At The Intersection Of Art And Meaning

I got down at Charing Cross station to go to Trafalgar Square. I had been to the National Gallery in London, but it was twenty years ago, so a visit was overdue. At no cost I booked my ticket, Free! Admission is free. It is advisable to book ticket.

The National Gallery at London is celebrating a year-long festival of art, creativity and imagination which sets the tone for our third century.  The Gallery is 200 years old. The completed building at Trafalgar Square, designed by the architect William Wilkins, opened as the new home of the National Gallery in 1838.

When the Gallery was founded in 1824, the first 38 paintings came from the private art collection of the banker John Julius Angerstein. Today, there are several rooms, some big, other small. They seem to control the inflow of visitors so there are many visitors but never a big crowd.

And young persons do sketch and paint. But their art material is such that there is no mess.

And yes, photography is allowed. But not the flash. With advanced mobile photography no flash is needed. Take a good look at this painting.

It is ‘The Avenue at Middleharnis’ (1689) by Meindert Hobbema (1638 – 1709). The accompanying note to this painting mentions, “The view, of the town of Middleharnis in the province of South Holland, remains much the same today. X-radiographs (X-Ray Photos) show that Hobbema removed two more trees originally included in the foreground, thus giving greater emphasis to the sky.

Their research on paintings and artists is seen in accompanying note, and it is interesting to discover that they use X-radiographs to find out more about the painting! Google tells me that ‘Radiography can reveal hidden layers within an artwork.’

And see this ‘Self Portrait’ by Rembrandt. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. (Born 1606 Died 1669).

And this accompanying note.

‘Rembrandt presents himself as wealthy, successful and confident, in keeping with his position as one of Amsterdam’s leading painters. his pose id taken from Titian’s (another famous painter) “Man with a Quilted Sleeve” (on display elsewhere in the Gallery), which was then thought to depict the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto. Copying this famous pose was a bold statement: that painters were the equal of poets.

Every note explains the symbolism. Here is a sample: ‘The house of cards signifies the fragility of human endeavour.’ – ‘Telescope and Fishbowl signify the vision and illusion.’ Without the notes I would have missed this critical aspect of the art, the paintings.

Oscar Wilde said, “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” I have now understood the full import of this quote.

The Gallery was displaying Van Gogh’s paintings in another section. Tickets were sold out for it. I climbed down the stairs reluctantly to find the stairs painted beautifully with Vincent van Gogh’s portrait and his Sunflower.

An employee of the Gallery volunteered to click my photograph.

An unforgettable experience ended with this precious moment.

(All photographs – my work, copyrighted)

Vivek S Patwardhan

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others/ All work copyrighted.