the years, but nothing could have prepared
me for this. I was absolutely in awe of some of the works on display. So much
so, that the amount of time it took me to take in various paintings left me way
behind my wife in the viewing stakes! I was glad that we took advantage of the
audio commentary, where we wore headphones, and just tapped in the painting
number to hear the info on work and artist.
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| National Gallery, London (C)(Frank Bingley) |
Some of the paintings were incredibly large, some taking up
almost entire walls in these halls, which in themselves are huge affairs with
sky high ceilings! This in itself had dramatic impact, but even more so was to
see work by the likes of Monet, Renoir, Degas etc. close up and REAL – the actual
work right before my very eyes. It is difficult to describe the effect of
seeing a well-known painting in front of you rather than in a book or on the
computer screen – just amazing!
A blogger friend of mine, Sandra, recently blogged of her
visit to this place, where she was so taken by the works of Van Gogh. Well, I
never got to see his work as it soon became very apparent to me that it would
take considerably more than one day to see and appreciate everything on show in
the National Gallery. I am very much a fan of Renoir, and I did get to see a
number of his best known works, but the artist that I was so taken by was
Canaletto. His huge works – vistas of Venice on a grand scale, were a marvel to
behold indeed. His portrayal of all the buildings, canals and hundreds of
people throughout his works was astonishing, and in such detail too. It must
have taken him months, no years to paint these scenes. Incredible!
After we could no longer stand on our legs, a cup of coffee in
one of the bars was a welcome respite. Here, there were lots of computer terminals
where you could look up all the details and location of works on show. Again,
free access – all the information readily to hand. Afterwards, there were the (inevitable) gift shops, where
one couldn’t resist coming away with a little souvenir of our day at the
National Gallery, London.
