Wash DC, Apr 2010 Post 5 National Gallery of Art

Howard's top priority when visiting DC this time was to see the National Gallery of Art.  This museum is free to the public and has one of the finest art collections in the world.    Howard spent Tuesday there and then we returned Thursday afternoon and I was very impressed by the Chester Dale collection special exhibit.

There are lovely courtyards with live plants and flowers throughout the building.  Here are 2 of them:

Howard went through the exhibit chronologically.  (He had seen the paintings in the modern art building in August 2007 on a one-day DC visit.) 

Early European art was religious.

This one is from the 1300s by Giotto, a very early one.

 This one is unusual because of the head outside the main picture.

The National Gallery of Art has the only Da Vinci in America.  This is a painting of Ginevra de' Benci, painted around 1474 to 1478.  She was very much admired for her culture, beauty and character.

On the back of the painting, a wreath of laurel and palm branches encircle a juniper sprig.  Entwined in the plants is a scroll with writing in Latin saying "Beauty adorns virtue," another comment on Ginevra.  The wreath is truncated, showing that the picture at one time was probably bigger, and the front probably included the woman's hands.

Howard was fascinated by the amount of detail in this religious painting.  The soul of man hanging on the left is heading to heaven, while the devil is taking the soul of the man on the right to hell, for exmple.

Boticelli was a famous painter in the late 1400s and early
1500s.  This is his painting of  de Medici.

This portrait is by the German artist Durer, who painted about the same time at Boticelli, late 1400s to early 1500s.

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaisance.  He lived from 1483 to 1520 and was very productive during his short life.

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, better known as Titian, painted in the 1500s.  His exact birth year is unknown but it was probably a bit before 1490, and he died in 1576.   He was a leader in the Venetian school of the  Italian Renassance painters.  His earlier works had more vivid colors, but his style changed a lot during his lifetime.  The first one is a painting of a Cardinal.

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Hans Holbein painted in the 1500s.   He was a German artist and printmaker, known as one of the greatest portrain painters of the 16th century.  He spent a lot of time in England.

El Grecco was born in Crete in 1541 and died in Spain in 1614.   There is a mystic quality to much of his work, and intense spirituality.  Here is one El Grecco painting on display at the National Gallery.  I find his pictures haunting and discomforting, personally.

In 1625, Avercamp painted a series of pictures of the game of "colf" on iced over lakes in Holland.  Several were on display here.  The artist shows the difference in attire between the elite playing colf and the heavyset fisherman who is watching the game.

Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific Flemish artist who lived from 1577 to 1640.  He favored a Baroque style that emphasized movement color and sensuality. Note how much larger than life Daniel is than the lions in the den. 

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter who lived from 1606 to 1669 and considered one of the greatest painters in European art history.  He did a lot of self-portraits including the one on the left here.  He did a lot of portraits and scenes from the Bible putting in his knowledge and emotional feelings about the events into his art work.

The Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer lived from 1632 to 1675.  He is famous for his masterly attention to light in his work.   I was surprised by the 3rd picture here, The Girl in the Red Hat, for the color.

Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers, by Giovanni Tiepolo.  Painted around 1730.

Francisco de Goya, a Spanish romantic painter and print maker lived from  1746 to 1828.  He is regarded as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the modern ones.  I love the little doggie.

Gilbert Charles Stuart (born Stewart) (December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was one of America's foremost portrait painters, painting over 1000 different people including the first 6 presidents of the United States.   Below are Washington, John Jay, Monroe, Jefferson, and Madison.
 

This is a famous painting of Napoleon in His Study painted by the French painter David in 1812.

The French artist Edgar Degas lived from 1834 to 1917.  A superb draftsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance, and over half his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement.    He first wanted to be a painter of history but later changed and became a classical painter of modern life.  I had seen a number of his paintings of dancers, so it was interesting for me to see a different kind of painting as this one of the Morbillis.

An impressionist painting I liked, possibly painted by a woman.  it too was part of the Chester Dale collection. 

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and emotional impact. He produced more than 2000 works during his lifetime and went through different styles of painting.  With my mother in Chicago about 20 years ago, I saw an exhibit of paintings throughout his life including his early years, his blue period, and more modernistic works.  Several of the paintings in the Dale collection at the National Gallery were different than what I had seen before.  Here are pictures of a girl eating from his blue period, a Classical Head, a very modernistic picture, his wife Mrs. Van Gogh, and finally wandering troubadors.  (Another artist had a similar troubador picture near it at the exhibit that looked more "modern" than Van Gogh's.)

 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851) was a British landscape painter.  Athough renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light"[3] and his work regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.   This picture is of loading coal on the River Thames.

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American painter, and a leading portrait painter of his era, creating more than 900 oil paintings and 2000 watercolors.  This one is entitled Lady in Repose.

The philanthropist, Chester Dale, was painted by both Diego Rivera and Salvador Dali.  Dale really liked the painting by his friend Rivera, which you can see here.