I spent more than three hours at the National Gallery. It's overwhelming to say the least. What a privilege to have a room of Titians all to myself. What rapture to behold the Seurat that served as my desktop wall paper for over a year. Over there a Delacroix, its fiery splashes of turbulent times. And does that guide say about the famous Pissarro depicting Paris is the evening?
The three R's - Rembrandt, Rubens and Renoir, all have their own rooms, or at least their own walls, while Holbein's grand full length portrait of the English ambassadors proudly has a wall to itself. And what of Van Gogh, appreciated by artists but not by art lovers in his lifetime. Now he is appreciated by everyone. In the centre of his wall is Sunflowers. A mass of people conglomerate around this shimmering still life. I hover off to the side, content to view his chair, or the fields outside his asylum.
Where am I now? Is that Cezanne? And these pretty Degas with their elegant dancers, trapeze artists. He had a good time painting his subjects. And naughty Toulouse-Lautrec, preoccupied with fallen women. I am briefly inspired to be preoccupied with fallen women myself, but admit that this just isn't me.
Turner's ships in stormy seas would make a super addition to any boy's living room, while sensuous Renaissance nudes would add flavour to any bedside. I study these voluptuous depictions of feminine sensuality, hand on chin, as if appreciating the angle of light, the suggestive glance, the fine brushwork on the buttocks, or, better yet, what is not revealed.
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