Instead of taking the car into the city we took the Metro...
Joline and Sharyn sat sideways as we rode the metro red line in.
We had to transfer in the caverns of the subway that reminded me a little of Star Wars...
... complete with fast moving trains.
We finally emerged into the daylight...
... near a navy building and after a no photo tour of the archives ...
... we rested on a curb in front of the National Archives...
... at the foot of this great statue.
Crossing the street I stopped for a quick picture of this "Yellow spaceman" painted in the street.
Once across the street I had to get a picture of this lunch wagon across the street from the Archives...
... followed by one from a clearer view.
Next was the National Gallery of Art and a great show "From Impressionism to Modernism" The Chester Dale Collection.
"A large part of Chester Dale's collection of 20th-century art, this group of 59 paintings was placed on indefinite loan at the National Gallery. The loan included works by 22 artists, among them Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault. Many of these paintings had previously been on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art."
The main building is impressive and massive.
This is the Federal Trade Commission Building across the street...
... and this is the Washington Park Police on cool scooters that looks like a Segway on steroids and the officer was equally cool stopping by to say hello.
I didn't try to remember all the great images in the collection so I looked them up. This is Vincent van Gogh's "Girl in White" ...
... but they were remarkable like Mary Cassatt's "Girl Arranging Her Hair" and her "Mother and Child"
... and some were by great artists I'd never heard of before like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's "Agostina" very sweet.
Recently in the News:
Art courier James Carl Haggerty says he went to show the painting — Jean Baptiste Camille Corot's famed, 19th-century "Portrait of a Girl" — to a prospective buyer at The Mark Hotel in July — and doesn't remember what happened to it, according to court papers detailing the case yesterday.
Sharyn and I loved this beautiful painting, Jacques-Louis David "Portrait of a Young Woman in White"...
... and this painting by Amedeo Modigliani titled "Nude on a Blue Cushion"...
... and this distinctive Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec titled "Alfred la Guigne"...
... and this unusual Pierre-Auguste Renoir titled "Odalisque"
It is hard to believe I was seeing the great masters, Paul Gauguin's "Self-Portrait", Chaïm Soutine's "Portrait of a Boy", Paul Cézanne's "The Artist's Son, Paul", and Amedeo Modigliani's "Nude on a Blue Cushion."
So here is another great wall (with a ghost walking by) Toulouse-Lautrec's "Alfred la Guigne" Amedeo Modigliani's "Chaïm Soutine" Vincent van Gogh's "La Mousmé"
Pablo Picasso "Classic Head"
This painting by Henri Matisse titled Lorette with Turban and Yellow Jacket made me stop and wonder who Lorette must have been.
Vincent van Gogh's "The Olive Orchard"
This looks like a Picasso but it is Georges Braque's Still Life simply called "The Table"
Bravo Chester Dale and the National Gallery of Art if you would like to virtually tour the collection [Click Here]
We did have lunch at the National Gallery, Garden Cafe called Francais...
...and after a walk through the gift shop and a walk by an underground waterfall...
... we arrived at the East wing ...
To see the Edvard Munch exhibit.
I was surprised to learn Munch created prints and I'm sorry there was no photography in the exhibit because the exhibit displayed...
... how Munch reprinted images with a sequence of changes.
Printmaking was an essential component of Munch's art following his introduction to the graphic media in 1894. With the capacity to produce multiple works from a single plate, stone, or woodblock, printmaking served to expand the accessibility of the artist’s themes to the general public and to provide income. It also enabled him to experiment with his imagery: by altering color, line, texture, and composition, Munch drastically changed the appearance and emotional impact of a given subject. Thus a woman kissing a man could appear amorous in one print, predatory in another; a sick child could seem feverish in one impression, ashen in the next.me image with slight alterations.
The East Wing of the National Gallery of Art is an art work in itself with angles...
... oddities...
... mystifying art pieces...
... with multiple levels...
... and interesting skylights.
Mark Rothko's exhibit in the Tower of the East building was stark and dark.
The second in a series of Tower exhibitions focusing on contemporary art and its roots offers a rare look at the black-on-black paintings that Rothko made in 1964 in connection with his work on a chapel for the Menil Collection in Houston. A recording of Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel (1971), the haunting music originally composed for that space, accompanies the exhibition in the spacious East Building Tower Gallery.
I just didn't understand the "Black on Black" paintings and perhaps I should have lingered a bit longer.
The East Building had other works ...
... all very much worth seeing ...
... and some very unusual.
I did find the Gallery of Art Study Center and it looked great...
... the day with Joe and Joline was great ...
... We even saw the Newseum where many fine Public Radio shows are made.
Deco art at the Federal Trade Commission...
... was really interesting and reminded me of olf blace and white movie themes like Fountainhead.
Finally the Metro came by to wisk us away after a day of art and archives.
No Scrabble
Quote of the Day ~ "He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back." ~ Henri Matisse
