At least I noticed the Velazquez!

view from the national gallery

Do you understand the title of my post?  Only a real Gilmore Girls fan would, at least I hope they would.

     After classes today I needed to get out of the center.  Living in a house full of 35 girls is fun most of the time, but once in a while you just need alone time.  Well today was that day for me.  Obviously I'm use to living with girls because I have three sisters, but it's getting to the point where the students all know each other enough that people can get under other peoples skin.  I'm not saying that there is a specific person that I am around all the time that I had to get away, because there's not.  I just wanted to get out by myself, clear my head, and have some alone time.

     I thought about where to escape to that I could go at my own speed.  I realized I haven't been to many museums and time is running out fast.  I need to utilize my time in the smartest way possible.  So I was chose to go to the National Gallery by myself.  Sarah decided she wanted to join me so she accompanied me down to Trafalgar Square.  Once inside we split up and went at our own pace.  Though my family may be surprised to hear me say this, I actually really love art museums.  I hated them as a kid because I was dragged to museum after museum against my will :)  But now when I can go at my own pace I actually quite enjoy it, and the National Gallery has a plethora of paintings to enjoy.  It is full of works of art by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Velazquez, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and many more!

     My favorite was definitely the impressionist collection.  I just love the different brushstrokes, textures, and colors and could look at impressionist paintings for hours on end.  Also it doesn't hurt that I learned about it last semester in my American Humanities class.

     After spending about an hour soaking in impressionism I continued on through the rest of the museum.  I don't really care about Italian, Roman, Spanish, etc. type of painting and frankly think it's kind of boring, so I sped through those rooms and made it through the whole museum.

     I had about 20 minutes to spare before I had to meet Sarah so I walked outside to get a picture of Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background (see above).  I wasn't expecting to see a group of boys break dancing in front of the gallery.  They were actually pretty good.  So naturally being the girl that I am, I took a video of them.  Every time I would push stop on my camera they would do a really cool dance move so my video doesn't do them justice. (2 1/2 hours later) I've been sitting here doing homework and waiting for this video to load and it still hasn't after 2 1/2 hours.  Plus it has totally drained my computers battery, so I might just leave you to imagine the break dancing.

     Below are my favorite paintings from today.  The Degas one was too big to fit so I emphasized the tutus in the frame because that was my favorite part about the painting anyway.  I love the middle one because it reminded me of my dad.  He loves trains, and secretly I do too.  I liked the Pissarro painting because the painting depicts a wet street on a Paris night.  It's a little sentimental but whenever I see a picture like this or when there is a rainstorm at night, it reminds me of being a kid and looking out my bedroom window at lightning storms.  Summer storms are the best!  Some of my favorite memories as a kid are listening to the booms of thunder under my tent made of blankets or watching the lightning during a heavy rain storm.  Anyway, that's what this painting made me think of.

     My all time favorite of the impressionist paintings is called At the Theatre by Renoir.  I could look at it all day.  In fact I went back right before I left because I wanted to gaze at it one last time.  For this reason, it gets it own frame.

Left: Degas - Three Dancer in Violet Tutus
Middle: Monet - The Gare St-Lazare
Right: Pissarro - The Boulevard Montmartre at Night

At the Theatre by Renoir