National Gallery – Day 12 – Theatre in London U of A

National Gallery- Day 12

ALYSSA’S B-DAY
We walked what seemed like forever to the National Gallery, but it was such a nice and sunny day, so seeing Trafalgar Square was worth the trek.
We got to see Van Gough, Monet, and Picasso all in one museum (National Gallery)! WHAT?!?!?! In-freaking-sane!!!
We had a little picnic in Russell Square Park for Alyssa’s b-day, got some gf pizza (it was yum but the garlic sauce was mid, I’m still on a garlic sauce search. The sauce makes the pizza and you quote me on that)
I conveniently got pizza sauce on the one inch of white of my dress, that wasn’t covered by a napkin. RIP to the new Camden Market dress…tide pens/wipes to the rescue!
We found ice lollies and jolly rancher sour lemonade gummies, both were delicious! And we soaked up some more time in the sun.
Afternoon Tea at the British Museum, I had mango and strawberry tea…delicious! With some yummy pastries and of course scones and clotted cream.
I had the perfect amount of time for a power nap once we got back from tea (45 mins on the dot).
After the power nap we rallied for some games, cake, blog post writing, and usual shenanigans to kick off Alyssa’s birthday celebration.
The highlight of this was Alex shoving balloons up his shirt, pretending to be a sorority girl, practicing his stage combat, and a few rounds of crazy competitive Uno.

My two favorite paintings at the National Gallery were Monet’s Waterlilies; The Water-Lily Pond, Water-Lilies, Setting Sun and Water-Lilies. Of course with honorable mentions to Van Gough and Picasso. These paintings instantly drew me in as I had a childhood connection to them. We painted them in an art class when I was in 1st grade and then again when I was older (I can’t remember the age). I’ve never seen these paintings in person before, and getting to see how Monet uses the paint to perfectly blend together water was a magical sight. The Water-Lily Pond was the painting that I was most looking forward to seeing and it was the one that I have painted the most. What can I say, a girl is a sucker for a bridge with her favorite flower, I really wish I could just live in that painting some day.

Monet’s original collection of water lily paintings is 250 paintings and is capturing his water garden that he created, himself at his Giverny estate in Normandy. In the series he painted various parts of his garden during different times of the day and in different lights. All of Monet’s paintings have such a dreamy feel to them that almost make them feel abstract, and that you as the viewer are being transported to a magical secret garden.

The Water-Lily Pond, Monet uses long strokes of his paintbrush to show the flowing water that is under the bridge but his lilies are short little dabs of his brush and almost twisted globs of paint to form the flowers. The flowers themselves contrast the water but so does his technique of painting them, even though there are no specific outlines that separate the flowers from the water, giving the painting more of a blurry abstract feel. People have speculated that this is due to Monet’s developing cataracts at the time, that he wouldn’t be able to form the outlines that are normally there. Waterlilies, Setting Sun shows the opposites on the color palette as it focuses more on darker hues such as dark green and blues contrasted with the sunset that is reelected in the water, showing pinks and oranges.

From my understanding and from what I have read/seen from other museums (pictures of other museums lol) they typically have Monet’s waterlily paintings in progress from day to night or night to day. But at the National Gallery they had it in an order that I had never seen before. Which in my opinion made it hard to fully grasp the concept of light progression that Monet was trying to go for, on top of having not having enough space in my opinion to house these paintings. I felt like I was being rushed through a line, just to take a photo of the paintings and then move on. I had no time to really look at any of the more “famous” artwork and really take it in, which was disappointing in my opinion. I wish I would have gotten a few more moments/breaths to just take in the artistry that was on display.