u.s.a. washington d.c.'s national gallery of art
as you have probably guessed by now, i could happily spend months wandering around in museums and galleries. therefore, in order to to follow up on me boring you with stuff about the met, i have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about boring you further with the national gallery in washington d.c. the home of a great deal of museum goodness. (hang in there jeremy, this one is about art so you should be able to read up to the end)
it was nice to be back in washington d.c. and spend some time with all the good friends who over the years have been to kenya. in spite of the freezing cold weather, their hospitality warmed our hearts. you know that its cold when the canadians are dressed like this.
the national gallery is housed in a rather splendid building, designed by john russell pope (he also did the jefferson memorial.) in a nice bit of symmetry, popes father was a portrait painter. it is chock-full of artwork from famous artists - vermeer, da vinci, rodin, rembrandt and the list goes on and on. this lady was doing a very creditable copy of rembrandts self-portrait.
art, like all skills taken to amazing levels, is hard. the masters spent thousands of hours honing and refining their craft. some of the sketches and studies that survive show that sometimes years were spent on just one piece of art. leonardo da vinci and michelangelo used to dissect human corpses in order to get a better of understanding of the bones and muscles worked in order to depict them accurately. this idea of spending a lot of time on gaining a skill is a tough concept for us living in the age of instant gratification.
you will never guess who is pictured above. yup, i couldn't either. esther and mordecai, to save you all those incorrect guesses. i think the painting itself is brilliant (its by hendrick van steenwijk the younger in 1616). he was primarily an architectural painter and it shows. i love the lighting falling on esther and outlining mordecai. but on the other hand, its highly unlikely that they wore middle age victorian garb, dont you think?
contrast this one, also of esther:
its from the 'imitate their faith' book. after 6 months in patterson where the art department is based, it was quite impressive to observe the amount of work and research that goes into the pictures in our publications. for example, this exhibit in the met is from the archaemenid empire, or in other words, the medo-persian world power. see if you can spot them in the picture above:
the point is, not to criticize any artist, but rather to encourage us to pay attention to some of the details in any art. most artists spend a lot of time getting some detail right in their work, and its a bit of a pity if we unappreciatively just zip over it. heres another example:
this rather fabulous work of art was by jan van huysum. he was the son of a famous flower painter. this painting has an astounding amount of detail. lets zoom in a bit...
apparently van husyum was so secretive about his techniques that no one, not even his brothers, was allowed into his studio. and what techniques they were...lets zoom in a bit more...
pretty impressive. not for nothing was he called a 'technical virtuoso.'
all in all, we had a great time wandering around the museums of d.c., especially since there were quite a few family members there at the same time. as you can see, we all share a certain 'je ne sais quoi' fashion sense:
and, of course, we were all on our way to hilton head for our family reunion. which shall be the subject of our next blog...
it was nice to be back in washington d.c. and spend some time with all the good friends who over the years have been to kenya. in spite of the freezing cold weather, their hospitality warmed our hearts. you know that its cold when the canadians are dressed like this.
the national gallery is housed in a rather splendid building, designed by john russell pope (he also did the jefferson memorial.) in a nice bit of symmetry, popes father was a portrait painter. it is chock-full of artwork from famous artists - vermeer, da vinci, rodin, rembrandt and the list goes on and on. this lady was doing a very creditable copy of rembrandts self-portrait.
art, like all skills taken to amazing levels, is hard. the masters spent thousands of hours honing and refining their craft. some of the sketches and studies that survive show that sometimes years were spent on just one piece of art. leonardo da vinci and michelangelo used to dissect human corpses in order to get a better of understanding of the bones and muscles worked in order to depict them accurately. this idea of spending a lot of time on gaining a skill is a tough concept for us living in the age of instant gratification.
you will never guess who is pictured above. yup, i couldn't either. esther and mordecai, to save you all those incorrect guesses. i think the painting itself is brilliant (its by hendrick van steenwijk the younger in 1616). he was primarily an architectural painter and it shows. i love the lighting falling on esther and outlining mordecai. but on the other hand, its highly unlikely that they wore middle age victorian garb, dont you think?
contrast this one, also of esther:
this rather fabulous work of art was by jan van huysum. he was the son of a famous flower painter. this painting has an astounding amount of detail. lets zoom in a bit...
apparently van husyum was so secretive about his techniques that no one, not even his brothers, was allowed into his studio. and what techniques they were...lets zoom in a bit more...
pretty impressive. not for nothing was he called a 'technical virtuoso.'
all in all, we had a great time wandering around the museums of d.c., especially since there were quite a few family members there at the same time. as you can see, we all share a certain 'je ne sais quoi' fashion sense:
and, of course, we were all on our way to hilton head for our family reunion. which shall be the subject of our next blog...
