The National Gallery is just across Trafalgar Square and so was an obligatory port of call this morning. Once again, though, we decided on a targeted approach; we would, we declared, visit just one picture per period. This was a tough call. We ended up with Uccello (St George), van Eyck (the Arnolfini portrait), Holbein (The Ambassadors), Michelangelo (The Entombment), Velazquez (The Rokeby Venus), Stubbs (Whistlejacket – obligatory after War Horse the previous evening), Turner (The Fighting Temeraire), Seurat (The Bathers) and Van Gogh (Sunflowers). What a collection!
Martin.
I saw you ran past the Tate Modern Museum. You should have stopped and looked. Right now there is an exchibition of the Danish Painter Per Kirkeby – http://www.kunstonline.dk/indhold/per_kirkeby.php4 –
I understand it is a big thing to exchibit on Tate Modern, so he must now be an international star, the 70 year old painter. I knew his name, but not that he was that big. In such situations you of-course say: “Why did I not buy a painting by him 20 years ago, when I first heart about him?” – The answer is rather simple: ” I did not understand the paintings and I certainly did not have the money”. Keep on jogging.
Peter