Spring is truly here in London - for today anyway! A glorious cloud free day with a pleasant breeze but we still had to do some school unfortunately! Imagine what our time away would be like without formal schooling. Or imagine if schooling was easy....which it wasn't today!!! The thought of an interesting afternoon activity keeps me going!
The
big kids were not keen on the idea of the National Gallery for one
reason or another and despite encouragement, decided to stay home.
Karl, Luke and I set off for Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.
Emerging from the Underground into pure sunshine and gleaming Trafalgar
Square was great and Luke wanted to head straight for the lions at the
base of Nelson's Column and climb up again, which we did. It is quite
high up but with a bit of a jump and shuffle you can get up onto the
base. One poor middle aged chap must have lost his nerve and had to be
helped down.
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| Where are you Yoda? |
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| Trafalgar Square with Big Ben and pure blue sky! |
The
Yodas and skeletons and various legless characters were all attracting
attention as were the street artists and musicians. It is a happening
place!
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| The Dream of St Helena by Veronese 1570 |
There was some kind of industrial action which meant that many of the
National Gallery rooms were closed but we saw Titian's and some van
Eyck's and Luke loved it. Today, he really enjoyed the paintings and we
saw just enough to still hold his interest.
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| St George and the Dragon - Jacopo Tintoretto - 1555 |
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| Titian - An allegory of Prudence |
About half way around the ground floor galleries which were open, we came across some fabulous mosaics. What workmanship! Walking around with Luke, with his keen eyes looking all around, brings our attention to many easy to miss details.
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| Relaxing on the mosaics |
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| Curiosity says it all! |
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| Holy Family by Roger van der Weyden, 14th Century - interesting and probably accurate depiction of the Holy Family as dark skinned. |
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| Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife - Jan van Eyck |
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| Couldn't resist - The Capture of Helen - 1440 |
Just around the corner from the National Gallery is the National
Portrait Gallery. After a sit down in Trafalgar Square and a brief
look at a film set for "Legends", we went into the National Portrait
Gallery.
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| National Portrait Gallery |
It was amazing to be confronted with the classic painting you see in
books of King Henry VIII: there he was in his splendid regalia. There
were many stunning portraits of royals who had had money to pay for
their portraits of course!
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| Henry VIII |
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| Mary Queen of Scots |
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| Anne, Lady Pope with her children (1561-1625) - the two in burgundy are boys - apparently portraits were done of well to do women as so many died in childbirth that they wanted to leave their children a picture of themselves. |
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| John Wesley who rode over 8000miles on horseback spreading the Gospel |
The more contemporary portraits from 1960 - 2000 and another section
from 1901 -1959 were excellent as we could recognise many of the faces.
It is a relatively small gallery which is probably all we could absorb,
but definitely worthwhile visiting.
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| Continuing our Beatles theme...here's Paul McCartney |
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| Beatrix Potter - spent hours drawing in the Natural History Museum |
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| Laurie Lee who wrote Cider with Rosie |
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| Statues! |
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| Another photo by Luke! |
A quick trip home in time for dinner and that was another day in London!
Hel - if you get a chance, check out the food hall in Harrods - there are/or were some mozaics done by Doulton - Mum's grandfather William Rowe. There are also some in the raiway station in Singapore. Always fascinating to find or come across.
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