A Day Out.

A day out.   Big deal.  It is for me I'm afraid, so I thought I'd share my arty day out with my pals here on POL.  Like many here (I suspect) I'm not able to go out often, my wife is very poorly.  She can't do much for herself, when she's feeling better I take her out, but the most she can manage is about an hour before we need to go back home.  So apart from my quick trips to the shops and visits to doctors and hospitals we're pretty much hermits.  Bad for me and ten times worse for my wife.  My son tries to help.  He asked me what I would like to do, and I said I'd like to revisit some of the art galleries in London.  From 1964 to 1967 I worked at the Admiralty in Whitehall (a cushy number).  We had 90 minute lunch breaks. Weird...nobody knew why they were that long...but it allowed me to haunt The National Gallery and other near-bye galleries.  I've been back a few times since, of course, but not for an age.  I got to know many of the paintings and it would be like visiting old friends. So my son took a day off work and our daughter-in-law (a gem) came to stay with my wife for the day.  She works from home and can do that just as well from our place.  So off we went to the Big Smoke...although it isn't called that these days.  We went by train.  Something I haven't done for about 25 years.  So even that was an added extra. Into the National Gallery we went.  It hardly seemed to have changed.  I made a beeline for the Impressionists.  One of my favourite paintings is Renior's  'Les Parapluies', I wanted to see the real thing again to check if I felt the same about it. Oddly, I was not as overwhelmed as I'd been expecting.  It's still a wonderful painting and I still admire it.  It's me of course.  Slurping around in my brain is this list of my favourite ten paintings...a list I've never completed, and never will, yet the 'notion' of having a 'top ten paintings' still floats around in the old grey matter.  Maybe this Renoir had slipped down to number 11.  Still a delight to see it. In another corner I found some other old friends.  They are plastered all over the Internet but nothing beats seeing the real things.  Three Turners that couldn't possibly have been painted by the same man... ...except, of course, they ARE by the same hand.  Rain, Steam and Speed...an impossibly advanced painting for it's time, and, for me, the beginning of impressionism.  THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE...another in that list of ten top paintings that I don't really have.  His most popular painting??  Maybe.  What a delight to see the actual painting fashioned by Turner's hands.  Both these paintings are smaller than I remember, but so good to see again.  The third 'CALAIS PIER' doesn't do much for me if I'm honest.  It's like many others from that era.  I've included it here because I'm impressed by the range of Turner's work. I could go on, but I'm waffling, and we haven't got to my favourite painting yet.  While we're still in The National Gallery I'll mention the painting that caught my son's eye.... ...Joseph Wright 'Experiment on a bird in a vacuum pump.'   I like his dramatically lit painting too. It's out of the gallery, across Trafalgar Square and up the Strand, where we proceeded slowly like two old-time coppers on their beat.  I'm knocking on and have to take it easy.  Old Father Time sits piggy-back fashion on my back whispering 'isn't it time we had a sit down?'...and he's heavy.  We crossed the road to Waterloo Bridge and turned into Somerset House where the Courtauld Gallery elegantly resides. Up in a lift to the top floor to see the painting that sits at the very top of that non-existent list of mine.  I walk past Modigliani, Lautrec, Van Gogh and Gauguin.   There it is...Manet's 'A Bar at the Folie Bergere.'...a painting I haven't seen since 1967. It's wonderful, and worth making this trip for the half-an-hour I would spend looking at Manet's last major painting. The Courtauld is much smaller than the National Gallery, but has no rope barriers in front of its paintings.  Behind the girl is a balcony full of people (It's actually a reflection, the girl is standing in front of a mirror).  I remember being blown away by Manet's handling of this crowd.  Seen as a whole it looks realistic. But up close... ...it's almost abstract.   Did Manet invent abstraction?  Probably not.  You can imagine him applied these brushstrokes.  You can SEE each stroke. As before I was struck by the looseness of Manet's painting, yet viewed from a 'proper' distance none of this is apparent. It's a surprise to see the same thing on the girl's face, and the almost casual way he's painted the lace on her dress. Obviously I looked at the other paintings.   Highlights???   Modigliani, Renoir and Gauguin... So that was my day out.  An absolutely delightful 8 hours. If you are still reading this, good on you, that'll be because you'll have your own favourite paintings and understand the pleasure of seeing the real thing.

Thanks very much to all for your responses, I wasn't sure about posting this, but thought I would as we all share a love of art even if the painting choices would be different.  Tessa...I was going to visit the Mall Galleries, that's somewhere I've never been.  Tony...now that you mention it, I think I first saw the Joseph Wright painting at the Tate.  The one on the Embankment not far from the Albert Hall.  Tate Britain now I think.  Lots of Pre-Raphaelites.  And I love the V & A too, a bit of everything there.  I couldn't manage all those in a day, I wanted (needed) to take it easy...to dwell a bit...so maybe there's another day out sometime.