National Gallery in London

Ariel and I actually ended up in the National Gallery kind of by accident. We had just bought tickets for Phantom of the Opera in Covent Garden and were wandering around the city trying to find St. Paul's Cathedral. We eventually did find St. Paul’s, but along the way we ran across Trafalgar Square and saw that the National Gallery was free. We had a few hours to kill, and Ariel is, after all, an art history major, so going in seemed like a really good idea. It turned out to be a really good idea, since the gallery is home to several of Monet’s paintings. Since I couldn’t take pictures in the gallery, I’ve included some from the internet.

I was excited to The Beach at Trouville not only because Monet created it, but also because it reminded me of Gigi. In the movie, Gigi cheats at a card game so that Gaston will have to take her to Trouville. Then everybody sings “The Night they invented Champagne,” and Gigi gets a little tipsy. Looking at the painting, I could just imagine that the girl in white was Gigi and the woman in black was her grandmother, Mamita. I think my favorite thing about the painting was the fact that I could actually see grains of sand stuck to it, since Monet painted it in the open air right on the beach.

I also enjoyed seeing The Thames below Westminster, since it’s a great representation of one of Monet’s favorite subjects: The Thames. He lived in London during the Franco-Prussian War, and throughout that period he created dozens of paintings of London’s famous river. This particular painting was a perfect example of how obsessed Monet was with capturing the fog of London.

His other paintings there included The Petit Bras at Argenteuil, the Bathers at La Grenouillère, and The Path through the Irises, which made me think of my Mom, since irises are her favorite flower. I felt like each of the paintings in the gallery represented different aspects of Monet’s style; one portrayed people, another urban life, another a landscape, another a still life. It was a great overview of his work, and it was definitely nice to read nameplates in English for a change.