Museums and Galleries - Wednesday, 28 October

While Virginia was in the West Country, I took the opportunity to visit some museums and galleries, including the British Museum, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. That's a lot of "culture" in one day!

I actually started by going to Leicester Square to see if I could get tickets to a show, but found that no seats were available for that evening. Since the ticket agency is so close to the National Gallery I headed there. It is impossible to see and retain everything in a gallery of that magnitude, so I limited myself to the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The selection is comparatively small but of a wonderful standard. I think the two pictures I like most are The Umbrellas by Renoir and Surprised by Henri Rousseau.

Rousseau is less well known than Renoir. He is one of the painters generally labelled as a Post-Impressionist, but some would be more inclined to consider him a "primitive." A number of his best known works employ jungle scenes and motifs although he was never outside of France. He has a flat, almost child-like style, but one that is surprisingly powerful. Among the artists he influenced was Pablo Picasso.

One thing I have always disliked about the National Gallery has been the great barn of a cafeteria. It was a pleasant surprise to see how that had changed in the last eighteen months. There are now several very pleasant rooms in which one can have lunch or tea. One even opens quite early - two hours before the gallery - so you can have breakfast!

Outside, in Trafalgar Square, there are the four lions of Landseer. Whatever their artistic merits may or may not be, they have an ineffable attraction for young children who make them their own personal pets.



From the National Gallery I went around the corner to the National Portrait Gallery where I spent an hour or so looking at the Victorian section. I always enjoy the NPG but was dissapointed on this occasion since I was looking for a protrait of Earl Grey and was unsuccessful although they do hold a number of "carte de vistes". There were, however, a number of other portraits of individuals with an Australian connection including Sir James Stephen (1789-1859) who was the British under-secretary of state for the colonies from 1836 to 1847.

After a quick lunch I headed off to the British Museum. While I always enjoy the exhibits, this time I really intended to just wander around a bit. In fact, the last time I visited the British Museum, I went into the old reading room and found it rather depressing. It still looked much the same, but there were huge spaces on the shelves and in a strange way, it seemed to me to be dying. Well, I suspect it has now died.

When I couldn't find a way in, just for a sentimental look, I asked a young woman with an official looking badge on.

"Excuse me, can you tell me how I get into the old reading room?"

"The Reading Room? Oh, you mean the exhibition space."

It's enough to make a grown man weep. Mind you, as someone who uses the new British Library out at St Pancras and finds it excellent to work in, it is just sentiment that binds a small part of me to the old reading room. Ah well, time to go back to the hotel, meet Virginia, and catch a bite for dinner.