At the National Gallery of Art

Today’s Image

I’m continuing where last blog left off, which was in front of the National Gallery of Art at the Sculpture Garden. After we toured the garden, the next stop was the National Gallery itself. On a previous visit several years back, we spent a couple of hours on one of the floors going from room to room, but we honestly couldn’t remember what we had already seen before. Anyway that was before my renewed interest in art, and on this trip I knew what I wanted to see. And that was the Gallery’s collection of Impressionist paintings.

I had already consulted my DK Eyewitness Travel Guide for Washington, D.C. and knew there was an extensive collection to see. If you’ve been to the National Gallery, you know just how big it is. It’s impossible to see it all in a day, or even two days; it would take more like a week. The building itself is huge, I’m talking city-block huge, and there are two levels. There are also two buildings, the West Building and the East Building.

As I said, I was looking for the Impressionist paintings, and so not to waste any time, I went right to the Information Desk for directions. They don’t refer to it as Impressionist at the Gallery, rather it’s 19th-Century French. They’re located in Galleries 80 through 93 on the west end of the Main Floor in the West Building if you’re looking for them.

If you like the Impressionists, you will be glad you came. There are room after room (galleries) full of paintings of almost all the Impressionists you have ever heard of and probably some of which you had not heard. I especially enjoyed seeing the numerous paintings of Edouard Manet and Claude Monet:

Edouard Manet

• The Dead Toreador
• Still Life with Melon and Peaches
• Plum Brandy
  

Claude Monet

• The Cradle – Camille with Artist’s Son Jean
• Rouen Cathedral, West Facade Sunlight
• The House of Parliament, Sunset
• The Japanese Footbridge
• Woman with a Parasol – Madam Monet and Her Son
• The Bridge at Argenteuil

Other favorites of mine:

• The Ramparts at Aigues-Mortes by Frederic Bazille
• Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt
• Boulevard des Italiens, Morning, Sunlight by Camille Pissarro

There are, of course, many, many other beautiful paintings, and if you go online to the National Galery of Art’s website, you can see all of the above.

In the Studio

Last blog, I mentioned I had ‘finished’ my acrylic of the scene overlooking the Pacific Ocean again, but there was the possibility that it was not completely finished so I put it away for awhile. I did give it a name—North of Goleta—so it’s nearly finished. I’m pretty sure, though, that I have a little more work to do on it. I’ll let you know.

However, since last blog, I did start and completely finish another acrylic, which is Today’s Image. It’s a view from the sidewalk in front of the Sculpture Garden at National Gallery of Art on The Mall in Washington, D.C. I named it At the National Gallery. Unlike many of my acrylics, I used more water with the acrylic paint to give it a looser feel not unlike a watercolor. My palette was Liquitiex Basics Cerulean Blue, Liquitex heavy Body Viridian, Grumbacher Cadmium Yellow Light, Van Gogh Warm Grey, Grumbacher Burnt Sienna, and Galeria Titanium White.

Cheers!