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National Gallery of London
"The Gallery
has flourished since its inception in the early 19th century. In
1824 George IV persuaded a reluctant government
to buy 38 major paintings, including works by Raphael
and Rembrandt, and these became the start of a
national collection. The collection grew over the years as rich
benefactors contributed works and money.
The main gallery building was designed in Neo Classical
style by William Wilkins and built in 1834-8. [1].
"
Now "London Museum is one of the world's largest
and finest art galleries, the Art Gallery
houses an astonishing collection of European paintings.
The works are hung in a continuous time-line.
By starting in the Sainsbury Wing and progressing
eastwards you can take in a collection of pictures painted between
the mid 13th and 20th centuries in chronological order.
If you're keen on the real oldies (1260-1510), head for the
Sainsbury Wing; for the Renaissance (1510-1600),
go to the West Wing in the museum's main building.
Rubens, Rembrandt and
Murillo are in the North Wing (1600-1700);
if you're after Gainsborough, Constable,
Turner, Hogarth and the Impressionists
visits the East Wing (1700-1900). [2]. "
Leonardo da Vinci
"The first room you enter in the Sainsbury Wing (room 51)
contains the earliest works in the collection, but also boast
Leonardo da Vinci's melancholic Virgin of the Rocks
(the more famous version hangs in the Louvre), and behind it,
in a separate dimly lit shrine of its own, the "Leonardo
Cartoon " a preparatory drawing of The Virgin and Child
with St Anne and John the Baptist for a painting which, like so
many of Leonardo's projects, was never completed.
Before the 1960s, the cartoon was known only to scholars that is,
until an American tried to buy the picture for £2,500,000. In 1987,
it gained further notoriety when an ex-soldier blasted the work
with a sawn-off shotgun in protest at the political status que hence
the bulletproof glass behind which it now resides. [3]. "
Raphael
"Room 60 contains the first batch of the National's nine works by
Raphael, including the Ansidei Madonna, painted
when the artist was a mere 21 years old, and another early work,
St Catherine of Alexandria, whose sensuous "serpentine"
pose is accentuated by the folds of her clothes. [4] ."
Hieronymus Bosch
In room 62, "four manic tormentors (one wearing a dog's collar)
bear down on Jesus in the National's one and only
work by Hieronymus Bosch, Christ Mocked.
Gerard David's Christ Nailed to the Cross is iconographically unusual
in that Jesus (who shows no outward signs of pain) is being hammered
onto his crucifix while flat on the ground. [5]. "
Piero della Francesca's
"At the far end of the wing, in room 66, it's back to Italy once
more for Piero della Francesca's monumental religious
paintings: The Nativity and The Baptism of Christ,
the latter one of Piero's earliest surviving pictures,
dating from the 1450s and a brilliant example of his immaculate
compositional technique. Blindness forced Piero
to stop painting some twenty years before his death, and to concentrate
instead on his equally innovative work as a mathematician.
[6]. "
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Christ Mocked
and Death and the Miser by Hieronymus Bosch
Rembrandt's
"Room 23 is dominated by Rembrandt's splendid
equestrian portrait of Frederick Rihel, painted
to commemorate the entry of William of Orange
into Amsterdam in 1660. Elsewhere in the
room, two of Rembrandt's searching self portraits,
painted thirty years apart, regard each other the melancholic
Self Portrait Aged 63, from the last year of his life, making
a strong contrast with the sprightly early work.
Similarly, the joyful portrait of Saskia,
Rembrandt's wife, from the most successful
period of his life, contrasts with his more contemplative
depiction of his mistress, Hendrickje, who
was hauled up in front of the city authorities for living
"like a whore" with Rembrandt. The largest
Rembrandt picture in the room is the highly
theatrical Belshazzar's Feast, painted for
a rich Jewish patron. The portraits of Jacob
Trip and his wife are among the most painfully realistic
depictions of old age in the entire Museum. [7]. "
Impressionist
"Five magnificent rooms of Impressionist
and early twentieth century paintings close the proceedings,
starring, in room 43, Manet's unfinished
Execution of Maximilian. This was one of
three version Manet painted of the subject
and was cut into pieces during the artist's lifetime, then
bought and reassembled by Degas after Manet's
death.
The fashionable crowd in Manet's Music
in the Tuileries Gardens includes the poet Baudelaire
and the artist Fantin-Latour. Other major
Impressionist works usually displayed here
include Dega's Miss La-La at Cirque Fernando,
Renoir's Umbrellas, Monet's Thames
below Westminster and his Gare
St Lazare, for which he had the entire station cleared
of commuters.
There are also serveral townscapes from Pissarro's
period of exile, when he lived in south London, having
fled Paris before the advancing Prussian
army. [8]. "
"Several late canvases by Gogh also hang
in room 45; the beguilingGogh's Chair, dating
from his stay in Arles with Gauguin,
the trademark Wheatfield with Cypresses and Long
Grass with Butterflies, which typifies the intense work
he produced inside the asylum to which he was committed shortly
before his suicide. The most famous of the lot, though, his
dazzling Sunflowers, is just one of seven
versions he painted, one of which became the most expensive
picture ever sold when it was bought for over £24,000,00
in 1987 by a Japanese insurance company.
Gogh himself sold only one painting in his lifetime,
and used to dream of finding someone who would pay just £25
for his work. [8]. "
References
[1] Michael Leapman, Eyewitness Travel
Guides LONDON. London: A Dorling Kindersley Book, 2000.
[2] David Else et al, lonely planet Britain. Footscray: Lonely
Planet Publications Pty Ltd, 2003.
[3] - [8] Rob Humphreys,
The Rough Guide To London. London: Rough Guides Ltd, 2001.
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