Portraits and Paintings

Today was not that much of a lazy Sunday. I woke up with every intention of meeting a friend for breakfast at 9.30. Opened my eyes at 9.35, made myself presentable and rushed to a breakfast of toast, banana and orange juice. After breakfast, we headed to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square- the Square was still very crowded, but not as much as it normally is during the week. Admission to the Gallery is free, so we went in eager to find familiar faces and names. There is no photography allowed in the Gallery, so all I can do is describe to the best of my ability the works found within. The current exhibition is Corot to Monet, and as the name suggests covers the time from Corot (early 1800s) to Monet and Impressionism. There weren't any famous Monet works that I could recognize, but the landscape paintings were amazing nonetheless. The rest of the Gallery was divided based on time period and it was possible to see the distinctions in history and style depending on the time period. The most impressive paintings, in my opinion, was done by the Italians. Seeing Guardi's paintings of Venetian landscapes made me realize how much actually goes into a painting. A lot of his scenes involve hundreds of people, and while the scene calls for some people to be in better view than the others, not one face was imperfect. If you focused in on a far-off face, you could still see that the person it represented had their own personality and do that a hundred times, and make each unique is quite amazing. Even non-landscape paitings, for example, the Marriage a la Mode Series by Hogarth, have something extraordinary. Apart from being amusing paintings with stories of a dysfunctional marriage, there is so much emphasis given to detail not only to the main characters, but also to the background. Now, I know all this is essential, but only when I looked at hundreds of paintings, was I able to come to this realization on my own. It was quite an enlightening moment.
After the National Gallery, we went around the corner to the National Portrait Gallery. I made a note of every person I recognized whose portrait I saw. Bear in mind, these are not just photographs of famous people or even paintings of famous people. There are famous people, and each one is represented in a different way. There was a photograph of Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their wedding day, but there were also paintings of the two separately. The paintings were in every style imaginable. There was an abstract picture of Michael Caine and a bust of Sir Alec Guinness. The Portrait Gallery too was divided based on the time periods, and most of the names I wrote down were between the Romantic and Victorian ages, and that too mostly writers. I'm not sure if they are the original portraits or replicas, but it was exciting nonetheless.
A quick lunch from Pret-A-Manger (a chain of sandwich shops- I had a falafel sandwich with tomatoes, red peppers, spinach and red onions) eaten on the steps of St.Martin-In-The-Fields Church later, I was ready to go spend the afternoon with a friend of my mother's. Having never met her before, it was awkward to start off with, but the ice melted and things were fine for the rest of the afternoon. A little shopping in consignment stores, a quick meal at a South Indian restaurant and a walk down High Street Kensington took up the evening. Now I'm back on campus, attempting to write a critique of Warhorse from last week. Classes, and a busy week, resume in the morning.