For my birthday this past month, I told my husband what I’ll cherish above anything else will be an entire day spent with him. I further informed him that it has to be more creative then the predictable dinner and movie routine.
I started dropping hints when I saw an ‘Around Town’ segment on PBS talking about the Edward Hopper collection visiting the National Gallery of Arts. I was intrigued by his paintings. Until then I have only known/heard about two major American painters, Pollack for his abstract art and Rockwell for his illustrations. I was surprised to see the very bold and vivid pictures of Hopper and the few paintings they showed in the five minutes segment set my imagination on fire.
We chose a week day for our ‘maiden voyage’ This way we could ask our neighbor to babysit our Pre school-er only since the kindergartner is at school all day. We were also hoping to avoid the weekend crowds.So on a crisp December we left home, drove 25 minutes to Springfield VA, caught a Metro and arrived in the Nation’s capital in less then aan hour. It was a cold and crisp day to the boot- I had defiantly worn a light jacket and heals against all the good wisdom and lived to regret it at the end of the day ( but hey my pictures turned out nice).
We had a lovely day at the museum, they were so many great exhibitions going on that you definitely need more then one day to take everyone you set your eyes on. I was thrilled to discover that the gallery has a permanent collection of Dutch masters. Since reading and subsequently watching the movie adaption of “Girl with the Pearl Earring” I had been interested in Dutch paintings of seventeenth century.While looking at the paintings I couldn’t believe that the canvas in front of my eyes was painted five hundred years ago. With much disbelief and a nudging from hubby I moved from picture to another picture. Some made me pause longer then another and some I glanced at a few seconds and them moved on. Hands down it was a visionary fest…as it very well should have been since this artwork has kept the world in its grip for hundreds of year. But you know how it is, sometimes when you in abject anticipation of something and when get close and personal it delivers much less then you expected and you fell such a sense of let down.
After the Dutch gallery we happened upon the part of gallery that was featuring J.M.W Turner’s art work. I confess I didn’t know about this renowned British painter at all and since I did not know about his times and inspirations I was not able to fully appreciate his paintings. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful experience. We then headed to the West wing of the gallery that was hosting the Edward Hooper collection. What a fine fine painter and what a keen study of everyday life…friends sitting in a cafe, a woman looking outside the window, a woman in the middle of getting dressed, so many colorful images.
My one graceless moment of the day happened at the very end, After devouring the three great periods of art work I suddenly felt out of steam, the adrenalin rush that made me forgot the pinching high heeled shoes while I was looking at the paintings came back full force as I was leaving the building. I did the most uncouth, country pumpkin -out on her-first time- visiting- art gallery thing, I took off my shoes, held them in my hands and started walking in my stockings. It went unnoticed for quite some time till the very handsome and exquisitely polite gallery attendant asked me to please put my shoes back on. Oh the shame of it…
It was a memorable day and one of my best bithdays ever.
